O10 - Economic Development: GeneralNávrat zpět

Current global trends belong to important branches of economic research. This article discusses changes among different parts of the world: do these changes increase or decrease over time? Are convergent trends more important within the global system than the divergent ones or vice versa? Changes are examined on the base of so-called world's macro-regions over the period 1970-2018, when the bipolar world has changed into a unipolar one and is currently moving towards multipolarity. The study aims to determine which global processes show divergent/convergent trends using different methodological approaches. It also discusses and explains the changing character of trends over time. The authors reach conclusions that exclude one-sidedness of the observed development trends, which derive from the multiplicity of factors influencing them.

The paper analyses the relationship between economic growth and human development in developing countries. While the former is often perceived as a necessary precondition for successful human development, the latter is regarded to be the main development objective. However, the link between economic growth and human development seems to be more complex. According to Ranis et al. (2000) the relationship is two-sided and mutually reinforcing, so in the long run the countries usually end up either in the vicious circle of bad economic growth and human development performance, or in the virtuous circle of positive results in both areas. The authors also suggest that the emphasis on economic growth does not lead to desired human development outcomes. Our work builds on their research and improves the methodology: we have introduced two new classifications based on countries' outcomes in areas of human development and economic growth that allow us to obtain better and more precise results. We have investigated data for 71 developing countries in three periods of time within 1980-2012. Our main findings are in some respects in line with Ranis et al. (2000) and suggest that countries with high pace of human development appear to achieve and retain high economic growth in the future, thus heading towards the virtuous circle of fast economic growth and human development. On the other hand, countries with low pace of human development tend to fall into vicious circle of slow economic growth and human development.

The paper works with assumptions, that the conclusions of mainstream approaches to the growth theory are problematical; there are alternative social-economic approaches to the theory of economic growth that offer more plausible explanations of the fundamental economic questions than the traditional views; both social-economic lines of thought and social-economic approaches to the growth theory are not systematized. Considering of these matters, the main aim of this paper is to propose original classification of contemporary social-economic approaches to the growth theory and consecutively to characterize these classified approaches. Two partial streams within the social-economic approaches to the growth theory based on formal conception of institutions (the approach primarily emphasizing the importance of political institutions, the approach primarily emphasizing the importance of economic institutions) have many common features (subjects, methodology, conclusions, exponents) and they together make prevailing stream of the contemporary social-economic growth theory. The growth theory of the new institutional economics based on the North's path dependency concept is still less profiled. This approach really accepts the conception of institutions of Douglas North.

Empirical research on the differences between unit values in the EU's trade with the Czech Republic and the intra-EU average has shown a significant changes. The comparative level of manufacturing products imported from the Czech republic has increased, the comparative level of products exported to the Czech republic has decreased. The price-gaps, inherited from the communist regime have been substantially reduced. Most remarkable changes of the comparative prices took place in trade with products of metalworking industries. The favourable development of price relations in the Czech foreign trade has been an important element underlying balance of payments performance, it has contributed to the nominal and real improvements of Czech krown and shoud play an importent role in the process of convergence. The analysis is based on Eurostat Comext Database.

The authors present an algorithm for making flash estimate of quarterly change in gross domestic product at constant prices in the conditions of the Czech Republic. This algorithm is based on monthly/quarterly statistics on the output of individual branches, i.e. on data measuring trends in structured domestic supply. Estimates produced by the Czech Statistical Office and covering six preceding quarters make up the part of history, which the flash estimate is built on. It depends therefore on both the stability of methodology used for compiling quarterly national accounts and the perfection of its application. The authors assume that the innovated algorithm should be accessible to experts as well as the general public, and that it can serve them to arrive at well-founded rough information on total quarter-on-quarter change in GDP at constant prices a month or so before Czech Statistical Office official estimate is released.