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In the contemporary times, with the major conflict of the Russo-Ukrainian War, the global economies are facing several challenges and disputes in various economic, energy, and financial sectors. Still, policymakers and scholars are concerned about exploring factors affecting greener energy. The present study examines the impact of research and development (R&D) budgets, financial globalization and socio-economic conditions on greener energy adoption. Besides, this study considers the role of internal and external conflicts on greener energy adoption in the "Emerging Seven" economies during the period 1990-2020. Using various diagnostic and cointegration tests, the results revealed the presence of cross-sectional dependence, heterogeneous slopes and a long-run equilibrium relationship. This study employes panel quantile regression and finds that R&D budgets, financial globalization, socio-economic conditions and internal and external conflicts significantly promote greener energy adoption. Still, the influence of socio-economic conditions is inconsistent across quantiles. Using the autoregressive distributed lag model as a robustness measure, this study validates the positive impact of variables on greener energy adoption, except external conflicts. However, all the variables adversely influence greener energy adoption in the short run. The empirical results also validate bidirectional and unidirectional causal associations of the variables. Following the results, this study recommends further enhancement in the R&D budgets and financial globalization and limiting conflicts in emerging economies.

This study investigates the effects of information and communications technology (ICT) on economic growth. Our study focuses on 16 MENA countries from 1995 to 2018. We examine not only the impact of ICT usage and investment but also the moderating role of the quality of national institutions shaping this relationship. The results obtained using the panel ARDL method suggest that while ICT usage drives economic growth, ICT investment alone has a limited effect. Moreover, our research confirms that higher-quality institutions boost the impact of ICT use and investment on economic expansion. These results are essential for policymakers who want to boost ICT's contribution to GDP growth.

This study aims to examine whether the price exuberances in the prices of four main precious metals stem from their status as safe havens against economic uncertainty (proxied by the US EPU and Chinese CEPU indices). The findings reveal that the effects of both uncertainty measures on gold and silver prices, notably more pronounced in the case of the CEPU, persist for longer, particularly during the surge of uncertainty triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic. This finding highlights the safe-haven status of these metals, with a notable dominance of the CEPU in influencing the price dynamics of the gold and silver markets. However, as the observed price exuberances in gold and silver more closely align with periods of supply and demand imbalances, it is less likely that these movements are driven solely by investors seeking safe havens during times of uncertainty. Furthermore, the effect of the EPU on platinum and palladium prices is particularly pronounced during economic turmoil, whereas the effect of the CEPU is confined to the periods that coincide with price exuberances in these metals. In sum, this paper argues that the safe-haven status of individual precious metals is dynamic, and that price exuberances do not consistently originate from their safe-haven status.

Remittances are a major source of income for many countries. In this regard, the importance of remittances to national economies is increasing. Altruism and self-interest are the two main motivations for remitting. Economic policy uncertainty may determine which of these motivations is more prevalent. Therefore, the aim of this study is to examine the altruism and self-interest hypotheses. In this study, unbalanced panel data are used to analyse the remittances received by the top 10 countries. These countries account for half of all remittances in the world. Due to cross-sectional dependence in our dataset, we need to use methods with robust standard errors. The results of four different estimation methods used for panel data are consistent. Economic policy uncertainty has a negative impact, whereas economic growth has a positive impact on remittances. These findings indicate that people who send remittances act out of self-interest. Trade openness contributes to an increase in remittances. Furthermore, the wealth effect shaped by self-interest leads to an increase in remittances from workers.

Precarious work is characterized by flexible and nonstandard employment relations. It affects people's economic relationships and participation in social and political movements. Based on the data of the Hong Kong Panel Study of Social Dynamics 2015, this paper explores the influence mechanism of precarious work on political participation with political attitudes as a mediator. The results show that, for precarious workers, there is a significantly lower probability of institutionalized political participation and a higher probability of non-institutionalized political participation. Also, the young precarious workers have a lower probability of institutionalized political participation and a higher probability of non-institutionalized political participation than the middle-aged and the elderly. Political attitudes are a significant mediator between precarious work and political participation.

This study investigates the relationship between economic complexity, globalization, energy consumption patterns and CO₂ emissions in 12 energy-importing emerging economies from 1996 to 2020. Employing panel data analysis, the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model is utilized. The findings reveal a U-shaped relationship between economic complexity and air pollution, supporting the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) theory. Renewable energy demonstrates a significant ability to reduce CO₂ emissions over the long term, while fossil fuel use exacerbates environmental degradation. Economic globalization is associated with increased CO₂ emissions, contradicting expectations. The short-term results align with the long-term findings, highlighting significant country-specific variations. The policy implications highlight the necessity of promoting renewable energy adoption and reducing reliance on fossil fuels. This research contributes to EKC literature by focusing on energy-importing economies, emphasizing the importance of multidimensional analyses in environmental policy formulation. The study underscores the critical role of renewable energy investment and carbon pricing strategies in mitigating environmental degradation while encouraging sustainable development pathways.

