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The aim of this article is to analyze trends of business cycle in the past decades. The main issues are following. Reasons of declining in economic activities. Special features of the postwar cycles. Causes of long-run changes in business cycle. Countercyclical policies. Impacts elements of new economy on the stages of business cycle. Methodological approaches to the monitoriong of business cycle at the level of the OECD and the EU countries.

This study tests the hypothesis of the weak form of capital market efficiency in the Czech Republic. Select statistical-econometric methods were applied to time series of daily, weekly and two-week stock and indices returns over 1995 - 2001. Results from Serial Correlation, Box-Pierce, and Variance Ratio tests provide evidence that a random-walk hypothesis cannot be validated with respect to the daily returns. The weak form of efficiency on the Czech equity market was not thus proved. However, positive development toward higher efficiency was identified. Since the launching of a new price-driven market system (SPAD) on the Prague Stock Exchange - based on market makers' quotations and which has improved stock liquidity - Czech market characteristics have significantly approached those of markets traditionally considered the most efficient.

The 2001 Nobel Prize award to three American scientists for their theoretical contribution to analysis of markets with asymmetrical information has reawakened debates on the behavior and decision-making of economic players under uncertainty. Because insurance is a classic example of such a situation, it is used to illustrate the cases of asymmetry, for the client is supposed to know better his own exposure than the insurer. In fact, the client's objective exposure a priori cannot be quantified from the point of view of exact sciences and his decision is further influenced by psychological or sociological factors. The insurer is better equipped to make calculations, drawing on past experience and using the laws of statistics, furthermore, he takes antiselection into account.

This paper investigates the nature of the Czech intra-industry trade (IIT) and its labor market determinants. In the analysis of IIT its decomposition into vertical and horizontal components is used. The Czech Grubel-Lloyd Index of 75 % at the SITC 2 digit level is still somehow lower than the values for comparable EU countries, but this difference is not high. This indicates relatively high level of the Czech integration into the European and world economies. Also the structure of the Czech IIT with respect to its horizontal and vertical elements is comparable with the structure of IIT in EU countries. The results of cross-industry analysis of labor market determinants of IIT show that labor market characteristics are statistically significant predictors for IIT after controlling for structure of IIT, character of industry and time changes.

This article focuses on applied general equilibrium models and explores main features of these models. Examples of successful applications of these models are demonstrated and appropriateness of the applied computable general equilibrium models in policy evaluation is assessed. Conditions of existence and uniqueness of an equilibrium are considered and techniques for finding such an equilibrium are discussed. The task of calibration of parameters for these models is dealt with. Dynamic forms of applied equilibrium models are shown to be useful tools for policy evaluation.

The article is concerned with pro-natalist policies, examining empirically their effectiveness. There are proposed four hypotheses: 1. Continuous decline of the birthrate, 2. Adaptive model, 3. Natural-rate-hypothesis and 4. Crowding-out-hypothesis. Nine countries are tested: Germany, Italy, Sweden and France before World War II and Romania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and East Germany during the communism. Best empirical results arise from the crowding-out-hypothesis. Good results follow from the adaptive model and the continuous decline of birthrates. The natural-rate-hypothesis has small explanational power. Pronatalist policies, according to this study, are not too effective.

Experimental methods are used to obtain primary demand data for the solution of business decision problems. Consumer clinics or simulated market situations are ranked among these methods. The functioning and the first results of the newly developed demand simulator are described in this article. The demand simulator has virtually enriched the consumer clinics by some options which are provided by ICT (including internet). For example, the process of finding values for coefficients of demand elasticity, analysis of current consumer preferences or consumers' general reaction to changes in specific promotional variables can be realised by the demand simulator.

This article reviews the evolution of Lucas theory of Phillips curve. His theory is based on optimal decisions of subjects on supply of products or labor and full price and wage flexibility in competitive markets. In Lucas opinion Phillips curve expresses intertemporal substitution of consumption and leisure resulting from the changes of actual price level from the normal one. Systematic changes of supply can have long lasting real effects only when monetary policy can create permanent money illusion. That is what central banks really can do when expectations are formed adaptively. But subjects, who make rational expectations, know that systematic monetary policy rule do not create real aggregate demand shocks and leave their supply without any changes. To have a real effects money supply changes must be unexpected. Because subjects do not have enough information about current price level central bank can create temporal illusion of real price and wage changes.

