Symmetric or asymmetric interest rate adjustments? Evidence from Greece, Bulgaria and Slovenia

The purpose of this paper is to examine how effectively the wholesale interest rates are transmitted to the retail rates, and whether the interest rate pass-through is symmetric or asymmetric in Greece, Bulgaria and Slovenia. The disaggregated general-to-specific methodology is applied for testing the symmetry hypothesis in these economies. It is evident from our results that across the countries examined there exist variations regarding the monetary transmission process and the symmetry hypothesis alike. This can be interpreted as an indication of a different level of competition, development and liberalization among the banking systems in these South Eastern European economies.