Socio-economic and political systems are becoming increasingly unstable under the influence of various recent global events. The resilience of territorial units and their ability to respond to new challenges is significantly different in both the international and national context. In the presented work, we try to quantify the level of socio-economic resilience of Slovak regions and districts, while evaluating its state in time sections (2010 and 2020) capturing two crisis periods: the global economic and financial crisis and the onset of the crisis associated with the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. We use a set of indicators that reflect the demographic, economic, knowledge society, social and public-administrative context of this resilience, which define the degree of preparedness for (ability to react to) real or potential socio-economic crises. For this purpose, a multi-criteria evaluation method is used, quantifying the level of socio-economic resilience of the analysed territorial units. They are divided into five groups using the clustering method (with very high, high, medium, low and very low levels of resistance). It turns out that during the study decade there were no major changes in the socio-economic resilience of individual regions and districts and that territorial units concentrated in the western half of Slovakia and in the hinterland of large cities are much better prepared for socio-economic crises, in contrast to the limited ability to react in peripheral areas located at the south of central Slovakia and the east of the country.

This study investigates whether the response of stock returns to economic policy uncertainty de- pends on the level of government size in the economy. Although there is a consensus in the liter- ature that stock markets react negatively to policy-related uncertainties, the factors that determine the magnitude of this effect have been ignored. This study is the first to demonstrate that the magnitude of this effect depends on the size of the government in the economy. In the study, data for the period 1997Q1-2021Q4 pertaining to 18 countries are used. According to results of fixed-effects estimations with Driscoll-Kraay robust standard errors, economic policy uncer- tainty affects stock returns negatively. In addition, the coefficient of interaction term formed by the variables of policy uncertainty and government size is also negative and significant. These results indicate that the negative response of stock returns to policy uncertainty grows as gov- ernment size increases. The sensitivity analysis results show that the findings are not sensitive to the estimations made by alternative approaches and are therefore robust. The findings of the study contain important implications for policymakers. Investors can also benefit from the results at the point of international asset allocation against future policy-related uncertainties.

The literature on economic uncertainty has focused on the effects of uncertainty on the formal economy. Still, it has not addressed a relationship between uncertainty and shadow economy until now, to our knowledge. Therefore, this paper analyses the dynamic relationship between economic policy uncertainty and the shadow economy using panel vector autoregression estimates exploiting a dataset for 21 countries from 1997-2018. The impulse response analyses in this context reveal a mutual interaction of policy uncertainty and the shadow economy. In this respect, not only is the shadow economy found to respond to shocks in economic policy uncertainty, but also the uncertainty in economic policy appears to increase by a response to shocks in the shadow economy, implying a feedback effect from informal economic activities towards uncertainty. This effect is also thought to be responsible for aggravating negative influences of uncertainty on formal economic activities.

This critical review explains the negative impact of the euro on the Spanish economy and its distortion in the period from 2002 to 2014. In this first cycle within the euro area, there was a financial boom, without voluntary savings, which generated a lack of coordination in the economic process and structure. The result was a bubble of overconsumption and malinvestments, which burst with a deflation of capital and wages, and a switch from construction industry to tourism services as Spain's main economic sector. The economic distortion was such that it delayed the exit from the Great Recession of 2008 and the European Financial Crisis of 2010 until 2014, with a recovery and the beginning of a new cycle. The Austrian business cycle theory and capital-based macroeconomics are used to support and illustrate the case study, with quantitative techniques: not to predict, but only to show the real development and to facilitate dialogue with other economic schools.

The paper is a thematic analysis of 44 empirical studies that applied frontier techniques in analysing efficiency of Czech and Slovak commercial banks. The 44 journal articles were extracted from the Web of Science database and classified by prevailing research interest, methodological configuration and main findings in order to determine the state of the art and provide a starting point for further research in this subject area. The main research agenda of efficiency studies focused on Czech and Slovak banking was classified into eight relatively compact research interests ranging historically from effects of transition reforms to effects of asset and income diversification. The first identifiable wave of research was represented by foreign authors who examined issues of economic transition and its impact on performance of banks, and lasted until about 2013, when the baton passed into the hands of authors of Czecho-Slovak provenience.