The aim of this article is to show some relationships between equity and real estate market on one hand and bussines cycles on the other. These Questions are discussed in the framework of empirical estimates of wealth effect. Using Tobin's q-theory of investment, this paper analyzes reactions in investment behaviour of the firms. The stock market prices do not affect this behaviour. The same is valid for real estate market.

Proposed article is focused on new economy and its significance in global processes. Comming from theoretic opinions of economic prominents authors emphasize its impact on makro- and mikroeconomics while focusing on its effect on economic growth. In comparison with old economy, article mentions the role of technology, scientific and technological development, growth of productivity, competitivness and innovation and following necessary deep change in structure of world economy. It concerns to new phenomena which significantly effect development of international business, especially transition from competition between makro- and microeconomics to improving cooperation and creating better conditions which enable better economic results on international markets. There is a result of these changes - a process of diferentiation among companies and national economies of the whole world economy as well.

Accession countries are bound by EU rules to enter the eurozone after they have fulfilled the Maastricht criteria. Yet for many years, the eurozone will not constitute an optimum currency area for the new members. There are additional risks connected with low relative economic levels - as well as low relative price levels - of the new candidates. Catch-up will require fast productivity growth and will entail inflation rates well above present eurozone targets. The shares of the new countries in the HCPI index will be relatively low but in sum, and together with present eurozone members with higher-than-average inflation, they could pose a threat for the ECB low-inflation policy. Restrictive steps by the ECB would, in turn, slow down growth in the new countries. For this reason, adoption of the euro should not be undertaken too hastily, without regard for the needs of the catch-up process.

The article attempts to provide a definition of a still not well-defined concept of the new economy. It deals with characteristic features of the new economy and its socioeconomic implications. Empirical evidence on the existence of the new economy is presented. Importance of information and communication technologies (namely internet and e-commerce) for the new economy is stressed and documented. Some myths about the new economy are clarified, and implications of the new economy for economic policies and statistics are described.

There is no proof that a new paradigm of economic theory has been enthroned, rending old economic laws invalid. According to followers of the new paradigm, knowledge creation transformed into new products of information industries should bring increasing returns, accelerate growth to rates unseen in the past, ensure low inflation with full employment, and free the economy from the business cycle. They see a productivity increase of 3 - 4 % annually as sustainable in the long run. Critics of the new paradigm argue that productivity increase in the USA in the last decade was predominantly cyclical and will not be sustainable, that the information technologies so far had little positive impact on the rest of the economy, and that the business cycle is far from being dead.

The article discusses issues concerning the prospects for euro adoption in the Czech economy. Once the Czech Republic becomes the member of the EU, it also must become - sooner or later - the member of the EMU. There are not too many options: in fact the freedom is only in the speed of euro adoption and partly in the bargaining about the central parity upon entering the ERM2. The article discusses objections regarding the sacrifice of autonomous monetary policy and similarly the problem of the nominal vs. real convergence. It further summarises major insights of the optimum currency area approach. The author does not find any strong arguments against an earlier euro adoption which would outweigh the benefits of the single currency for the Czech economy. Also the historical comparison with several EU countries in situation before joining the EMU shows the realistic background of the fast track strategy.

The presented study is an empirical investigation of interest rates transmission on the Czech financial market. Transmission was simulated by means of VAR model, built up to evaluate an impact of impuls change of one interest rate on the behaviour of the others in the given sample. The study shows that transmission from repo rates through PRIBORs to the yields on treasury bills can be determined. Next, transmission from repo rates to short interbank rates was proven as an important channel used by the Czech National Bank to stabilize unfavourable development on the money market in the middle 1997.

