D62 - ExternalitiesReturn

The paper explores the impact of agglomeration economies on employment growth in the creative industries in Slovakia between 1998 and 2014. Using a spatial econometric model it has been confirmed that related variety plays a significant role in employment growth in creative industries, while significance of unrelated variety has not been confirmed. In other words, the districts specialising in different, but at the same time cognitively and technologically related creative sectors, have achieved higher employment growth in comparison to those specialising either in one selected creative sector, or in unrelated sectors. Moreover, the results indicate that knowledge spillover effect in creative industries is configured more locally what emphasizes the importance of a local level in the process of knowledge creation and its spillover.

This paper summarizes recent experience with microsimulation models applied to analyze economic and environmental impacts of transportation scenarios. First, relevant international studies from the European and North American countries are reviewed. Then, the paper introduces a microeconomic model calibrated and simulated for five largest cities in the Czech Republic. This model is the first attempt to apply a microsimulation model in the transport sector in the Czech Republic. Finally, results of simulations of different scenarios are discussed. Model simulations suggest that the increase in the excise tax on fuels is welfare improving. In cities, where operation costs of public transport are significantly subsidized, this tool should be accompanied with a fare increase as well, because of costs of public funds. A decrease in fares is not likely to be welfare improving because of small induced modal split and high requirements of public funds needed to cover such policy.

Currently, if speaking about the theoretical background of the environmental policy, most of environmental economists have neoclassical economics in their minds. State regulation of private activities by means of restrictions, commands, taxes and fees is usually seen as the only one way to reach the high quality of the environment. It is believed, that due to market failures market forces are not able to solve the environmental problems. Actually, these are the main arguments for state interventions into the private negotiations about environmental issues. But are these assumptions correct from the methodological point of view? Is the state regulation really the only one way to solve the environmental problems? In this paper we try to signify the main methodological problems of neoclassical economics and to identify, how to solve environmental problems from the point of view of other economic school of thoughts. The development of theoretical aspects of environmental issues was not fetched up in 60's. and 70's with neoclassical conclusions, but it continued in 80's and 90's with free-market-environmentalism. This theoretical background contains the methodology of Austrian school of thoughts, Public Choice theory and new institutional economics. In the present environmental policy, theoretical conclusions of these school of thoughts are (intentionally) marginalized. At the end of this paper we discuss the interdependence between environmental degradation and economic growth. Is the economic growth bad or good for environmental protection? To answer this question we follow the modeling approach.

This paper is focused on the theory of optimal taxation applied to environmental regulation. The first part summarizes the current state of knowledge in this field, especially it concentrates on the so called double dividend hypothesis. The second part of the paper defines the concept of triple dividend in transport, which is modelled in the normative neoclassical framework. Based on econometric estimation, we calibrate a model and empirically investigate this hypothesis on the Czech data.