C32 - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models: Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes; State Space ModelsReturn

Green finance strategies have been established to direct funding towards green energy initiatives and promote the advancement of green technology for ecological sustainability. Moreover, the progress in green technology has played a significant role in the growth of green energy infrastructure in China. Nevertheless, there have been no prior investigations undertaken in China that specifically examine the impact of green financing and green technology on green energy within an asymmetric quantile framework. Thus, in the current study, a multivariate quantile-on-quantile regression (m-QQR) methodology is used to experimentally examine the link between green energy usage and green financing in China controlling the environmental sustainability index, green technology and economic progress utilizing data from 2000 to 2022. Results of this study confirm that China benefits in terms of rising green energy consumption only at the mid-levels of green investment projects, if more high-cost projects are added beyond this mid-level, the potential of the active projects diminishes and consumption of green energy declines. This study confirms the conservation hypothesis. A reverse relationship emerges between the consumption of green energy and environmental sustainability. Finally, green technology innovation is coupled with green financing for green energy transition. This study posits that the Chinese economy has the potential to experience significant benefits from the adoption of green energy, mostly driven by breakthroughs and the integration of green technology.

This study aims to examine whether the price exuberances in the prices of four main precious metals stem from their status as safe havens against economic uncertainty (proxied by the US EPU and Chinese CEPU indices). The findings reveal that the effects of both uncertainty measures on gold and silver prices, notably more pronounced in the case of the CEPU, persist for longer, particularly during the surge of uncertainty triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic. This finding highlights the safe-haven status of these metals, with a notable dominance of the CEPU in influencing the price dynamics of the gold and silver markets. However, as the observed price exuberances in gold and silver more closely align with periods of supply and demand imbalances, it is less likely that these movements are driven solely by investors seeking safe havens during times of uncertainty. Furthermore, the effect of the EPU on platinum and palladium prices is particularly pronounced during economic turmoil, whereas the effect of the CEPU is confined to the periods that coincide with price exuberances in these metals. In sum, this paper argues that the safe-haven status of individual precious metals is dynamic, and that price exuberances do not consistently originate from their safe-haven status.

This study examines the significant influence of oil price fluctuations on the economies of oil--exporting countries. While elevated oil prices can result in foreign currency inflows and advantages for oil-exporting countries, they can also trigger adverse effects, including a reduction in manufacturing sectors and a loss of price competitiveness due to currency appreciation. This research focuses on the period from 2004Q1 to 2021Q4, examining the influence of oil price fluctuations on key macroeconomic indicators in Russia, including industrial production, exchange rates, inflation and interest rates. The structural VAR model findings confirm that the monetary channel demonstrates a higher degree of responsiveness to oil price shocks compared to the fiscal channel. Specifically, the study observes that industrial production exhibits a pronounced procyclical response to oil price shocks through the fiscal channel. Conversely, the monetary channel reveals that increased oil price volatility exerts pressure on the Russian rouble, resulting in a counter-cyclical behaviour in inflation and interest rates.

This research investigates the effect of political stability and geopolitical risk on environmental sustainability (ES) by considering R&D investments in nuclear and renewable energy. Con- sidering the high political stability and recent energy crisis and increasing geopolitical risk, the study focuses on three leading European countries. We use the load capacity factor, include data between 1985/1 and 2020/12, and apply quantile on quantile regression (QQ), Granger causality in quantiles (GQ), and quantile regression (QR) models. The study finds that in higher quantiles (i) increasing political stability stimulates the ES in Sweden and the United Kingdom; (ii) increasing geopolitical risk supports the ES in France; (iii) R&D investments increase the ES in all the countries; (iv) there are generally causal effects from the explanatory variables to the ES except some quantiles (0.45-0.50) in all the countries; (v) the power effects of the variables differ according to countries, quantiles and variables.

The aim of this study is to verify the validity of Barro-Ricardo equivalence in Czech conditions with the help of experimental methods. Ricardian equivalence, in which case consumers postpone consumption under lower taxation, is a basic assumption of many studies dealing with intertemporal decision making and has important implications for government tax policy. Using nonparametric methods and panel data regression, we find that Ricardian equivalence does not hold in general. Our results suggest that taxation has a significant impact on consumption decisions. Over the life cycle, a tax cut increases consumption on average by 28.7% of the tax credit. Conversely, a tax increase causes a 27.8% increase in consumption on average. Using individual consumption time series, we find that approximately 70% of the tested individuals behave contrary to Ricardian equivalence. Our results show that a change in tax levels affects consumption in subsequent periods.

