C19 - Econometric and Statistical Methods: OtherReturn

The aim of the paper is to analyse, model and compare selected macroeconomic variables of the Czech and Slovak economies and their dynamics using VAR models. This article shows an application of a selected model on real-time series of chosen macroeconomic indicators using four variables (R - interest rate, M - money supply (M2), P - price level (CPI), Y - GDP). We identify and test two long-run relationships. The following hypotheses have been confirmed: H₁: a change in monetary aggregate affects a change in price level and a change in economic growth; H₂: there is a causal relationship between GDP and M2; H₃: there is a direct correlation between interest rates and the price level anticipated in the Fisher equation. The following methods are used: Granger causality, impulse response function, cointegration and error correction models. In the end, econometric models of macroeconomic time series are compared in the Czech and Slovak economies. The calculations used EViews software.

The article contributes to the growing body of literature dealing with the bibliometric evaluation of the Czech economic research. In particular, this article introduces a recently invented measure of both the scientific output and impact - the Hirsch index (h) - into the Czech academic economics. While the theoretical part of the article contains a discussion of the strenghts and weaknesses of the Hirsch approach, the empirical part presents two original top50s of the Czech economists ranked by their individual h's. The first of our charts comes from the Web of Science's General Search dataset, and the second one reflects the use of the Web of Science's Cited Reference Search dataset. Both datasets cover the 1980-2006 period. It appears that the rate of correspondence among the top 25 economists in each chart and the top25 of the celebrated Turnovec's citation-based ranking (2005) amounts to 60%. In addition, our empirical results reveal that the elite Czech economists attain h's being 3-10 times lower than the h's of the foreign academic "superstars".

This paper focuses on the identification of the main criterion for the classification of basic indicators and their corresponding scales (nominal, ordinal, interval and ratio). The criterion is the number of meaningful categories of the formulation or measurement of all mutual differences of all potential values of the indicator. The paper insists on the necessity of distinguishing at least four types of the given indicator. The classification (and differences) of the indicators is included in the enclosed table. The purpose of the table is to: give information about the data arranged in an ordering scheme; further evaluate whether their differences are determined or they are meaningless; and investigate whether differences between values can be found and if ratios are meaningful or not. The meaning of the classification of indicators for a correct interpretation of the mutual differences between their values is emphasized.