The present study aims to indicate whether structural transformation has provided enhancement for the disadvantaged parts of society in terms of gender or whether it has been implemented at the expense of social inequalities in 10 BEM (Big Emerging Market) economies (Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Poland, South Africa, South Korea and Türkiye) in the period 1998–2019. The study also aims to understand the dynamics behind the connection between structural transformation and unemployment by comparing the results from each country. This paper also focuses on the effects of economic complexity on the breakdown of unemployment rates including female, male, youth female and youth male unemployment divisions. In the study, firstly, cross-sectional dependence is tested for all variables; secondly, the CADF test as a second-generation unit root test is applied; thirdly, the parameter constancy test is applied to each model, and then the models are estimated using the panel regression method with random coefficients. The study reveals a geographical distinction between the ten economies. Economic complexity significantly affects all types of unemployment in Poland, but it does not affect unemployment in Asian and African countries. The other result of the study is that even in Poland, the decreasing effect of ECI (Economic Complexity Index) on unemployment is different for women and men.

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.

The aim of this article is to find out how the state and EU subsidies paid in the Czech Republic since 2000 have been translated into the territory. The methodology is based on obtaining a continuous time series of data on subsidies for the smallest possible territorial level and comparing the impacts on territorial cohesion, with particular reference to structurally affected regions on the one hand and the areas of Integrated Territorial Investments (ITI) and Integrated Plan for the Development of the Territory (IPRÚ) on the other. The results show that the share of subsidies has increased steadily over the period under review. Per capita funding does not differ much between regions and no significant difference was found between assistance to structurally affected regions and the rest of the territory in the different support themes, which are mainly transport infrastructure, agriculture and education.

The article investigates potential output and output gap modelling and estimation in the Czech Republic in the period 1996-2021, including the global recession from 2008 and the recent crisis caused by government measures against the COVID-19 pandemic. The unobserved components (UC) methodology is applied, coefficients are estimated by the maximum likelihood method, unobserved variables are estimated using the Kalman filter. The standard UC model is modified in an original way to nonlinearly describe the hysteresis effect by allowing the output gap to have an asymmetrical influence on potential output. The econometric model verification proved significance of the hysteresis effect and showed a substantial inertia of negative consequences of both crises. Predictions of an impact of the War in Ukraine on the gap were also calculated and the uncertainty associated with these predictions was quantified.

The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the long-term effects of money supply, economic growth, interest rate, exchange rate, domestic credits and the oil price on inflation in Haiti, Sudan, Türkiye and Zambia, which are among the world’s highest-inflation countries according to 2021 data. For this purpose, a panel cointegration approach is applied where fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS) and dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS) techniques are employed to explore the long-term effects with the help of annual data for the period 2000–2019. Also, the Dumitrescu and Hurlin panel causality test is used to determine whether there is a causality from these variables to inflation. The empirical findings show that there is a long-term relationship among these variables for the whole panel. The consequences from the FMOLS and DOLS estimates show that (i) money supply has a positive effect on inflation, (ii) economic growth affects inflation positively, (iii) an in-crease in the exchange rate causes inflation to rise, (iv) the oil price affects inflation positively, (v) interest rate affects inflation negatively, and (vi) domestic credits have a negative effect on inflation. In this context, we find that the exchange rate is the variable that has the greatest effect on inflation. Moreover, the findings of the panel causality test suggest that there is a causal relationshipfrom money supply, economic growth, exchange rate and the oil price to inflation.

The present work is based on a hypothesis that the Czech economy was showing signs of economic deceleration and a potential slump into deeper growth problems way before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, i.e., at least in the year 2019. However, the present text does not intend to thoroughly confirm this hypothesis because in order to do so, a longer timeline of key economic indicators needs to be analysed. What it does present is at least a partial argumentation supporting the abovementioned hypothesis and some basic calculations. It proposes two ways towards its confirmation. The first one is a comparative analysis of individual - especially European - economies' response to subsiding external influences, i.e., to the weakening of the effects of the pandemic on the economy. The second way is at least a partial analysis of key macroeconomic indicators from the time before and during the pandemic, with an emphasis on detectable divergences in the development. The conclusion of our research is the finding that as early as in 2019, the Czech economy was showing signs of imminent deceleration of growth, which would probably have turned into stagnation and possibly a certain decrease in economic activity. The conclusions indicate that the reason behind such development was a massive but in fact little effective investment activity in the Czech economic environment, which is historically related to the structure of the economy and to the position of the Czech industrial sector in supplier relationships. Two related phenomena arise from that: firstly, a relatively low labour productivity, with producers domiciled in the Czech Republic reaching quite a low volume of value added, and secondly a massive capital outflow in the form of profits paid to parent companies abroad. The final part of the paper outlines some potentially effective steps which might lead - under favourable circumstances - to restructuring processes in the Czech economy. Due to the date of finishing the research, the paper does not include the consequences of the War in Ukraine.