The core of this paper is an econometric estimation of the relation between financial stress and a number of macroeconomic variables (consumption, real GDP, investment, unemployment). This estimation is done on Turkish quarterly data for the period 2002-2021 using threshold vector autoregression (i.e., TVAR). The paper observes the non-linear trade-off between financial stress and macroeconomic indicators. The effect of financial stress appears to be adverse when the stress level is already at a higher level. During high stress episodes, any further increase in financial stress drags economic growth down and the effect appears to be prolonged in nature. Consumption and investment growth also moderate due to a higher stress level. Furthermore, the forecast error decomposition indicates sustained contribution of financial stress impeding growth prospects over the forecast horizon. The findings corroborate with the financial friction mechanism. As borrowing constraint tightens during a high stress regime, the effect of financial stress moderates economic activities. Lastly, the paper extends a local projection approach for estimating a threshold VAR model as a robustness check.

The objective of this study is to estimate effects of tax family benefits, social family benefits, availability of kindergartens and economic situation on fertility in the Czech Republic. The data cover the period 1993-2018 and come from the Czech Statistical Office and Czech legislation. The relationship between the variables and the total fertility rate as the dependent variable was analysed using regression analysis. The results show that fertility is positively affected by the supply of kindergartens and social family benefits. On the other hand, higher unemployment as an indicator of unfavourable economic situation decreases fertility. The effect of tax benefits was not statistically significant, which is not surprising, because tax family benefits are much lower in comparison with social family benefits. The model is limited by the number of variables and the number of observations; therefore, the model results should be taken as signals, not as definite answers.

The issue of minimum wage is highly topical in the context of the so-called minimum wage controversy, which contradicts the attitude of the neoclassical school. The aim of this paper is to analyse the effect of minimum wage increase together with effects of changes in other exogenous variables such as GDP growth rate, inflation rate, unemployment compensation and other social benefits on the real unemployment rate in the Czech Republic in 2006-2018. Linear regression models are tested using the Cochrane-Orcutt method. The effect of minimum wage increase on the rate of unemployment proved to be insignificant in the period 2006-2018. A negative effect of GDP growth rate was confirmed in 2006-2018, while unemployment benefits seemed to have a positive effect on the unemployment rate. The results show a negative effect of increasing minimum wage on the unemployment rate of women in 2011-2018, in line with the neoclassical theory. The conclusions of this paper have significant economic implications for minimum wage policy.

The elasticity of substitution between labour and capital in the Slovak economy is estimated in the paper. We used an econometric specification of capital and labour demand and data from the National Bank of Slovakia's macroeconomic database. In order to filter the processes caused by short-term shocks, the data were adjusted using the frequency filter. Using the Breusch and Pagan test, we have shown that the stochastic terms of capital and labour demand are related. Therefore, we did not use only the least squares method to estimate both specifications, but we also estimated a system of two equations with seemingly unrelated regression. The paper is extended with a discussion showing that the relatively low value of the input substitution elasticity could theoretically be explained by the transitive nature of the Slovak economy during the studied period. The elasticity of substitution between labour and capital in the Slovak economy was relatively low in the period 1997-2014; we estimated its value in the range from 0.03 to 0.11 depending on the choice of the database version.

This paper attempts to verify the economic theory that the government expenditure multiplier is higher at the zero lower bound than under normal circumstances. The theory is tested by a vector autoregression on US data between 1955 and 2015. The results obtained suggest a higher multiplier during the 1980s and 1990s than after 2000, when the zero lower bound was reached. According to our results, the proposed economic theory has been rejected. The persistence of the government spending shock is a possible explanation why the multiplier is not higher at the zero lower bound.