After Czech voucher privatization many companies simply ignored the interests of their shareholders. The government has since increased the amount of regulation, but they have failed to establish significant investor confidence. This article offers some explanations of why their legal centric approach remains unlikely to create good corporate governance. Mandating that companies maximize shareholder value is easier said than done because it requires government to assess whether companies are making optimal business decisions. In former communist countries especially, government officials are ill suited to make such judgments because they lack the knowledge of how businesses should be properly run. Increased bureaucratic oversight in the Czech Republic has simply burdened markets without any noticeable positive results. This article discusses how good corporate governance can only be a byproduct of markets where managers compete for investors rather than something that can be created by law.

This article addresses the issue of macroeconomic policies in the pre-accession period. The key theme is an assessment of the relationship between the real and nominal convergence of the candidate countries towards the EU. Support for real convergence cannot proceed on a long-term basis in contradiction to the nominal convergence criteria. Despite a renewal of growth in 1999, a whole range of persisting structural problems, chiefly in the fiscal area, confirm the benefit of

The first part defines the terms "independence" and "accountability" and asks whether there is a direct or indirect relation between them. The second part brings quantification of central bank's institutional arrangements both in developed and transition economies. The third part describes theoretical foundations of central bank independence and accountability and analyses empirical research on this topic. The fourth part inquires the model of institutional arrangement in which the central bank has the completed operational independence but it has the limited goal independence (monetary policy's goals are set in agreements between the government and central bank). The fifth part asks the question whether the model proposed above complies or not with the European law.

The article analyses main features of macroeconomic development in Hungary after macroeconomic restriction in spring 1995. Years 1995 - 2000 are viewed as a successful period of accelerating economic growth, high foreign direct investment inflow combined with rising external competitiveness of manufacturing industry, fiscal consolidation and modest external disequilibrium with falling external debt. However, in 2000 a rising inflation and decreasing inflow of non-debt foreign capital are considered as major risks for sustenance of high economic growth in medium term. The limitations of anti-inflationary monetary policy within crawling band exchange rate regime are also discussed.

The bulk of agribusiness enterprises in the CR are operations of artificial persons with production concentration. Businesses of natural persons farming on a great portion of farm land are also of large size. Businesses of smaller size, mostly using the family labor, largely prevailing in EU and receiving support from EU funds, are farming on a relatively small portion of land. This could have restrictive impacts on the availability of relevant support to Czech farmers after accession to EU. Further development of agriculture structure in the CR will constantly be influenced by competition of businesses of different type. The development will be affected in the next years by such factors as the sale of State-owned land and the duty of cooperative farms to settle their liabilities to entitled persons - nonmembers arising from property-right transformation.

The aim of this paper is to apply the rules and principles of international trade in services - in formulation of the General Agreement on Trade in Services - in the rapidly developing sphere of environmental services. The paper characterizes the development and structure of environmental services, the dimension of the environmental market of EU countries and discusses shortcomings in the existing classification of environmental services. Special attention is devoted to the different forms of private sector participation in environmental service markets. The final part examines the export potential of environmental services in the Czech Republic and analyzes the main obstacles to the future development of this sphere.

The article is trying to introduce and defend the thesis that economic policy way not follow the theoretical foundations of economics but the development of economic theories from a number of reasons rather follows the practical outcomes of their "application" in economic policy than the opposite. The major criterion for the evaluation of an economic theory is it's success (or failure) when it can be seen as if it was "applied", i.e. only the potential of the application legitimises the economic theory (in opposite to "the empirical legality" in natural sciences) to becomes a popular and respected part of our scientific knowledge. Such an argument can provide, together with other methodological characteristics, an original insight into the evolution of economic knowledge from the point of view of the philosophy of science as well as it may serve for a self-reflection of the current state and method of the economic research.

Term laboretism was based on composition of two words - labor and ethos (moral). This is the Czech school of economic thought from the period of the 1920s and 1930s. The major representative of this school Václav Verunáč published the first thesis of the laboretism in 1926. The prominent group of the intelectuals from many disciplines accepted this new theory. They was oriented to position of work people in society. At same time this group was trying to find a resolution for social problem by the social compromise, based on moral values of European society. They was trying to anticipate the growing up of the social tensions. The main idea of this line of though was a reform of capitalism system to social few. But after the laboretism wasn't expanded to professional life and it has to stay in a small intelectual environment.

