Prague Economic Papers, 2014 (vol. 23), issue 2
Original contributions, Original article, Research article
The Level of Capital and the Value of EU Banks under Basel III
Barbora ©útorová, Petr Teplý
Prague Economic Papers 2014, 23(2):143-161 | DOI: 10.18267/j.pep.477 
The 2007-2009 global financial turmoil was exacerbated by a low level of financial market regulatory coordination. Historical experience has shown that despite implementing regulations, supervision and macroeconomic policies, the financial industry regularly experiences crises. Consequently, a similar impact might be expected from the Basel III new bank regulatory framework. The aim of this paper is two-fold; in the first part dedicated to theory we describe the Basel III regulatory standards and argue that this regulation is not sufficient and will not prevent financial markets from experiencing future crises. Moreover, we discuss implementation of...
Financial Development and Innovation Activity: Evidence from Selected East Asian Countries
Lain-Tze Tee, Soo-Wah Low, Si-Roei Kew, Noor A. Ghazali
Prague Economic Papers 2014, 23(2):162-180 | DOI: 10.18267/j.pep.478
This paper examines the role of financial development in promoting innovation-related activity using panel data for seven East Asian countries for the period from 1998-2009. On overall financial development, we find that, financial sector size and the overall activity of banks and stock market exert positive influences on patent applications. In particular, our results show that all measures of banking development are positively and significantly related to the number of patent applications after controlling for variables known to affect innovative activities. Interestingly, we find no evidence that variation in patent applications is affected by a...
Are TIMSS Scores Suitable Proxies for Nations' Human Capital?
Jiří Mazurek
Prague Economic Papers 2014, 23(2):181-197 | DOI: 10.18267/j.pep.479
To express human capital of nations proxies, such as literacy rates, school-enrollment rates or years of schooling are used. The aim of this article is to explore another possibility: to relate country's human capital to its outcome in TIMSS (The Third International Mathematics and Science Study), large international study of students' achievements in mathematics and science literacy from 1995. The relationship between TIMSS scores and GDP growth during 2000-2010 and GDP per capita in 2010 is examined and TIMSS are compared with other proxies of human capital, namely primary, secondary and tertiary school-enrollment rates from 1990, 1995 and 2000....
Analysis of Production - Inventory Decisions in a Decentralized Supply Chain
Saeed Alaei, Masoud Behravesh, Nayere Karegar
Prague Economic Papers 2014, 23(2):198-216 | DOI: 10.18267/j.pep.480
Many contracts, such as buy-back policy, cost- and revenue- sharing policies, are widely applied in the literature for supply chain coordination problem. However, the additional gain from coordination may not necessarily cover the extra administrative costs incurred by applying these contracts. In this paper, a production inventory problem is considered in a two-level supply chain. The problem is formulated as a Stackelberg game. Then, the retail fixed mark-up (RFM) policy is examined in order to investigate its performance on supply chain. We apply this policy because of its lower administrative costs compared to other policies. We found that RFM...
Transaction Costs in International Armaments Cooperation
Vladan Holcner, Marek Sedlačik, Jaroslav Michálek, Jakub Odehnal
Prague Economic Papers 2014, 23(2):217-232 | DOI: 10.18267/j.pep.481
The aim of this paper is to examine and provide new evidence on changes in the costs and other determinants of economic rationality of international sharing of armaments projects. Based on current transaction costs theory, it defines individual and collective transaction costs of a weapon systems club. Using results of questionnaire survey, gathering expectations of international expert armaments community, there are analysed relations anticipated among those determinants, which are decisive for the amount of project costs. Results of these analyses indicate general anticipation of decreased total project costs in case of international sharing of armaments...
Competent Alternative Model for the Peasants' Medical Expenditures in China: A Case of New Rural Cooperative Medical Service System (Nrcms) in Zhejiang Province
Lu Wencong, Cheng Ying, Mohummed Shofi Ullah Mazumder
Prague Economic Papers 2014, 23(2):233-249 | DOI: 10.18267/j.pep.482
The New Rural Cooperative Medical Service System (NRCMS) in China has been established to ensure improved medical care support for all categories of Chinese peasants to offset their burden of excessive medical care expenditures. The primary aim of this paper is to identify an appropriate alternative modelling approach for the patients' medical expenditures. Data were collected from Jiaojiang city through cluster and multistage random sampling procedure, which was comprised of 4,630 enrolled rural people under NRCMS. The paper presented the first comparison of common econometric medical expenditures modelling approaches. Major findings reveal that the...
What General Competencies Are Required from the Czech Labour Force?
Jiří Balcar, Lenka Janíčková, Lenka Filipová
Prague Economic Papers 2014, 23(2):250-265 | DOI: 10.18267/j.pep.483
Knowledge of employers' requirements on competencies of job applicants is highly important in the process of human capital accumulation. This paper focuses on the general competencies since they can be applied in a wide range of jobs or tasks and increase an individual's employability. First, employers' requirements on general competencies are identified and described on the basis of 3,822 job advertisements published online. Second, the econometric analysis is used in order to test hypothesis whether examined demand for general competencies is really general or if it differs significantly with respect to required education and firm characteristics....