This article examines the impact of demographic, economic and institutional determinants on life insurance demand in the Czech Republic between 1993 and 2015. Theoretical part discusses general characteristics of the insurance market, life insurance, its importance in the Czech Republic. It also includes detailed research of historical studies and articles. In empirical part is surveyed an influence of determinants on life insurance demand, using econometric models based on time series and principal component analysis. We used autoregressive distributed lag model, which defines short-term relationships between principal components and an error correction model, which examines long-term relationships between time series. It was found that an increase in average wage and banking sector size had a positive impact on life insurance demand and an increase in young dependency ratio, old dependency ratio, interest rate and net national savings had a negative impact on life insurance demand. Number of tertiary educated people, public sector size, and consumer spending were classified as insignificant variables.

The paper is devoted to the topic of investment with emphasis on their position within the transmission mechanism of inflation targeting. It briefly discusses starting-points of inflation targeting regime, individual transmission channels of monetary policy, and routes through which the central bank may influence the investment. There are mentioned selected investment theories. Other factors, whose changes may induce changes in investment, are derived using these theories. Using available data, sources of investment variability are verified for the Czech Republic. Correlation analysis is performed and the vector error correction model is compiled. It seems that rise of aggregate demand is transformed into rise of investment. Similarly in case of asset prices. Appreciation of CZK is reflected in decline of investment. All three relations are consistent with the theory. On the contrary, sensitivity of investment to changes in market expected real interest rates is not clear.

European Union member countries are currently exposed to the large complex of the economic crisis implications. Poor macroeconomic performance together with an increased uncertainty on the financial markets causes is accompanied with increased exchange rate volatility. As the result exchange rates determine macroeconomic development of the countries during the crisis period the way that seems to differ in comparison with the pre-crisis period. Considering the wide variety of effects that exchange rates transmit to the domestic economy from abroad in the paper we focus on the external price impulses and their impact on the domestic price indexes in the new EU member states. VAR methodology is implemented to investigate responsiveness of exchange rate to the exogenous price shock to examine the dynamics (volatility) in the exchange rate leading path followed by the unexpected oil price shock and effect of the unexpected exchange rate shift to domestic price indexes to examine its distribution along the internal pricing chain. Our results revealed differences in absorption capabilities of exchange rates in countries with rigid and flexible exchange rate arrangements. Implications are even stronger considering distortionary effects of the crisis period.

The aim of this paper is to empirically investigate the explanatory power of Austrian business cycle theory (ABCT). My dataset consists of US quarterly time series within the period 1978-2013. Following Wainhouse (1984), Keeler (2001) and others I employ Granger causality as one of the primary tools of the analysis. Furthermore I also add impulse response functions to analyse the observed relations in closer detail. Two main hypotheses were tested. First one analyses how changes in interest rate affects relative proportion of investment and consumption outlays. Second hypothesis investigates how labour resources are reallocated as a consequence of an increase in interest rate. In both hypotheses, two concepts of interest rate were employed. Application of "explicit" interest rate does not seem to generate significant results. On the contrary, results fit in the Austrian story much better when implicit rate is employed. The traditional version of ABCT, which relies more on explicit interest rates, seems to suffer from invalid assumption about the allocation of credit during expansionary phase of business cycle.

For the purpose of monetary policy analyses dynamic multivariate models are usually applied. The reason is the presence of significant lags between an action and the appropriate effects in the economy. We use the concept of structural VAR models, widely used approach next to the DSGE and simultaneous equations models. We estimate four and five variable VAR containing the key macroeconomic indicators and identify monetary transmission mechanism using SVAR. Using different identification schemes and impulse response functions we compare the effect of a restrictive monetary policy shock on the set of analysed variables, especially price level. We also compare the results of defined models for the Czech and Polish economies, that both intend to enter EMU. To avoid the possibility of a price puzzle effect, as a result of mixing policy regimes in the sample period, we use data from single monetary policy regime starting 1998, when the Czech central bank switched to the inflation targeting regime. The results indicate high sensitivity to the identification schemes in SVAR and not significant differences between responses to monetary policy shock in CR and Poland.

Stock market integration of CEE-4 (the so-called Visegrad group or V4) and G7 countries is examined during the period from January 4, 1998 to August 5, 2012. As a proxy of integration we use dynamic conditional correlations estimated in the standard DCC and asymmetric DCC model framework. It is showed that during the recent financial crisis, conditional correlations between the CEE-4 and developed markets have increased more significantly than after the entry of the CEE-4 countries into the European Union. Finally, the estimated correlations exhibit significant relationship with conditional volatility with a positive feedback. This provides an evidence of strengthening relationships between markets under the study during the more volatile periods.

