Countries and Regions

This report was produced by the following core team: Reena Badiani-Magnusson; Rogier van den Brink and Emilia Skrok (co-TTLs); Michal Tulwin; Paul Corral Rodas; Jonathan Karver; Paulina Holda and Anna Karpets; together with Hans-Helmut Kotz (Harvard University and Goethe University) and Guenter Beck (University of Siegen). Managerial guidance and direction were provided by Arup Banerji (Regional Director, EU Member States), Lalita M. Moorty (Regional Director EFI, Europe and Central Asia) Gallina Andronova Vincelette (MTI Practice Manager, Europe and Central Asia) and Carlos Silva-Jauregui (Poverty and Equity GP, Europe and Central Asia). Valuable inputs were contributed by Josip Funda; Stella Ilieva; Roumeen Islam; Matija Laco; Melanie Marie Laloum; Desislava Nikolova; Catalin Pauna and Ivan Torre.

The peer reviewers were Martin Raiser (Country Director, World Bank); Ivailo Izvorski (Lead Economist, World Bank); José Leandro (Director Policy, Strategy and Communication, DG Economic and Financial Affairs, European Commission); Helge Berger (Assistant Director in the Research Department, IMF), Laura Papi (Head of the Emerging Economies Division in the European Department, IMF), and Petia Topalova (Deputy Unit Chief in the European Department, IMF). Comments were also provided by David Sondermann of the European Central Bank, Peter Benczur of the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, Stefano Filauro of DG Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, and Eric Meyermans and Anneleen Vandeplas of DG Economic and Financial Affairs.

Comments were also provided by participants at workshops organized by the European Central Bank (Sep. 10, 2019) and the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs (Sep. 11, 2019). Further valuable feedback was provided by the Bulgarian Ministry of Finance and the Economic Research and Forecasting Directorate of the Bulgarian National Bank, the Romanian Ministry of Public Finance, the National Bank of Romania, the Croatian National Bank, the Office of the Prime Minister of Croatia and the participants at the workshop organized by the World Bank in Bucharest (Oct. 18, 2019).