O11 - Macroeconomic Analyses of Economic DevelopmentNávrat zpět

This study examines the significant influence of oil price fluctuations on the economies of oil--exporting countries. While elevated oil prices can result in foreign currency inflows and advantages for oil-exporting countries, they can also trigger adverse effects, including a reduction in manufacturing sectors and a loss of price competitiveness due to currency appreciation. This research focuses on the period from 2004Q1 to 2021Q4, examining the influence of oil price fluctuations on key macroeconomic indicators in Russia, including industrial production, exchange rates, inflation and interest rates. The structural VAR model findings confirm that the monetary channel demonstrates a higher degree of responsiveness to oil price shocks compared to the fiscal channel. Specifically, the study observes that industrial production exhibits a pronounced procyclical response to oil price shocks through the fiscal channel. Conversely, the monetary channel reveals that increased oil price volatility exerts pressure on the Russian rouble, resulting in a counter-cyclical behaviour in inflation and interest rates.

The paper shows an econometric approach to environmental taxes, economic growth and go- vernment expenditures in Visegrad Group (VG) countries from 1995 to 2018. The aim of this research is to explore how environmental taxes affect economic growth in Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia in the observed period. The subject of the research is to identify the relationship between total environmental tax revenues, energy tax revenues, transport tax revenues and economic growth. Also, empirical research includes the relation between environmental taxation and government expenditures to identify the character of their effects and influence on economic growth through government expenditures. The findings of VAR model I manifest that shocks in total environmental tax revenues and energy tax revenues positively and significantly affect the economic growth, whereas transport tax revenues have a negative and significant effect on economic growth. The results of VAR model II show that total environmental tax revenues are significantly positively related to government expenditures, which is not the case with energy tax revenues and transport tax revenues. Furthermore, empirical research finds a bidirectional causality between environmental taxes and economic growth, as well as unidirectional causality between environmental taxes and government expenditures in VG economies.

Studies on the long-term trends of quality of life, and more specifically, the Human Development Index (HDI), have thus far largely neglected East Central Europe, and the existing scholarship tends to be fragmented. The paper seeks to address these shortcomings in research by investigating the trends of the HDI in Poland, Czechoslovakia and its successor states, Czechia and Slovakia, as well as Hungary between 1913 and 2010 within a broader international context. The analysis is based on a new data set developed by the authors. The results demonstrate that the HDI performance of the later decades of state socialism was more moderate than it is commonly assumed.

Using the database of logistics performance of countries in the period 2007-2016, we study the convergence of countries in terms of logistics performance across the world, the European Union and V4. In comparison with other beta-convergence studies using the OLS estimation method, we also implement a conditional quantile regression (Koenker and Bassett, 1978). The use of the quantile regression allows us to study the convergence of countries not only from the point of view of the average, but also from the perspective of different quantiles of conditional distribution. We identify countries with different leveles of convergence and quantify different levels of convergence across countries of the world. The results provide empirical evidence of the logistics convergence of countries across the world, and also demonstrate that the countries of the European Union and V4 achieve a higher level of convergence than the average convergence of countries across the world during the review period.

The growing number of players in world trade increases competition among countries. It has also a significant implication for the EU member states that are differently dependant on international trade. The object of the paper was to evaluate the export competitiveness and productivity of the EU member states in 2000-2015 using the Factor Analysis and the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) method. The results of trade analyses confirmed that the level of the export competitiveness was different in the individual EU member states and that it had also been changed during the monitored period. However, the original hypothesis about the level of export productivity was not confirmed. The results of the DEA analysis pointed more to economic convergence in the trade area between the new and old EU member states than to export productivity. The development of the EU trade was influenced by globalisation processes accompanied by trade liberalisation, but also the EU integration process.

This paper investigates the possible reasons why many microfi nance institutions (MFIs) have gradually experienced a decrease in the share of female borrowers in their portfolios over the last few years. We confi rm that the share of women may be decreasing due to the growing proportion of low-income inhabitants in the area and unpaid family workers. Our results further show that the share of women is also strongly dependent on employment policy that has a positive impact on the dependent variable. Unexpectedly, none of macroeconomic variables such as economic growth, wage and household consumption has an impact on the number of female borrowers.