This paper provides a theoretical framework for a thesis that the transition to the inflation targeting regime, either explicit or implicit, may be one of the causes of the long-term latent accumulations of the financial and structural imbalances, materializing much later and with more dire consequences. Due to the long-term systematic manipulation of interest rates, within the operational framework of the stabilization of consumer prices and the output gap, as well as of anti-deflationary fundamentalism, the economy can transform itself into a kind of "black box", gradually and over time causing an "escape" of credit and monetary aggregates. Money supply tends to be more endogenous and elastic, changing the causality within a link between the money supply and its effective economic materialization, both in production processes of the real economy as well as in banking and financial services. Thereby, the economy lacks a needful defensive mechanism that would pull the overheating economy back through more exogenous and inelastic money supply, automatically adjusting market interest rates. In the empirical part we employed VECM tests to show that the money supply was exogenous before the implicit adoption of inflation targeting in the USA (1985), but endogenous after it.

Our paper focuses on the analysis of supply and demand shocks and on the estimation of expected costs of introducing Euro currency into Czech Republic (CR). The analysis is based on the theory of optimal currency areas by Mundell (1961, 1973) and uses a macroeconomic approach formalized by Bayoumi (1994). VAR models and the Blanchard-Quah decomposition (Blanchard and Quah, 1989) are used in order to simulate aggregated macroeconomic impulse response dynamics and to isolate supply and demand shocks for further inspection. Based on the analysis performed we conclude that given current circumstances and persistent differences in symmetry of economic shocks in CR and selected Euro zone countries, the costs from introducing the Euro to CR (as measured by fluctuations of real macroeconomic variables) would be nonzero, however presumably not significantly different from equivalent costs experienced in Austria or Slovakia (i.e. not prohibitive or signifi cantly damaging).

In this paper we analyze the dynamic conditional correlations between CEE stock markets (also known as countries from Vysehrad Group - V4) and developed European stock markets, with German DAX utilized as a benchmark. Our methodology is based on the DCC MV-GARCH approach. It is shown that the dynamic conditional correlations exhibit statistically significant growth after the integration of CEE countries to European Union, i.e. after the May 2004. The only index not exhibiting this trend is the Slovak SAX index.

The Czech Republic has undergone a profound political, economical and social transformation in the past few decades. The changes that have occurred in society showed strongly in the change in the demographic behaviour of society and the change in the general population climate. The transition to the market economy brought with it new opportunities for self-realisation, young people give preference to other values than the starting of a family at an early age. From the analysis of the time series it emerges that there is a long-run relationship between the birth rate and the marriage rate in the Czech Republic.

The exchange rate cannot significantly diverge from a (real) long-term equilibrium level consistent with the macroeconomic picture of an economy for a long period of time; otherwise, the economy suffers from macroeconomic imbalances such as below-potential growth and below natural employment, or on the other hand faces overheating of the economy with rising inflation. The paper focuses on different methods of how to measure the long-term equilibrium exchange rate. After a brief discussion of different approaches, the NATREX one was theoretically developed for the case of an open economy and empirically validated for the Czech economy. The NATREX concept represents a macroeconomic model based on stock-flow interaction. After the estimation of the NATREX model for the CZK, we have been able to answer such questions as: What are the pace and main determinants of the current long-term equilibrium appreciation? What is the current value of the equilibrium exchange rate and the misalignment of the current exchange rate? And, how fast is the exchange rate likely to revert to its equilibrium value?

The article deals with the evaluation of the foreign exchange market integration of the new EU Member States - the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. The main aim of this paper is to introduce and to test, if the Central-European sentiment on the foreign exchange market exists and how strong it is. We apply the analysis of harmonizing (by means of standard and rolling correlation analysis), the concept of beta-convergence (through the use of the standard and rolling correlation analysis, state-space model and panel regression analysis), which could identify the speed of financial integration and the concept of sigma-convergence, which could extrapolate the degree of financial integration. We find that from the entry to the EU in May 2004 the mutual relationship with Central-European currencies relative to euro significantly increase.