In the economic cycle of the Czech Republic in the nineties the number of years of economic recession or stagnation was higher than the duration of economic growth. Two recessions from the early and late years of the decennium indicated how complicated it is to search for an appropriate structure of macroeconomic policies, adequate frameworks of regulatory mechanism's and velocity of property structure establishment. Low customs protection, loose regulation of the entry of new economic agents on the market, high tax burden, high cost of loan capital exerted a high economic pressure on the corporate sector. On the other hand, the soft standards of bankruptcy mechanism, financial discipline and exercise of property rights were applied. It resulted in a slow process of the more profound restructuring of companies inhibiting the growth potential of Czech economy in the second half of the nineties.

The monetary literature over the past thirty years has been filled with published claims of paradoxes, such paradox of

The Czech economy experienced a standard shake-up triggered by a gradual build-up of external imbalance that ended up with a speculative attack. As a result of the many institutional bottlenecks, the supply side of the economy was unable to keep pace with the rapid expansion in domestic demand. The mounting external imbalance was also linked with considerable internal imbalances. The contagion came in May 1997 from South-East Asia. Them followed a sharp weakening of the CZK. The CNB opted for a strategy of liquidity squeeze. Escalation of the crisis led to the adaption of managed floating of the CZK finally. The first signals of a calming of the situation emerged at the start of June. It became possible to launch a strategy to bring interest rates down. This process lasted until around the end of August. The price paid for eliminating the external imbalance was economic recession.

In the first part of this article is discussed a theoretic comparison of a standard Keynesian (income) approach and a monetary approach to the balance of payments. The monetary adjustment process is based on the monetarist assumption that money market imbalances affect the real economy and the Keynesian approach is based on a relationship between income and foreign trade. In the second part author describes a theoretic Keynesian-Monetary (K-M) model which is able to illustrate the impacts of the changes of various economic exogenous variables to a development of income and the balance of payments. The main contribution of this paper can be considered in an interpretation of the real economic development in the Czech Republic between 1993 - 1999 by the theoretic K-M and IS-LM-BP models.

Author combines two points of view on monetary problems of Czechoslovakia in the Great Depression: an outline of monetary development between two devalutions of the crown in 1934 and 1936 and an analysis of monetary theories of Karel Engliš, who was an outstanding representative of the liberal school and the governor of the Czechoslovak national bank, and the economists inspired by J. M. Keynes - Josef Macek, Karel Maiwald and Jaroslav Nebesář. In 1929 the crown was placed on the gold standard at a value of one crown equal to 44,58 miligrams of gold. The financial progress was interrupted by the Great Depression, with devaluation in 1934 and 1936, both times by 1/6 of its value. Theoretical debates concerned the major effects of these economic policy measures from the point of view of Karel Engliš and the Czech Keynesians.

In small open economies, external factors exert a strong influence on the autonomy and efficiency of domestic monetary policies. For the Czech National Bank, no exchange rate regime can guarantee a lasting degree of policy autonomy. Within the present CNB's strategy of direct inflation targeting, changes of exchange rate and of world prices proved especially hard to tackle. In 1998 and 1999, a substantially faster disinflation took place than was presupposed by CNB's own inflation targets. This helped to throw the economy into a recession. A credit crunch subsequently set out of function the most important transmission channel of monetary policy. Inflation targets were repeatedly undershot, and only a strong capital inflow initiated the money supply growth for economic recovery. A lower level of ambition to steer the economy via autonomous monetary policy is probably desirable. The "fast solutions" - a currency board, or an immediate takeover of the EUR - are neither feasible, nor would they be clearly beneficial at the present stage.

This paper compares the standard economic and a complementary socio-economic approach to the transition. While the economic approach looks at social problems from the outside and views them as costs of transition, the socio-economic approach looks at these problems from the inside and views them as a part of the social change taking place. Both approaches are here used to analyze four frictions. The first friction concerns the PAYG pension system which emphasizes intergenerational dependence and turns pensioners into a socially needy population. The second friction concerns the relation between low market wages and a higher welfare provision which creates a poverty trap and leads to a culture of dependency. The third friction concerns the insufficient incentives for middle class expansion which contrasts with the key role this class should play in the future prosperity of society. The fourth friction involves tensions between various sections of the middle class.