The study looked at how the Balassa-Samuelson effect affects inflation and exchange rates in Central and Eastern European countries. They used data from nine countries from the mid-1990s to 2010. The researchers found that the effect only explains a small part of inflation differences with the euro area. The impact of the Global Economic Crisis on these countries' efforts to catch up economically was not significant. The effect remained stable during the crisis, even though it was lower than in the earlier transition period.