The paper analyses a relationship between monetary aggregate M2 and inflation in a small open economy. The relationship between monetary expansion and inflation as well as a dynamic of income velocity of money framework in a small open economy are discussed in more details in the paper. Authors have developed a medium-term structural model using for an empirical verification of the relationship between monetary aggregate M2 and price development in tradable and non-tradable goods and services in the Czech Republic in the period 1996-2004. The empirical results of the model indicate that money has a significant impact on the price development of non-tradables. On the other hand, a statistically significant relationship between money and tradables inflation in the case of the Czech small open economy is not found. The conclusions presented in the paper suggest that the monetary aggregate should not be ignored in practical policy-making.

This paper aims at constructing a model of a small open economy of the Slovak Republic. In essence, the model represents a synthesis of already published modifications of the Mundell - Fleming type of models, describing the market of goods and services in interaction with the money market and paying special attention to foreign trade. As the model construction is aimed at providing a tool for qualitative analyses, the model equations are specified in linear functional form - in order to obtain analytic solutions. Theoretical analyses are confronted with the empirical verification of the constructed model. Not surprisingly, historical experience represented by data on Slovak economy in transition reveals that complex structure of the model degenerates to a much simpler form in early years of transition. It is understood and verified that several economic principles guiding market economies do not apply in transition (e.g. investments evolve independently of interest rates).

The co-integration of time series indicates the presence of their common trends. For analytical purpose it is important to transform some time series into gap form. This transformation can be received as a difference between the time series and the common trends. The model of demand for money in Czech Republic created by real M2, real GDP and 1R PRIBOR time series contains two common trends. These trends are estimated from the state space form of unobservable components model. The gap transformations of real M2 and real GDP series can be used for identification of inflation risks. The relatively high correlation was found between gap form of M2 and rate of inflation. The relationship between gap form of GDP and rate of inflation is not so close.

The question of public finance stability and the economic stability are widely discussed topics, not only in transitive and emerging economies, but also in developed countries. The aim of this paper is to find out and measure connections between the fiscal policy development and external economic stability. This research is based on a quantification of the budget deficit and public debt impact onto exchange rate in chosen countries that have recently experienced some kind of financial crisis. External competitiveness is also assessed by the fiscal policy impact onto current account balance. It is necessary to point out that monetary variables are going to be probably more important but the fiscal sector cannot be omitted. Especially nowadays when there is an integration process in EMU going on, where the fiscal policy is going to play important role in the economic stability.

This contribution undertakes to outline the state space models and the recursive technique called the Kalman filter to a wider audience of the Czech economics readers. One can find both terms in a whole range of empirical studies from recent years. Following this approach also allows us among other things to model unobservable variables such as the potential output or the natural rate of unemployment. The primary motivation of this article is to bring a basic introduction to the reader who does not deal with the time series analysis on an everyday basis and to sketch the roots of state space models and the Kalman filter. Those who are interested can find more proper and rigorous description in the original literature.

The ECB concept of analysis of deviation of actual money stock development from its long run equilibrium development is based on the assumption that bigger deviation signalizes risks for the price stability. The ECB considers three measures of this deviation: nominal money gap, real money gap and monetary overhang/shortfall. The calculation of gap between the actual and the equilibrium development of money stock in nominal and real expression is not reasonable at the present time in Czech Republic. The calculation of monetary overhang/shortfall, which is based on the long run equilibrium value of money stock given by model of money demand, seems to be more employable.

The paper focuses on the oil price-macroeconomy relationship by means of analyzing the impact of oil price changes on economic growth in the United States of America from 1947: Q1 to 2001: Q4. First, we present the most important oil shocks that occurred in the second half of the last century. Then we describe three different proxies of oil price changes. Second, we provide large analyze of the impact of oil price increases and decreases on the GDP using the different types of measurements of oil shock. The results suggest that an oil price increase, which overcomes it's own maximum values from three previous years, has greater negative effect on production growth than if it simply corrects the previous decreases or exceeds a one year maximum only. The paper also presents a hypothesis that oil price decreases do not contribute to economic growth. All these results allow us to maintain the nonlinear interpretation of the analyzed relationship suggested by Hamilton.