This article provides a brief but comprehensive overview of microfinance academic literature with emphasis on recent innovations, trends and efficiency. In particular, we focus on controversial issues of microfinance, such as commercialization, regulation, interest rate policy and the balance between outreach and performance of MFIs. In summary, the findings of the reviewed literature underline the great improvement in the microfinance field that, however, has not reached its full potential yet. At the same time, we outline potential risks and drawbacks which are being discovered along the way of microfinance development and maturing, many of which still waiting for more rigorous scholarly examination.

Economic growth of the Czech Republic measured by GDP reached 3,4 % per annum in the decade 2001-2010 and was substantially faster than average annual growth of the European Union. Strong acceleration in the years 2005-2007 was followed by stagnation in the years 2008-2012 caused by strong decline of GDP in the year 2009 and milder recession in the year 2012. The modest recovery in the years 2010 and 2011 was pulled namely by foreign trade, while final consumption and gross fixed capital formation stagnated. Alternative indicator of national income was negatively influenced by growing outflow of primary incomes. Real gross domestic income indicates different results in comparison with gross domestic product because of changes in the terms of trade. Macroeconomic stability improved substantially in the field of foreign trade while general government deficit contributed to its deterioration.

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.

We analyze corruption and economic freedom links to public finance and investment in new EU members. In terms of the public investment our results show that improvement in economic freedom is linked to increases in public investment while lowering of corruption is linked with increase or decrease with respect to public investment. As a complementary finding we show that increases in public investment are also linked with the ambiguous effect. In case of public finance our estimates suggest that debt usually decreases as economic regulation goes down while the effect on budget deficit goes both ways. On other hand, as corruption declines both budget deficit and debt decrease. Based on our results we generalize that measures taken to lower corruption and economic regulation should lead to improvements in fiscal position in most of the new EU member states.

The values of comparative price levels vary greatly in individual EU countries and depend on many different economic factors. The EU countries were divided into two distinguishable groups. Both OLS and robust regressions were used to analyze the influence of the comparative price levels on selected indicators. If outliers and leverage points were identified using robust outliers' detection and the results of the OLS and robust fits differed significantly, the robust fits are preferred. When differences were not significant, the OLS fits can be used. Models for 27 EU countries and groups of countries differ significantly with respect to indicators included.

Economic growth of the Czech Republic strongly accelerated in the years 2005-2007. Substantial decline of economic activity took place at the end of 2008 and in the year 2009. On the supply side the main contributing factors were labour and total factor productivity. On the demand side the growth was pulled by domestic demand and the contribution of foreign trade became positive in the years 2004-2008. Macroeconomic stability improved substantially in the field of foreign trade. The process of real convergence accelerated in the years 2001-2007 and was based on the growth of labour productivity. In 2008 the GDP per capita in purchasing power standards reached 80 % of the EU-27 average. The comparative price level grew quickly from the low starting level, but was far below the relative economic level compared with EU-15. In 2008 a great jump in CPL took place (from 59 % in 2007 to 67 % in 2008 in relation to EU-15).

New approaches are being searched for to assess regional policy in connection with the specification of a new paradigm of regional development. The article pays attention to the assurance of a sustainable growth rate of economies in Czech regions. The methodological base of the solution is a thesis on the analogy between enterprises and regions as relatively open socio-economic systems with a function of the welfare maximisation. The data from 2002-2006 are analysed. The oscillation around the value "1" occurs with inter-annually in 10 regions from 14; the inter-annual oscillation is corrupted in 3 cases, when the trend continues in sequence, even though with other intensity. On the one hand, it is necessary consider all factors influencing regional policy tools; on the other hand it is also necessary to correctly consider the self-regulating elements effecting regions.

The economic development of the Czech Republic and Slovakia after the split of former Czechoslovakia in 1993 shows some important differences, caused by different economic policy and the starting level. The convergence of the Slovak economic level to the Czech one was very fast after the World War II, due to the massive reallocation of resources (the transfer of resources in favour of Slovakia represented 11 % of the Slovak GDP). The Slovak economy adjusted to the lower economic level after the split by sinking real wages and by depreciation of the Slovak koruna, so that the ULC are now the lowest among the Central European countries. Slovakia enjoyed very fast growth of GDP in recent years fluctuating from 7 to 10 %, while in the Czech Republic it reached from 6 to 7 %. The abundant inflow of FDI and economic reforms helped to speed the real convergence in Slovakia, which continued fluently after a deep fall accompanying the split of Czechoslovakia. In 2007, the Slovak GDP per capita measured in PPS reached 84 % of the Czech one. The common challenge for both economies is to overcome the one-sided orientation on cost/price competitiveness based on low wages and pass over to the qualitative competitive advantage, based on the innovations and production of high quality goods and services.

