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Both economic theory on consumption function and historical empirical evidence from advanced market economies prove that private consumption is less volatile during the cycle than GDP or fixed capital investment. The national accounts data for the Czech Republic in 1990-1998 show the opposite: the household consumption was more volatile than the GDP. This peculiarity of the Czech households behaviour has several reasons:significant increase in savings rate as a reaction to higher insecurity, rise of unemployment etc.the catch-up with living standards in neighbouring countries-members of EU. As a first step in this catch-up, households are accumulating wealth in form of savings;pilling-up some items of wealth;changing consumer behaviour as a reaction to price liberalization and relatively speedy changing price relations.
It is highly probable that the volatility of private consumption will be higher than the volatility of GDP also in the next future.

Paul de Grauwe and Paul Krugman are two of the most significant economists who are interested in single currency influence on the economic cycle. In our paper we try to show that a complex view of argumentation of both the economists i.e. (from both the views of the individual countries and the view of individual regions) reveals that the existence of the currency union will lead to the most frequent asymmetrical shocks in the currency union mentioned. To limit ourselves only to the view of the individual countries, as the authors mentioned do, will lead to unacceptable simplification of the whole problem. Further we try finding out if after introducing single currency, economic cycles became synchronized in the eurozone. For the determination of the harmony between economic cycles use is made of the real GDP in the individual countries of the eurozone. We deal with time series from the years 1994 to 2005. With the help of the correlation coefficients we finding out if the rise of real GDP the individual countries of eurozone developed similarly as after rise of the eurozone then before. We come to the conclusion that on the basis of the result achieved it will not be possible to speak about grater harmonization of economic cycle after the rise of the eurozone. But with a view of short time series and a short period of accommodation of economies this result is in no way unacceptable.

Almost all of us sometimes voluntarily give up some scarce resources to make someone else better. Not only the amount of resources used for such purposes, but also other wider concerns (implications for private and government sector) have drawn the attention of economists in recent decades. In this paper I develop a theoretical framework underlying such activities, which can be in short termed as "altruistic". To do so, I first explain the notion of "altruism", as can be found in the works of Adam Smith, Gary Becker and Ludwig von Mises. On these grounds, we can say that by voluntary altruistic transactions the utility of both sides of the transaction has been increased. The main differences between the market and non-market sectors are described and the concept of "social entrepreneurship" is developed. The analysis is concluded by application of this theoretical framework to the case of altruism as a "public good".

The paper is dealing with the problem of so called "municipal" firms. I define them as the firms, which are based on commercial law but are owned by municipalities. The municipal firms are often used for providing services in the Czech Republic. However, this type of firm is connected with a lot of problems (transparency, effectiveness). The paper is divided into five main parts. I discuss the theoretical problems, which are connected with the municipal firm in the first part. I especially focus on the question, what is the main factor of increasing the effectiveness - if the change in the ownership or the competition pressure. The second part describes the current situation in the Czech Republic and here I try to estimate, which part of public procurement market on the municipal level is controlled through the municipal firms. In the third part I have developed the model, which shows that for the municipalities can be reasonable to contract the municipal firm despite it is more expensive that classical outsourcing. Next part is dealing with the economical effectiveness of the municipal firms. The result of empirical research shows, that this type of the firm is the most expensive solution in the providing services on the municipal level. The last part, conclusion, summarise the main results and formulate the policy recommendations, which could increase the effectiveness of the public sector as well as of the economy as a whole.

This paper summarizes the major events in the recent history of modelling human decisions under risk. After presenting the basics of expected utility theory, the key pieces of evidence are described which showed that under certain circumstances, this theory is not descriptively valid. The most promising alternative, cumulative prospect theory, is then presented in some detail, including a brief discussion of how it avoids violations of stochastic dominance and how it explains the above evidence. It is pointed out that there are other empirical observations which cannot be explained by cumulative prospect theory either, so that a model which would explain all evidence on decisions under risk is still to be found.

Czech laws on Deposit Guarantee-Schemes are characterized. It is described history of rise of the Czech Deposit Insurance Fund and dynamics of its basic characteristics. Czech deposit guarantee system is compared with the European system and with the European Directive on Deposit Guarantee-Schemes. It is calculated the effective rate of "taxation" by the compulsory payment to Czech Deposit Insurance Fund, which is (because of the very low interest rates in the Czech Republic) extremely high (about 30-40 %). Recommendations: 1) discard the audited firms from the Deposit Guarantee-Scheme and 2) decrease the amounts compulsorily paid by banks for deposits of small clients (deposits of households).

