P22 - Socialist Systems and Transitional Economies: PricesNávrat zpět

The article examines the factors of convergence of price levels among European countries, even regarding the time lag since previous research on the Czech Republic's accession to the EU. In addition to the factors included in the Balassa-Samuelson model, it has been found that certain structural factors contribute to price convergence, as could be expected especially in the transition economies after accessing the EU in 2004. It has also been confirmed that in the context of liberalization of the economies in Central and Eastern Europe, the enlarged internal market and harmonization from the EU level, it is not possible to clearly distinguish between "tradable" and "non-tradable" sectors. Contrary to expectations, however, it has been questioned that due to price deregulation in the Czech Republic, reduced price deviation would be reported for goods with regulated prices so the threat of Baumol's disease is still seen in this context. It is also relevant for the context of European integration that it is possible to doubt the risk of price jumps in the Czech Republic after the adoption of the euro, regarding the examination of the price convergence factors.

This paper deals with the absolute version of purchasing power parity and its applicability in transition economies. The aim of the paper is to identify and quantify deviations between nominal exchange rates and rates based on purchasing power parity. The paper specifies and analyses the theoretical causes of those deviations and focuses on the impact of prices of non-tradable goods on purchasing power parity. Parity exchange rates based on prices of tradable-only goods are then calculated for 20 transition economies. Panel regression instruments are used to analyse the influence of selected macroeconomic and institutional variables on deviations between nominal exchange rates and rates based on purchasing power parity.

The main goal of this paper is to analyse the process of price convergence (beta and sigma convergence) in new EU Member States towards the Euro area (EU-12). The theoretical part of the paper consists of a brief overview of methods that are employed for analyses of the process of price convergence. Both main concepts - sigma and beta convergence are covered including various tests that are described in greater detail. The empirical part of the paper is focused on testing hypotheses of sigma and beta convergence using macroeconomic data (comparative price levels for GDP) for twelve new EU Member States in the period 1995-2008. Various econometrical methods (OLS, 2SLS, and two dynamic methods) are utilised in order to deal with problems associated with this particular type of analyses. Our results show that both hypotheses (sigma and beta price convergence) do hold for the new EU Member States. The estimated time to close a half of the remaining gap of comparative price levels towards the Euro area average for the group consisting of all new EU Member States (NMS12) is estimated to be approximately 9.6 years, for the group of more advanced countries (NMS5) is approximately 7.1 years.

On the background of current global mortgage crisis the article discusses the housing market theory and particularly the methods and indicators used for the evaluation of long-term sustainability of house price trends. The authors provide the time series of such indicators for selected OECD countries, critically examine the past research studies evaluating pre-crisis house price development and argue that house price falls present in many developed countries are more the causes than the consequences of mortgage crisis. The change in house price trends in 2007 in many developed countries could be thus interpreted as the result of the previous record house price growth, often labeled as a price bubble. In view of this hypothesis the authors try to assess the sustainability of house price development in the Czech Republic, using several indicators, error correction models and different data sources. The methods for construction of reliable house price indices are also discussed here. The results show that house prices in the Czech Republic could be above their "equilibrium" levels at the end of 2007 but this deviation was far lower than in countries like UK, Spain, Netherlands or Ireland.