Economic growth of the Czech Republic differed strongly in two periods: 2001-2003 and 2004-2006. While in the first period the average annual rate of growth of GDP reached only 2,7 %, in the second period the growth accelerated to 5,7 %. The economic growth measured by the indicators of real income (namely of real gross domestic income) was faster. This was caused by positive contribution of the terms of trade. On the supply side the main contributing factors were labour and total factor productivity. On the demand side the growth was pulled by domestic demand which grew in the period 2001-2003 even faster than GDP. The contribution of foreign trade becomes positive in the years 2004-2006 with very strong contribution in the year 2005. Macroeconomic stability of the Czech economy improved substantially in the field of foreign trade. The trade balance becomes positive from the year 2004 and growing imbalance persists in the balance of income. The negative gap between savings and investments is caused mainly by households and general government. The process of real convergence accelerated in the years 2000-2006 and was based on the growth of labour and total factor productivity. In 2006 the GDP per capita in purchasing power standards reached almost 80 % of the average level in EU-27. The comparative price level of the Czech Republic in this year reached only 61 % despite accelerated process of catching-up.

This paper deals with the narrowing the income gap between the Central and East European New Member States (NMS-5) and the EU-25 and with the trade-off between the real and nominal convergence. The methodology is based on international standards enabling comparisons of macroeconomic indicators, especially of GDP per capita in purchasing power parity and alternative indicators of real gross domestic income, which comprises gains or losses from the terms of trade changes. In the chapter 1 the changes in catching-up and in the position of the NMS-5 economy within the framework of EU-25 are analysed. Chapter 2 deals with the trade-off between the real and nominal convergence. The regression analysis of the comparative price and wage level in relation to the economic level reveals deviations from the theoretical values, especially in the Czech Republic. The unit labour cost's level comparisons examine the cost/price competitiveness. The perspective of real convergence is analysed in the conclusion.

There is hardly any bigger economic tragedy than poor economic development of sub-Saharan Africa. The persistent character of its slow growth or even decline is not possible to explain when using standard growth theories and cross-coutry data. We have suggested a classification framework for existing theories and it allowed us to show that all these approaches (despite their broadness and different policy implications) assume that people's preferences everywhere in the world can be embodied in Homo oeconomicus concept. Growth incompatible behavior is then explained by unfavorable environment being it geography, colonial legacy or bad policy environment. Our aim is to highlight that current concepts omit the possible heterogeneity of people resulting from very poor education level, cultural differences and health conditions. In our view, explanation of African specific behavioral patterns can contribute to deeper understanding, why there is lack of investments and lack of specialization; and why economic growth has been largely missing in sub-Saharan Africa.

The paper analyzes the process of real convergence of the Czech Republic and the other new EU member countries towards the old EU. The new member countries were beta converging towards the EU in the period 1992 - 2004. The speed of convergence was 1.77% which is a number comparable to the speed of convergence among the states of the USA. The Czech Republic has been growing more slowly than what would correspond to its level of real GDP per capita. This trend seems to have been overcome by faster growth in the last two years. Still, even in the optimistic scenario, it will take more than 30 years for the Czech Republic to reach the EU-15 average, which is more than for most of the other new member countries, in particular the dynamically growing Baltic countries.

The study is focused on macroeconomic stability of the Czech economy. The first part (methodological) stems from the system of national accounting which offers two approaches: from the point of view of relationship between domestic supply and demand and between savings and investments. Analytical part examines domestic supply and demand, which is reflected in the balance of foreign trade. There was a positive tendency due to a favourable development in foreign trade. The relation between savings and investments, which is equal to current account balance, looks less favourable. The main source of imbalance is a negative balance of incomes expressing bigger outflow of primary incomes in relation to their inflow. Public finances can be identified as the weakest chain link of economic development. International comparison with new EU Members from middle Europe indicates that keeping macroeconomic stability in acceptable boundaries represents a serious problem.