This study is aimed to examine the relationship causality between energy security and growth for a total of 74 countries including 39 high-income countries, 23 upper-middle-income countries, and 12 lower-middle-income countries by using the Kónya´s (Kónya, 2006) Bootstrap Panel Granger Causality approach. According to the results obtained, it has been determined unidirectional causality relationship from energy security risk level to GDP for 14 countries and from GDP to energy security risk level for 20 countries. On the other hand, there is bidirectional causality between energy security risk level and GDP for 22 countries, while there is no causality between energy security risk level and GDP for 18 countries. Moreover, the results are also demonstrated that the rate of detection of a causality relationship increases as one moves from high-income group countries to lower-middle-income group countries. The results, which evidence the existence of a relationship between energy security risk level and economic growth for many countries, reveal the importance of the policies to be implemented in this direction.

This paper deals with the personal income tax gap in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. One of its sections specifically addresses the relation between the tax gap and various forms of tax evasion concerning the personal income tax, subsequently setting them in the context of its calculation. The key implication of this paper is the estimation and comparison of the personal income tax gap between the Czech Republic and Slovakia using the income method, broken down into specific types of tax evasion, namely (i) unreported income subject to payroll taxes, (ii) misreported tax base by self-employed individuals (i.e., sole proprietors of unincorporated businesses), and (iii) hidden employment. In line with the existing academic literature, a greater magnitude of the tax gap was found for income reported by self-employed persons (i.e., sole proprietors of unincorporated businesses) than for persons with income from dependent activities (i.e., employment and similar legal concepts).

Promotion of foreign investment is a well-established practice in many countries with an inadequate capital base, and the benefits of this type of investment, particularly in the form of positive spillover effects on the domestic economic environment, have been repeatedly confirmed by numerous studies. However, still not enough attention is paid to the definition and actual content of the word "foreign" in the phrase foreign direct investment in the domestic environment. This methodological essay attempts to fill that deficit and, using the concepts of foreign and domestic roundabout investment, to propose a categorization of capital investment which would take into account both the actual origin of the investor and the actual place of production or provision of the service, as well as the perception of the product or service as foreign or local. The resulting categorisation matrix is then populated with concrete examples from Czech practice and commented on in detail. The matrix can close the gap in the current Czech literature, which concentrates on the terms "foreign" or "domestic" more than on their very substance and their material meaning.

The purpose of this article is to evaluate the subjective impact of provided care on the quality of life of informal carers, to assess the institution of long-term carer's allowances from the viewpoint of informal carers, and to identify additional social policy tools that could, in carers' opinion, improve the provision of care. Our research shows that provision of care leads to a reduced quality of life for a significant number of respondents. It is confirmed that respondents' welfare is negatively influenced by a lack of funding and weak development of social services. It is not proven that the long-term carer's allowance is a comprehensible benefit increasing the carers' quality of life providing enough motivation to care. This sickness insurance benefit is intended primarily for a temporary lack of self-sufficiency, with the prospect of future improvement. Long-term or permanent lack of self-sufficiency and the related care must be secured by social support and assistance mechanisms, including respite care, and ought to be funded outside the framework of sickness insurance.

The paper employs a form of the panel ARDL-based error correction model (ECM) to explore the short-run and long-run relationship between public debt (and certain macroeconomic variables) and economic growth in Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries. It covers the period 2006Q1−2018Q4. The results indicate both short-term and long-term causality (except for financial development), though the marginal effects are variable-specific. There is a negative effect of public debt, interest rate and exchange rate on growth, whereas the saving rate, trade openness, financial development, fixed capital formation and population growth contribute to economic development. Thus, a responsible and saving-oriented fiscal policy, coupled with higher private sector investment, an export-oriented private sector and undervalued real exchange rate, and population growth would contribute to economic development in CEE countries.

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.

This paper provides a framework for conducting simulations and stress testing in the non-financial corporate sector. It relies on national accounting and uses a set of input-output tables to track the propagation of shocks between parts of the sector while staying entirely consistent with the big picture framed by the core forecasting model and the underlying scenario. The simulation framework allows standard macroeconomic developments to be captured, but one-off measures such as government wage and salary compensation and loan moratoria can also be easily implemented. The main output of the simulation is a set of industry-level performance and profitability variables. These variables can be used for various types of analysis, such as credit risk modelling and profitability and liquidity analysis. Some of them - such as forecasting portfolio default rates - are shown in the paper. The historical default rate estimates obtained are accurate and economically sensible for most industries and exhibit high reliability even under severe economic conditions. Given its national accounting framework and its level of detail, the model can be used to support decision-making processes and to evaluate the effects of existing or planned economic policies. Two different scenarios are considered to demonstrate the benefits of the proposed approach.

Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) has been widely recognized as a standard model of hypothetical relationship between economic development and environment quality. The article presents results of an empirical research on EKC for the air pollution selected indicators in the Czech Republic in 1975-2012.To deal with the issue of different macroeconomic indicators calculated in socialist economy and after its transition to a market economy, EKC modeling was done with consolidated data on national economic performance. The results suggest, contrary to a widespread opinion, that changes in trends (turning points) for some pollutants on EKC can be found already in the 1980s. It also can be concluded, based on results received for the period after the year 2000 that validity of EKC might be in question for some pollutants. Following research on EKC for other pollutants and countries, as well as an application of other methodological approaches, could contribute both to better understanding of EKC model, including economic and social (pre)conditions of its validity, and its theoretical context.

Today, society is struggling with the uncertainty caused by the pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19). Government budgets will face a real challenge in the coming years. This paper provides an overview of public finances and their condition over the past 20 years in the Slovak and Czech Republics. It investigates the possible effects of different tax type changes and also the option to cover budget losses. A simple dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model with three sectors was calibrated using data from 2018 and a stochastic analysis was performed. It was shown that the economy was more sensitive to shocks on social security contributions than to those on other taxes. The results may help support a reform of decreasing labour taxes, for which both Slovakia and Czechia have been waiting for a long time.

Quo Vadis, Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences? The so-called Nobel Prize in Economics is not one of the original Nobel Prizes according to the testament of A. B. Nobel. Although it has been the target of various critics since its inception in 1969, it has become the most prestigious economic award. The paper summarizes more than 50 years of the history of this award, including the focus of the laureates, and asks - sometimes provocative - questions about the perspectives of economic science in the 21^st century.

How well can a society and an economy face up to COVID-19 depends, among other factors, on how many jobs can be performed at home. Work from home has the potential to increase firms' productivity and quality of workers' lives regardless of COVID-19, but it can also create new challenges. In this paper, we estimate the share of Czech workers who could work from home, using detailed Czech labour force survey data and an internationally recognised occupational classification methodology. Overall, we apply in the Czech context a methodology developed by Dingel and Neiman and published by the Journal of Public Economics in 2020. Our results show that about one third of Czech workers can perform their jobs from home. This share is comparable with countries at similar per capita income levels and with the share of workers who worked from home in Czechia during COVID-19 in the spring of 2020. The ability to work from home is distributed unequally across sectors, regions and workers' education levels. Whereas around four fifths of workers in the financial or the information technology sectors can work from home, less than one in five workers in agriculture and culture can work from home. Most university-educated workers can work from home, but only one in ten workers with primary education can do so. About a half of the workers in Prague can work from home, while only about a quarter can do so in the rest of the Czech Republic.

It is a theoretical fact that countries in which foreign direct investments (FDI) are realized by trans-national corporations for the purpose of profit should have some economical and institutional pull factors. This study examines whether Chinese FDI in African countries is supported theoretically by the economic and institutional factors of these African countries or whether these investments instead serve mercantilist policies of China independently of these factors. With this in mind, we examined the effect of the GDP, trade openness, natural resource rents and some institutional indicators of the host African countries on the Chinese foreign direct investments within the period 2003-2017 for 10 African countries. We used Swamy's random coefficient panel regression method due to the heterogeneity of these 10 African countries. The empirical results show that China makes foreign direct investments in Africa for market and resource-seeking purposes which display significant elements of a "chopsticks" mercantilist policy.

The essence of fiscal decentralization is to increase economic efficiency in the redistribution of resources in the public sector through more effective satisfaction of local public needs by lower levels of government. The article aims to quantify the optimal degree of fiscal decentralization in relation to economic growth in a sample of 29 OECD countries for the years 1975-2018. Empirical research has shown a nonlinear relationship between the degree of fiscal decentralization and economic growth, which takes a parabolic shape. The optimal degree of fiscal decentralization maximizing economic growth reached the level of 31.3656%, or in the case of per capita growth, the level is 31.1309%. In most V4 countries, the degree of fiscal decentralization is at a lower level compared to the optimal one, which is not leading to maximization of economic growth, or economic growth per capita.