O57 - Comparative Studies of CountriesNávrat zpět

Has the recent illiberal surge altered the neoliberal orthodoxy prevailing in post-1989 Hungary and Poland towards a more developmental modus operandi, or has it just camouflaged embedded neoliberalism with a developmental narrative? This article, trying to contribute to answering the aforementioned question, is structured as follows. First, we provide a general overview of the comparative capitalism approach. We extend the original conceptualizations by the framework of varieties of illiberal capitalism and present two ideal types of illiberal capitalism. Then, we assess five institutional areas of the political economy of contemporary Hungary and Poland. We conclude that although Hungary remains faithful to the neoliberal economic orthodoxy so far with illiberal political forces merely camouflaging its true essence due to political and utilitarian reasons, the post-2015 government in Poland managed to move its economic model closer to a more developmental modus operandi.

In this paper, I empirically examine the relationship between telecommunications and economic growth. I use data for developing and developed countries for 2000–2016. My conclusion is that mobile penetration has a positive and significant impact on economic growth, where a onepercent increase in mobile penetration results in an increase in economic growth of 1.0–2.6 percent. Regulatory institutions have a positive and significant impact on penetration in developing countries; in developed countries, the impact of regulatory institutions is positive but not significant.

The article examines the relationships between selected gender and economic indicators of chosen countries (OECD countries, EU countries, associate members of OECD and high-income countries) and evaluates situation of the Czech Republic in international comparison. Gender indicator values for the Czech Republic were compared both within the time period (years 2006-2014) and with summary statistics for the EU countries. Further, based on four subindexes of the global gender gap index (GGI), similarity of the Czech Republic and other countries in time comparison were expressed. Multidimensional scaling and cluster analysis were applied for graphical expression of relationships of the high-income and EU countries. Positive correlation of indicators reflecting women participation in political and economic life was identifi ed in the OECD countries. Moreover, gender equality and the competitiveness, sustainability of economies and GDP per capita positively correlate in the group of these countries. Gender equality in the Czech Republic is very weak in an international comparison and demonstrates a deteriorating trend.

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.

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.

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.