Learning is a subject of intense research in economics. We present persuasive evidence that learning took place among uninformed heterogeneous agents during a large-scale naturally-occurring set of auctions. Empirical study employs a unique bidding data set of 5000 individual investors that placed their bids in the voucher scheme that in terms of size, incentives, and variation is one of the largest experiments ever conducted. To detect and quantify learning we develop new measures of individual performance during the bidding process on the artificial stock market where prices of goods vary over successive stages of bidding on the basis of supply and demand.

The author raises doubts about a sense of "catching up" and an idolatry of HDP's growth. His argumentation is based on the longitudinal international research of the link "economics-happiness" at the frontier between economics and psychology. The rationality of economic science "more is better" is bounded by environmental and relational externalities: it is just what a "theory of happiness" argues against a "joyless economy". The family-household is an old istitution esp. loosing in a competition with the market economy. The article stresses a role of "relational goods" explaining why more is sometimes less. The loss of happiness in market democracies (R.Lane) is the reason for a crisis of economic paradigm; it has a chance to be healed by a switch from the principle of imperial equivalence to a reciprocity (economy of communion). Implications for economic policies based on a "science of happiness" reverse the link "economics-happiness" making from HDP growth a by-product of our effort for happiness.

Efficient Market Hypothesis has dominated the field of research on capital market theory. It postulates that asset prices are rationally connected to economic realities and always incorporate all the information available to the market. A huge quantity of theoretical works around the world have been devoted to testing this hypothesis. In this paper, the weak form of the Efficient Market Hypothesis is tested on data from the Czech stock market of period 1996-2006. The tested hypothesis is verified by both linear and nonlinear methods. Those linear are: Box-Pierce test, variance ratio test, test of sequences and reversals nad Hurst exponent. The nonlinear ones are: White test, Engle test, Hinich test and BDS test. These tests are carried on stock returns time series of Czech stock market index PX and individual stocks as Telefónica, Komerční banka and ČEZ and series with randomly changed order from original series. The results of the testing indicate that returns, when randomly permutated, are independent, hence they follow a random walk. But it is impossible to maintain it in case of original returns series.It implies that returns of either Czech stock market index or its stocks are not independent and do not follow a random walk.

The paper deals with yield curve construction methods using coupon bonds in Czech bond market. Generally, there are more possibilities how to approach this problem: bootstraping, splines, parametric functions. Due to the lack of tradable public bonds and due to the fact that existing bonds do not pay coupons at the same date of the year, traditional bootstraping method could not be applied under Czech market conditions. It seemed appropriate to use parametrical solutions to the yield curve issue and minimise the sum of squares of differences between market and theoretical prices. There were presented three function types which arrived to similar results in the paper. The authors also used Svensson parametric function to demonstrate the possible use of parametric yield curve construction. It was shown that, after duration adjustment, it can indicate shift in market expectations regarding future short term interest rate moves, and thus regarding future monetary policy, pretty well.

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.

Conventional theory explains moral hazard as a consequence of information asymmetries. The present paper proposes an alternative approach. We argue that information asymmetries are just one among several causes of moral hazard and that they entail negative consequences for third parties only accidentally. By contrast, moral hazard also results from government interventionism. And in this case negative consequences are systematic and do result even in the absence of information asymmetries.

We survey the state-of-the-art methods of how to rank economic departments and economists on the basis of 14 studies conducted in years 1995-2005. We cover a diversity of rankings: U.S., worldwide, E.U., those of developed academic nations and those of developing academic nations. Each method rests on a specific goal: while some identify top-notch research, others reflect quantity and thus are able to discriminate down the ranking. We also document novelties in ranking-construction such as sensitivity analysis, parallel rankings, instant updates and journal weights based on impact-adjusted impact factors.

The key question of the presented thesis is what precisely economic nationalism means. The author uses the situation in Czechoslovakia between the two world wars as a background of her examination of both its dimensions, economic and nationalistic. She points out several problems arising from the use of the term. She also answers the question to what extent economic nationalism is economic and to what extent it is national. Following her empiric study of the effects of nationalism on economic relations, the author redefines the existing conception and suggests that emphasis be put on the terms economic emancipation and above all national economism. The latter expression describes non-standard economic relations - politically motivated creation of highly deformed market environments characterised by restricted entry opportunities, with the nationality of capital holders being the principal disqualifying condition.