Economic growth of the Czech Republic differed strongly in two periods: 1996-1999 and 2000-2004. While in the first period the economy was hit by the recession and the average annual rate of growth of GDP reached only 0,9 %, in the second period the growth accelerated to 3,2 %. The economic growth measured by the indicators of real income (namely of real gross domestic income) was faster. This was caused by positive contribution of the terms of trade. On the supply side the main contributing factors were labour and total factor productivity. On the demand side the growth was pulled by domestic demand which grew even faster than GDP. The contribution of foreign trade becomes positive in the year 2004 and mainly in 2005. Macroeconomic stability of the Czech economy improved substantially in the fields of inflation, monetary development and foreign trade. Imbalances persist in general government budget and on the current account of the balance of payment. The process of real convergence accelerated in the years 2000-2004 and was based on the growth of labour and total factor productivity. In 2004 the GDP per capita in purchasing power standards surpassed 70 % of the average level in EU-25. The comparative price level of the Czech Republic in this year reached only 53 % despite accelerated process of catching-up.

2004, which was also the year of EU entry, was quite successful for the Czech economy. Economic growth accelerated, driven in particular by the investment demand and exports. After 10 years of permanent deficits, the trade balance deficit diminished significantly. The effects of EU entry, which opened new chances to the exporters, accompanied the positive impact of FDI inflows from the past. Due to acceleration of exports, industrial output registered a record high growth within the last decade. Accelerating economic growth did not provoke inflationary pressures. Two waves of VAT increase (in January and May) were absorbed until the end of the year. A strong increase in PPI resulting from high world prices of oil and gas had no spillover effect to consumer prices due to strong competition between both the producers and traders. At the beginning of 2005, economic growth continued with the same pace as in 2004, driven by investment demand and exports. Consumer demand kept on weakening, consumption of households registered the weakest growth since the end of 1998. Both the industrial production and exports reported a slowdown due to sluggish economic activity in the euro area, especially in Germany.

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.

The goal of analysis of business cycle development in the Czech Republic is to identify causes and consequences of economic activity fluctuations in the 1990 to 2003 period. The approach to analysis of economic activity fluctuations is based on this part of business cycle theory which is oriented to the links between macroeconomic equilibrium and economic growth. Description of contexts between changes in the economic environment, nature of the demand and supply side of the economy and a character of external and internal balance provides the economic framework for the analysis. The decomposition of supply and demand to its components enabled the identification of their sensitivity to the business cycle development. Special emphasis is put on the indicators of internal and external balances which signal in advance the possibility of an economic slowdown or a drop in the economic activity.

Gradual narrowing of the gap between consumer and investment demand was one of major achievements of 2003, supporting the long-term sustainability of Czech economic growth. In the first half of 2004, industry and construction witnessed strong growth, retail trade showing a considerable slowdown. Growth in industry has continued to be more rapid in the sector of foreign controlled companies. After a slight weakening of deflation tendencies in the third quarter of 2003, last quarter of 2003 and first half of 2004 confirmed a resurgence of inflation. Growth of industrial prices was more rapid than the growth of consumer ones, predominantly due to increasing world prices of oil and metals. The labour market and public finance continue to be the main macroeconomic problems of the Czech Republic. The improvement may come only after adoption of fundamental reforms in both these areas.

Slowdown of economic growth occurred as a consequence of overall European slowdown in 2002. The most reliable factor of Czech GDP growth has become private demand of households. The acceleration of Czech economic growth will be strongly determined by the timing and intensity of economic recovery in Western Europe which has been postponing ever since. Strong disinflation processes pressed the inflation rate to record low levels in the history of transition. At the same time, strengthening of CZK continued in the first half of the year with an upturn in mid-2002. Later on, Czech monetary policy succeeded to stop the appreciation, CZK returning back to the level from the beginning of the year.

World economy slowed down more than 2 %, which was the main feature of its development in 2001. There were more factors behind this economic slowdown, primarily the faltering upswing of the world crude oil price, problems of the technological sector, and September 11 events in the USA. Recession forces hit world trade and investment activities in particular. Main sources of economic growth were thus significantly weakened in consequence. The growth rate of GDP in the EU slowed down from 3.3 % in 2000 to 1.6 % in 2001. A larger fall of the economy was prevented by only a slight deceleration of the growth of household consumption from 2.7 % in 2000 to 2.0 % in 2001 and keeping the dynamic growth of services between 2 % and 4 %. However, external trade growth rates were only a third on 2000 and came to limit Czech external trade dynamics in the second half of the year.