F45 - Macroeconomic Issues of Monetary UnionsNávrat zpět

We investigate the impact of the Czech Republic's membership in the European Union on capital mobility. Our estimation of capital mobility is based on the alternative Feldstein-Horioka model. The model comes from intertemporal budget constraints with the additional assumption of a different data generation process. We propose an empirical framework to capture two different regimes in the vector error correction model. We show that the period 1996-2004 is composed of both regimes. The most important conclusion is that the period 1996-2004 is connected with a mix of both regimes. However, the period 2005-2017 comprises only one regime, which is connected with higher capital mobility. Therefore, capital mobility in the Czech Republic increased after 2004.

The article deals with the two key issues that have been fundamentally changing the European Union - the crisis of Eurozone and the Brexit. The first part discusses the change of the original balance of power in the EU after the exit of Britain and its possible consequences, especially the strengthening of the relative position of France, and hence the French concept of the EU integration model (deeper federalization of the nucleus and the rest) resulting in an even more explicit model of the two-speed EU. In the ideal Pareto model of the Union, paradoxically, the possibility of exit makes the Union more stable and compact. The second part of the text discusses the problem of the uncompetitiveness of Southern Europe as a specific case of Dutch Disease and four scenarios of its solution - the disinflation or deflation of the South, the inflation of the North, the exit from the common currency and finally the transfer union. The last named scenario is the least attractive of given options, but it is already in progress. The imbalances in the Target 2 payment system discussed in the article are example of this. The conclusion of the article brings ten points summarizing necessary economic and political measures for the EU at the time of power shift after the Brexit and ongoing imbalances between the North and the South in the currency union.

The sovereign debt crisis inside the European Monetary Union (EMU) as well as competitiveness problems of some EMU members made the members and non-members of the club address one question: Is a monetary union advantageous? This paper deals with the issue whether or not the Maastricht criteria are good indicators for deciding to join the eurozone, namely for a small open economy, as the Czech Republic. In particular, this analysis addresses the issue of price competition, which can be measured by the real effective exchange rate. In fact, the Maastricht criteria do not reflect the competitiveness of a country. Thus the arguments concerning the advantages/disadvantages of the adoption of a common currency should not be based only on the Maastricht criteria, but at first on the philosophy of the real effective exchange rate. We define a basis for setting new criteria to decideing on joining the monetary union. To sum up, if depreciation/devaluation of the real exchange rate is not a competitive advantage for both Czech exports and the Czech economy (especially in the long term), then the main economic argument against joining the EMU disappears.