D40 - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design: GeneralNávrat zpět

This paper examines the development and comparison of competition and concentration in the banking and insurance sector in the Czech Republic during the 2007-2019 period using the Herfindahl-Hirschman index (HH index). In the empirical section we calculate the degree of concentration and indexes separately for the banking and insurance markets, where the main variable in relation to banks is the balance sheet and this variable is the gross written premium in relation to insurance companies. Subsequently, we compare the two examined sectors including the analysis of their long-term equilibrium. The result of this research confirms the determined hypotheses, whereas the oligopolic structure of both markets, which falls over time and aims towards a competitive market but does not achieve this goal during the monitored period. Throughout examination, the insurance market demonstrates higher HH index values and therefore lower competitiveness compared to the banking market.

Frank Hyneman Knight made a significant contribution to neoclassical economics. The paper aims to examine his economic theory and political philosophy. The first part outlines the life of Frank Knight. The second part examines his thesis titled "Risk, Uncertainty and Profit" (1921). The third part analyses "The Economic Organization" (1933). The fourth part discusses the book "The Ethics of Competition" (1935). The fifth part takes a look at the political philosophy in the book "Freedom and Reform" (1947). The sixth part highlights the significance of Knight for the Chicago School.

This paper describes the main theoretical concepts of the competition, which is thought to be the fundamental social process in the economy. The protection of competition (or the competition policy) is the one of the most important parts of economic policy, because the competition ensures the freedom of choice. The theory of competition provides large number of assumptions, which were developed within the frame of various economic schools and approaches. This paper starts with the description of the history of competition policy before the coming of Adam Smith. In the middle part of the work there have been formulated basic ideological theses about economic policy. Represented are, for example, the Classics, Ordo-liberalism or Neo-austrian School. Paper is finalized by the major theses of the Harvard and Chicago school.

The paper deals with equilibrium real price of a fixed asset in a growing economy. The supply of this kind of assets is by assumption fixed. Land or unique works of art are probably their closest empirical counterparts. Economic growth is manifested by a systematic increase in the real price of services provided by the asset. The rate of growth of their price depends on price and income elasticities of the demand for the services. Given these elasticities, an equilibrium price of the asset can expressed using the present value model. The equilibrium real asset price increases in time in the same rate as the real price of the services. The asset price can be highly sensitive to changes in values of the permanent rate of economic growth and real interest rate. Transitory changes in economic growth, however, seem to have only minor effect on the equilibrium price.

The core aim of this paper is to suggest comprehensive definition of the information economy and delineate the range of economic problems it deals with, paying particular attention to its connections to the economics of information. The text, in the extent provided, can not investigate thoroughly all the subjects associated with the information economy; it rather presents overview of the most important issues and illustrates them with examples from real and virtual markets. The major subjects concerned include: information asymmetries, revelation principle, network effects and externalities, economies of scale, standard wars, switching costs and lock-ins, multiple competitive equilibria, characteristics of online markets, impact of information technology on productivity, implications for governmental policies.