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While optimal monetary policy is theoretically recognized to provide food price stability, the empirical evidence about this effect is limited, especially in the countries of the European Union and within this in Central and Eastern Europe. This paper investigates the role of monetary policy shocks on food inflation in Hungary over the period January 2007 to November 2022. Hungary is a good case study because of its higher than average share of food in the consumer basket in the EU. Using a quantile regression analysis, we find that neither monetary policy nor the exchange rate has an effect on food inflation across quantiles. However, inflation plays a significant role in driving food price increases. The global food price index increases food price inflation in the lower quantile. The results are robust to different specifications and measures of variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Owing to its hidden nature, quantifying the size of the shadow economy is a challenging task. Concealing incomes leads to large negative externalities: market distortions and loss of tax revenues cause immense damage worldwide. The countries in the Central and Eastern Europe-an (CEE) region are in a peculiar situation: their transformation from planned to market economies happened just a few decades ago, thus their corporate sector and institutional background do not have such long histories and deep traditions as in other parts of the world. In this paper, the causes of shadow economy in Central and Eastern Europe are revealed in a cross-sectional model framework by using data of the International Monetary Fund and other global organisations. Structural equation modelling is applied and special attention is paid to factors such as socio-economic development, institutional background, income inequalities, and effective tax rates. The results prove that the CEE region differs from the rest of the world in many aspects of the shadow economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]