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.

The study examines the changes of the Central Eastern European region first in the context of world history. It confirms by comparative historical analyses that the transformation was indeed unique. This has been the only total transformation that took place peacefully, without violence, and at the same time astonishingly fast, in the main direction of the economic and the political changes of Western civilization. From that perspective it is an exceptional success story. However, from the perspective of everyday life, the result is different. Deep economic troubles are experienced by a considerable portion of the population. The perception of losses is intensified by various cognitive problems. Based on the experience of today's generation, evaluating the change as an unequivocal success would be unwarranted. Both approaches are justified: it would be wrong to blend the two and to weigh them by the same scale.

The study examines the resources of economic growth in the Czech Republic in the course of years from 1992 until 2004. Using the growth accounting method, it analyses the contribution of individual factors to economic growth. Special attention is given to total factor productivity, which, apart from labour, also includes a fixed capital stock at constant prices. Compared to the previous period, the acceleration of the growth of total factor productivity decisively contributed to the speeding up of economic growth in the years 1999-2004. Furthermore, the study examines growth resources in six national economy sectors and analyses the contribution of individual sectors to the growth of macroeconomic total factor productivity. The analysis has shown that namely industry, transport, communications, and other services were involved in the speeding up of the growth of macroeconomic total factor productivity. A comparison of the dynamics of total factor productivity of the CR and EU-15 at the macroeconomic level has shown that while in 1992-1998, the growth of total factor productivity was slower in the CR, after 1998, it was faster (in 1999-2004, the average annual growth rate in the CR was 2.2% and 0.6% in EU-15). In the years 1996-2004, for which revised data are available for the CR, the average annual growth rate of total factor productivity in the CR was 1.5%, compared to 0.7% in EU-15. The analysis indicated that since 1999, total factor productivity in the CR has been converging to the EU-15 level, accelerating in 2003 and 2004, thereby achieving 63% of the EU-15 level in 2004.

We evaluate the economic impact of Summer Olympic Games (SOG) potentially organized by the City of Prague in 2016. We focus on the so called Modified Northern Variant of the Games proposed by the PriceWaterhouseCoopers-Czech Republic. The first step in our analysis is quantification of a primary impact of the Games, which includes investments in infrastructure, expenditures of the SOG Organizing Committee, tourist expenditures and exports. The primary impact induces an increase in overall sales in the Czech economy, which is analyzed using input-output tables. Our respective estimates are 27.54 billion CZK for the primary impact and 55.44 billion CZK for the secondary impact.

This paper aims at constructing a model of a small open economy of the Slovak Republic. In essence, the model represents a synthesis of already published modifications of the Mundell - Fleming type of models, describing the market of goods and services in interaction with the money market and paying special attention to foreign trade. As the model construction is aimed at providing a tool for qualitative analyses, the model equations are specified in linear functional form - in order to obtain analytic solutions. Theoretical analyses are confronted with the empirical verification of the constructed model. Not surprisingly, historical experience represented by data on Slovak economy in transition reveals that complex structure of the model degenerates to a much simpler form in early years of transition. It is understood and verified that several economic principles guiding market economies do not apply in transition (e.g. investments evolve independently of interest rates).

This study is devoted to analysis of different aspects of world oil market development and its role in further growth of individual national economies, especially in connection with the ever intensifying globalization process. The study shows individual aspects and parts of the oil market, be it production and consumption of crude oil, its territorial dislocation, including EU, and also an analysis of the impact that has the development of oil consumption on economical results of individual national economies. In the first place it analyses the connections with the growth of competition ability of companies. Further research is devoted to the establishment of crude oil price and to the most important aspects on which depends the price creation process. Supply and demand factors are also analyzed. The study comes to a conclusion that the biggest obstacle in using the crude oil will not be its availability, at least in the short run, but the ever fast increasing price. This high price will enable the use of oil only to such companies and countries that will be able to implement the oil in the production process with very high efficiency. Such conditions satisfy only products and services that are based on unique technical and scientific know-how, with high added value, or in such areas of national economies where the use of oil is unenviable.

This paper examines Friedrich von Wieser's theory of the socialist or communist planned economy. It identifies in Wieser's Law of Power (1926) the abiding interests that stimulated his attempt to use Carl Menger's theory of subjective value to present a theory of socialism, first in Natural Value (1889) and later in Social Economics (1914). It discusses his conception of a unit of marginal utility, or "natural value," as the basic unit of economic calculation in his imputation theory and his use of that building block in his consequent theory of production and distribution in a socialist economy. Lastly, it argues that Wieser's theory attempts to socially objectify subjective values and is actually a return to a pre-Mengerian supply-side, real cost approach to the theory of value. Wieser's theory of economic calculation under socialism thus represents a failure to understand the radical contribution of Menger's value theory to the theory of exchange.

