H11 - Structure, Scope, and Performance of GovernmentNávrat zpět

The present paper deals with the impact of supranational fiscal rules on economic growth through optimal government size and the BARS curve in monetary unions. Monetary unions introduce supranational fiscal rules to ensure fiscal sustainability of public finance and to eliminate the presence of free-riders in these country groupings. The main objective of the paper is therefore to illustrate how compliance with the supranational fiscal rules affects the level of economic growth under the conditions of the existence of the BARS curve in monetary unions. The paper confirms the existence of the BARS curve. It makes a quantification of the optimal government size in the East African Monetary Union (26.96% of GDP) and a subsequent identification of years when supranational fiscal rules prevented increase in public expenditures via debt financing and thus counteracted the decline in economic growth.

The relation between government deficit and debt is not straightforward and draws intensive attention of users and analysts. In reality, surplus balances can accompany increasing debt even in the long term. The objective of the paper is thus to scrutinize, by analysing international data, the closeness of both aggregates, which is essential for assessment of the long-term sustainability of public finances. The text explains factors entering between both macroeconomic indicators, as they are currently defined. Furthermore, the text discusses alternatives to currently defined debt and their closeness to the government final balance. The development of indicators is analysed using data for the Czech Republic. Within the data availability constraints, an international comparison of balance sheet indicators is presented.

This article analyses the development of the public procurement market in the Czech Republic in the period from 2008 to the present in connection with the adoption of new legislation relating to the Act on Public Procurement no. 137/2006. This text evaluates the objectives of legislative changes (transparency, increase in competition powers and effective price enforcement) exa-mined from the viewpoint of selected parameters of the procurement market. It was found that the transparency in terms of reducing the use of the restricted procedure of public procurement improved and the share of public contracts conducted under the new Act on Public Procurement increased immediately after new legislation. This article positively evaluates a drop in one-offer contracts and continuous tendency towards lower price levels of the public procurement. This analysis includes identification of the impact of an accelerated drawdown of funds from EU programs in connection with the end of the program period in 2015. Based on the analysis's conclusions, there are obvious limits of the positive impact of the new legislation.

This paper discusses recent claims made by Caplan (2000, 2001a, 2001b, 2001c, 2002, 2007) who argues that democracies produce bad policies as a result of voters' irrational beliefs. We start by outlining the motives which led Caplan to amend classic Public Choice in such a radical fashion. We analyse the likely repercussions that his hypothesis might have on the future of the profession. We provide a critique of Caplan's distinction between experts and ordinary people and we conclude by suggesting an important degree of caution in interpreting Caplan's results and in providing any policy advice based on his hypothesis.

In the paper we analyze economic university research and education in transition countries. University system differs from industry in the nature of output that it produces. University system is engaged in production of public goods rather than private goods. The sector also suffers from the measurement problem of quality of its output. We argue that because of these factors reforms were slower in this sector leading to low productivity growth. Pressure groups succeeded in gaining significant control inside administrative structures regulating the sector. By creating the accreditation commission the state decreases the communication cost of pressure groups making lobbing activity cheaper. A case study from the Czech Republic and Slovakia shows that the accreditation commission which is composed from representatives of state universities and established research institutes succeeded in maintaining their dominant position and set evaluation criteria fitting their interests. This institutional setting led to low university research productivity. The results also show that in Slovakia economic research is still predominantly carried out by central research institutes and universities are engaged mainly in teaching.

We survey theories of impacts of budgetary rules in the budget process, review empirical evidence and on the basis of comparative studies attempt to design the optimal shape of the Czech budgetary rules. The theoretical part focuses on conventional and non-intuitive effects of spending caps and spending targets under alternative electoral systems. The empirical part conveys a meta-analysis of five studies on fiscal governance in Central and Eastern European countries. The final part recommends changes in the Czech budget process.

The paper analyzes an important part of the institutional quality - regulation and studies relation between the regulatory environment and the bureaucratic barriers. The analysis is based on theoretical models of the comparative institutional economics. In the paper, we discuss possibilities of measurement and evaluation of regulation and bureaucracy. We compare the quality of regulatory environment in the EU-25 countries for which we construct specific index. Given principles of the good regulation we characterize basic determinants of the regulatory environment and we try to evaluate how these principles are fulfilled in countries of the EU-25. Additionally, we aim to evaluate the quality of bureaucracy. Finally, we study how the regulatory environment is related to the bureaucratic barriers.

The article is based on the thesis that institutional quality influences the economic performance. From this point of view under certain circumstance the government policy is able to increase efficiency and performance of economies through creation, maintenance and cultivation of appropriate political and economic institutions ("political and economic design"). This way is not about state engineering indeed, but about possibility to accept and/or cancel measures which in principle influence both current production capability of economies and its long-term potential too. Authors do not refuse to analyse an influence of informal institutions, which undoubtedly create "the spawn, out of all grown up". If the state were to be understood in its minimal role, i. e. as the guarantee and co-creator of basic "well-established" rules and/or institutions, the rational economic policy could be able to influence the process both to reduce transaction costs and to rise economic efficiency.