C82 - Methodology for Collecting, Estimating, and Organizing Macroeconomic Data; Data AccessReturn

This paper investigates multiscale causal relations between consumer and producer prices in eight emerging Eastern European countries. We use wavelet coherence to measure the multiscale nexus between inflation types, and wavelet-based Bayesian quantile regression (BQR) to inspect the spillover effect. Wavelet coherence plots indicate low coherence in the short time horizon (up to two months) and higher coherence in the longer time horizons, particularly from four mounts onwards. Areas of very high coherence are found around the Global Financial Crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. Bidirectional spillover effect exists in all the countries except Poland and Hungary. In the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Estonia and Slovenia, producer prices have the upper hand over consumer prices, and this effect is stronger in the longer time horizons, which is in line with the wavelet coherence results. Only in the case of Lithuania, we find that consumer prices have a stronger effect on producer prices than vice versa, and this happens in the short term. In the case of Latvia, the BQR results are inconclusive because both inflation types have a precedence, but in different time horizons.

The growing number of players in world trade increases competition among countries. It has also a significant implication for the EU member states that are differently dependant on international trade. The object of the paper was to evaluate the export competitiveness and productivity of the EU member states in 2000-2015 using the Factor Analysis and the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) method. The results of trade analyses confirmed that the level of the export competitiveness was different in the individual EU member states and that it had also been changed during the monitored period. However, the original hypothesis about the level of export productivity was not confirmed. The results of the DEA analysis pointed more to economic convergence in the trade area between the new and old EU member states than to export productivity. The development of the EU trade was influenced by globalisation processes accompanied by trade liberalisation, but also the EU integration process.

This paper deals with the topic of experimental computations and estimation of regional GDP components by expenditure approach in the NUTS 3 regions of the Czech Republic. As huge amount of data is necessary, this topic has not been successfully solved by official statistics yet. Just one expenditure component - gross fixed capital formation - is regionally published by the Czech Statistical Office, the others, such as final household consumption expenditures, government expenditures or net export balance, are estimated in this paper. Also the net savings of regions are experimentally computed. Different data sources needed to be used for estimations; apart from Czech Statistical Office and Institute for Regional Information data other sources as transportation statistics, health statistics etc. had to be employed. An important related issue is also the regional price level problem, whose implications are discussed in the paper as well. Finally regional differences in the structure of regional GDP are examined.

The article focuses on alternative approaches of fixed capital measurement. The official direct estimation for Czech economy is based on straight line depreciation profile. This article presents the results based on the application of geometric depreciation profile on appropriate types of assets. Alternative consumption and net stock of fixed assets are presented. The impact on GDP of such changes is evaluated. New model of perpetual inventory method is transformed to Markov chain. Such transformation leads to easy estimation of average age of fixed assets. Such estimation is suitable for asset with short average service lives. The article presents average age for machinery and equipment. All calculations focus on development between 1995 and 2010.

The paper analyzes the evolution of the share of final consumption expenditure on aggregate GDP in thirty countries. From the economic point of view, the analysis of final consumption expenditure changes on GDP in connection with the changes in business cycle phases is ambiguous. The authors used their own original statistical test. It shows, on the one hand, how these shares rise in the years of economic crisis, while on the other hand, how they decline during years of economic prosperity. The test also assesses the significance of these changes. The result of the analysis explains the significant changes in the share of final consumption expenditure on GDP over the years.

The article is engaged in the improvement of quarterly information on the gross domestic product by type of expenditures from the first expectations to final data. It concludes that the first estimate of GDP is under-estimated. This underestimation is caused by underestimation of the final households consumption expenditures and of the gross fixed capital formation. At the balancing process, when the above-mentioned items of expenditures are under-estimated, the surplus of resources side could be allocated to the change in stock of inventories item. Thus this item contains the discrepancy between the resources side and expenditures side of GDP and is disqualified from its role in business-cycle analysis. Differences of biases in constant prices data and in current prices data are also stated.