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.

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 paper is concerned with macroeconomic aspects of fertility. Second section starts by outlining the role of population in the history of economic thought, and continues by examining the theory of demographic transition. The fourth section explores the relation between population and economic growth, distinguishing theoretical approaches and empirical research. The fifth section examines the relation between the birth rate and death rate. The sixth section makes insights into the interdependence of fertility and business cycles. The seventh section takes the fiscal effects of population development into account.

Focus is made on the historical circumstances of the arising of the Czech capital markets. Transformation from state-owned enterprises to private businesses and corporations, via coupon (or voucher) privatization, i.e. distribution of shares to a large number of small shareholders, required a tailor made capital markets. Two competitive project were launched: Prague Stock Exchange and RM-System. As investment funds collected investment vouchers and become important shareholders, large packages of shares were formed and new majority shareholders stepped into their rights and powers. The transfer of ownership finished, public markets lost their broad clientele and had to reduce number of titles traded substancially. Todays capital markets in the Czech Republic are mostly OTC markets, with some contribution of public markets (RMS and PSE), of which more important is the Prague Stock Exchange. The latter is still not fully functional - there has not been any important public offering so far.

The question of public finance stability and the economic stability are widely discussed topics, not only in transitive and emerging economies, but also in developed countries. The aim of this paper is to find out and measure connections between the fiscal policy development and external economic stability. This research is based on a quantification of the budget deficit and public debt impact onto exchange rate in chosen countries that have recently experienced some kind of financial crisis. External competitiveness is also assessed by the fiscal policy impact onto current account balance. It is necessary to point out that monetary variables are going to be probably more important but the fiscal sector cannot be omitted. Especially nowadays when there is an integration process in EMU going on, where the fiscal policy is going to play important role in the economic stability.

In this short paper there will be introduced the stream of economic theory labelled as the New Economic Geography (NEG) and derived the core-periphery model, a flagship of the NEG. It is a model of two regions with imperfect competition and increasing returns to scale, where some properties of the model contrast certain features of basic neoclassic models of regional economics and international trade. The role of monopolistic competition and increasing returns to scale opens the possibility of highly nonlinear effects of production location with respect to barriers of trade. I analyze main mechanisms of the model and discuss the relevance of the NEG for economic policy in the context of European economic integration.

The paper deals with equilibrium real price of a fixed asset in a growing economy. The supply of this kind of assets is by assumption fixed. Land or unique works of art are probably their closest empirical counterparts. Economic growth is manifested by a systematic increase in the real price of services provided by the asset. The rate of growth of their price depends on price and income elasticities of the demand for the services. Given these elasticities, an equilibrium price of the asset can expressed using the present value model. The equilibrium real asset price increases in time in the same rate as the real price of the services. The asset price can be highly sensitive to changes in values of the permanent rate of economic growth and real interest rate. Transitory changes in economic growth, however, seem to have only minor effect on the equilibrium price.

The article is concerned with analysis of independence of central banks of the EU Member States within the framework of the ESCB, as well as independence and responsibility of the ECB, and suggests an alternative institutional embodiment of its position, reflecting the specific framework of the EMU. The system of selection of members of the ECB's Executive Board blurs a real collective responsibility towards Member States, which opens possibilities for nontransparent lobbyism. Modified system is suggested so that national bank's governors have a symbolic relationship to the political representation, i.e. that they reflect a national economic policy in some way, without being bound and restricted by its formation whatsoever.

The study deals with analysis of economic reforms in South-Eastern Asia affected by financial crisis in 1990s. Authors have stressed, that it was a result of internal and external influences, which caused not only the fatal destabilization of main economic fundaments of affected countries and they have had consequences on international business authority of these countries. It was approved, that the high rate of internal interdependence of countries affected by crisis and also the interdependence on Japan, could be considered as basic, but hidden accelerators of crisis. Nevertheless using of important reforming interventions eliminated most of the economic implications of it the risks of re-outbreak of the crisis have been decreased to certain level only. For prevention against its expansion are responsible all "attended" subjects and equally they have to share on realization of reforming economic programs for its long-term elimination.