Distinguishing features such as shallow and narrow financial markets, limited number of financial instruments, particular behavioural traits of economic agents and distinctive economic and financial memories, can reveal non-traditional behaviour and interesting phenomena that do not appear and, are, therefore, not addressed in research findings from developed markets. The identification of these particular characteristics and their implications for research findings might be good enough to spark the interest of economic journals and economic conferences to bring these characteristics to the attention of the research community and enrich mainstream economic theory. Just to illustrate a few interesting cases, I would like to remind you that the development of economic and financial markets in response to Bank of Albania policies has been weak and sometimes puzzling, making it difficult to interpret using mainstream economic models. The desire for unhedged borrowers to borrow in foreign currency, the reduced efficiency of transmission mechanisms in the presence of central bank credibility, the potential role of informal and parallel markets and informal economic activity, are some examples of interesting traits of economic behaviour. Several authors have been intrigued by such developments. Hence, they have conducted extensive research on these phenomenon in similar emerging and developing economies, which have later seen the light of publication. Good examples are found in the research work done by the national bank of Austria (OeNB) on the level of euroization in the region, with interesting results that have helped authorities but have also increased the interest of other institutions and academics in euroization issues.

The crisis, for example, had a different impact on the Albanian economy, from what we had historically experienced. At the time, the Albanian economy did not seem to be vulnerable to the foreign sector. Subsequent analysis, however, showed that domestic imbalances had built and, indeed, made the economy vulnerable to a foreign credibility shock. It is crucial that research in central banks focus on available information and methodologies, which scrutinize existing paradigms, making this information useful to policymaking, before it becomes or leads to vulnerabilities. In light of the financial and human capital constraints faced by central banks in small, open economies, such as Albania, we believe that it is important for these topics to be discussed, in this workshop, with fellow researchers from academia and other central banks. I would like to encourage our researchers to publish their papers in relevant, peer-reviewed 1/3  BIS central bankers' speeches  journals as the most important certification of their work. This will make your research projects more useful and facilitate speedy implementation in mainstream policy making. Despite recent success in publications, one of the things that I hear the most is that there is not much research interest in the scientific study of small, developing or emerging market economies like Albania. From my prospective, I think that there is interest in the scientific study of small, developing or emerging market economies such as Albania, because of the particular and distinguishing characteristics of our economy, which can be different from those represented in mainstream research findings.