Abstract:

In a world ruled by high uncertainty amid the overlapping of a pandemic crisis with a geopolitical one, a proper assessment of the current state of the economy is essential for further decisions of policymakers. The aim of this paper is to provide a large view over the economic environment in selected Central and Eastern European countries, namely Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Romania. In this regard, a representative index for economic activity embodying various macroeconomic indicators is built using the principal component analysis. Empirical evidence shows that the mix of policy measures in order to alleviate the effects of the pandemic had a positive influence overall, yet a rather short-lived one. Furthermore, the effectiveness of support measures could have been higher in the lack of structural deficiencies, which should be addressed to increase the resilience of economies to adverse shocks such as the one at the current juncture.