E60 - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook: GeneralReturn

The article focuses on the relationship between the general government balance and the current account of the balance of payments. The aim is to summarize the existing knowledge about the relationship based on the twin deficit theory and to carry out an empirical verification. As part of the analysis, the Granger causality method is first applied to each EU country separately, and then the threshold panel regression method is used. For the subsequent estimation of the threshold panel model, the direction of the relationship from the general government balance to the current account is considered based on the results of Granger causality. Within the panel, the dependence of the balances on the level of the general government debt to GDP is tested. First, the relationship and its strength are verified in all EU countries. Due to the diversity of EU countries, the economies are subsequently aggregated into sub-panels. Threshold values for general government debt affecting the strength of the relationship between balances are different for individual panels and depend, among other things, on the perception of these countries by the financial markets and often also on the (high) indebtedness of the private sector, which usually requires a more drastic fiscal policy response.

Today, society is struggling with the uncertainty caused by the pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19). Government budgets will face a real challenge in the coming years. This paper provides an overview of public finances and their condition over the past 20 years in the Slovak and Czech Republics. It investigates the possible effects of different tax type changes and also the option to cover budget losses. A simple dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model with three sectors was calibrated using data from 2018 and a stochastic analysis was performed. It was shown that the economy was more sensitive to shocks on social security contributions than to those on other taxes. The results may help support a reform of decreasing labour taxes, for which both Slovakia and Czechia have been waiting for a long time.

There is growing interest in property prices and price trends at national and regional levels. The paper aims to find links between selected demand and supply determinants based on a panel regression of regional data during 2000-2017 and to contribute to further discussion of the role of these determinants. The main output of the paper is the identification of regional differences in the direction and strength of the influence of individual determinants on the flat price. Regional differences were identified in the mid-year population, the number of inhabitants per completed flat, the number of applicants per job, the amount of household disposable income and the divorce rate. In Prague, the first three determinants were significant. The validity of the research is limited by the fact that some potentially significant data are not statistically monitored and data aggregated at the level of regions do not reflect local conditions. The output of the analysis shows determinants that explain the price variability and indicates unused economic policy instruments.

The paper analyses episodes of successful reduction of public debt in OECD countries. From 2008 to 2018, we identify 19 episodes of fiscal consolidation, of which five resulted in a significant debt reduction. The most successful post-crisis concept is extensive, long-term consolidations and consolidations started with excessive initial debt. Spending cut consolidations have not been significantly more successful than the tax increase approach. After the inclusion of projections for 2019 and 2020, we identified 18 episodes of significant debt reduction, of which nine were associated with previous fiscal consolidation and nine were not. In the years after successful consolidation, the primary balance surpluses were more effective in debt reduction than the macroeconomic environment. Economic growth and interest rates in the significant debt reduction episodes associated with previous consolidation were lower than those without that connection. Countries which have achieved significant debt reduction without previous consolidation have done so primarily by better macro development and profited from a lower level of indebtedness.

The paper deals with effects of trade liberalization of EU goods exports to the USA. Despite the current protectionist tendencies of US President Donald Trump, the USA is strongly motivated to promote a deeper trade liberalization in the longer horizon, further strengthening bilateral trade flows, increasing economic efficiency, and thus contributing to the growth of both economies. The primary objective is to evaluate a hypothesis which states that reducing political trade barriers could notably increase the flows. We use gravity models and our own constructed non-tariff trade barrier time series based on tens of thousands of values for EU-28 countries in relation to the USA between 1995–2014. The data are obtained from an analysis of US legislature, in contrast to previous studies which used subjective survey data. The secondary goal is to assess whether a substantial reduction of non-tariff barriers is realistic or not, an issue which other researchers have overlooked. The level of bilateral non-tariff barriers imposed by the USA against EU exporters is rather low in the international comparison, a substantial reduction is not a reasonable assumption. We conclude that dealing with non-tariff trade barriers is crucial as it can substantially increase the bilateral trade flows. Even a less optimistic scenario, with a smaller decrease in trade barriers, suggests that the EU goods exports to the USA could be increased by more than 20%.

The goal of this contribution is to evaluate the relevance of the institutional factors and the influence of the single variables on the corruption. The key task is to find not only suitable indicator of the amount of corruption but also suitable approximants of institutional characteristics, else economical characteristics. The important advantage of this article is its focus also on the corruption measured by alternative ways, compared to the often used CPI. From the institutional characteristic view for the corruption fight seems to be important stable legal background. Not less important is also the government stability and its accountability. In the contradiction with the expected hypotheses claiming the strong and resistant bureaucracy to be beneficial against the corruption fight, almost all executed analysis is based on the contra productivity of the bureaucracy independency on the corruption fight. It is also important to mention that the direct and indirect taxes vary with their influence on the corruption.

Data on the economic development of OECD-Member countries show that tax structures in all OECD countries are changing, but one constant feature is that the share of taxes in GDP is rising. The aim of this article is to discus the main reasons for the increased tax burden in OECD countries, the difficulties of international comparisons of tax burden, and the conditions for tax burden reduction in the Czech Republic. An international comparison is difficult because national economic indicators can be distorted by methods used for measuring GDP on the one hand and by tax-revenues assessment on the other. For example, some countries' tax/GDP ratios are underestimated on account of considerable and hidden "tax expenditures". Czech tax policy is limited by the co-ordination and harmonization with, and the fiscal objectives of its accession to, the European Union.