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Electricity production strategies of countries rely on fossil fuel-based electricity generation. Environmental regulations (ER) are needed to shift to green electricity for achieving energy transition, but corruption and bureaucracy can influence ER, energy transition and ecological quality. Hence, this research considers two important constituents of country risks including corruption and bureaucracy in the model while understanding the connections between green electricity, ER and the load capacity factor (LCF) in BRICS from 1992 to 2018. The research chooses a recent proxy of ecological quality (i.e., LCF), which effectively measures the ecological quality and indicates the possibility of sustainable growth by using biocapacity and ecological footprint figures. The results of the research disclose that green electricity Granger-causes and enhances the LCF, whereas controlling corruption and enhancing bureaucracy quality improves ecological quality. ER improves environmental quality and the load capacity curve (LCC) hypothesis also exists. Lastly, policy directions are discussed.

The urgent need to address climate change and the depletion of natural resources has led governments worldwide to allocate significant resources towards research and development in clean energy technologies and energy efficiency. This study evaluates the effectiveness of renewable energy and energy efficiency initiatives in reducing CO₂ emissions, taking into account the influences of natural resource availability and political risk. Using data from France spanning from 1985 to 2021, we employ the kernel-based regularized least squares (KRLS) methodology, complemented by quantile regression (QR), to analyse these relationships. Our findings indicate that policies promoting energy efficiency and green energy have a positive impact on reducing CO₂ emissions. However, the availability of natural resources and political risk exacerbate environmental challenges by increasing CO₂ emissions. Thus, our study underscores the importance of continued support from policymakers for renewable energy development and energy efficiency research to effectively pursue Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Additionally, as the world prepares for COP28, our findings emphasize the urgency of these initiatives in meeting global climate targets.

This research investigates the effect of political stability and geopolitical risk on environmental sustainability (ES) by considering R&D investments in nuclear and renewable energy. Considering the high political stability and recent energy crisis and increasing geopolitical risk, the study focuses on three leading European countries. We use the load capacity factor, include data between 1985/1 and 2020/12, and apply quantile on quantile regression (QQ), Granger causality in quantiles (GQ), and quantile regression (QR) models. The study finds that in higher quantiles (i) increasing political stability stimulates the ES in Sweden and the United Kingdom; (ii) increasing geopolitical risk supports the ES in France; (iii) R&D investments increase the ES in all the countries; (iv) there are generally causal effects from the explanatory variables to the ES except some quantiles (0.45-0.50) in all the countries; (v) the power effects of the variables differ according to countries, quantiles and variables.

This study examines the impact of monetary developments on environmental quality and economic growth. We utilize ARDL/PMG models to study twelve climatically vulnerable countries from 1996 to 2018. We find that a 1% increase in real GDP and domestic credit harms the environment by 0.827% and 0.220%, respectively. However, savings improve environmental excellence by 0.373%. A 1% environmental degradation decreases human health by 0.317%; consequently, economic growth declines by 1.102%. Good governance emerges as a key solution, with a 1% improvement in public institutions mitigating the adverse impact of real GDP on the environment by 0.777%. Redirecting 1% of loans to eco-friendly projects improves the environment by 1.311%. Dumitrescu-Hurlin and PVAR Granger tests support these findings.

This article studies the environmental and societal impacts of a polluting monopoly when a society strives for a clean environment. Two scenarios are considered: (1) the government levies an environmental tax to induce investment in emission-reducing technology, and (2) the monopolist engages in environmental corporate social responsibility (CSR). It is shown that taxation has a lower environmental impact, but the monopolist undertakes CSR activities only if the abatement technology is efficient. Social welfare is always higher under CSR; therefore, when the technology is not adequately efficient, the government should implement a second-best environmental tax policy to avoid the worst welfare outcome.

Dynamic Model of Common-pool Emission Permit Market as a Method for Solving the Persistent Pollutant Problem In the paper, we develop a common-pool permit market formulated as a dynamic gross pool for trading emission discharge permits (EDPs) for persistent pollutants. We discuss individual agents' demand decisions concerning EDPs and develop a common-pool market dynamic gross pool formulation, including a general set of marginal-cost pricing rules used in this type of permit trading market. Numerical simulations are used to illustrate the usefulness of this type of permit market design for addressing environmental problems.

This study aims to investigate the relationship between service exports and productivity in 27 OECD countries by using a panel dataset for the years 1995-2018. In the theoretical context, this relationship is basically handled by the learning-by-exporting and self-selection mechanisms. Additionally, product life cycle and technological gap theories also have implications related to the export and productivity association. In the study, after detecting the cross-sectional dependence, the stationarity characteristics of the exports and productivity series were investigated by Pesaran's (2007) panel unit root tests. The findings of Westerlund (2007) panel co-integration test indicated that there is a long-run equilibrium relationship between service exports and productivity. Common correlated effects estimators also supported this finding and showed that productivity affects exports positively in both short and long run. Finally, Dumitrescu and Hurlin's (2012) heterogeneous panel causality tests showed that there is a unidirectional causal relationship running from productivity to service exports. The findings support the predictions of product life cycle theory and technological gap theory regarding the exports and productivity linkage and indicate the validity of the self-selection mechanism for OECD countries' service exports.

Reflection on Political Economy of Global Society Today Recently we could observe an accumulation of problems in the global society. Beeing more serious and complicated these problems have become a kind of the historical excess when all possibilities of the countinous development have been exhausted and consequently a crucial societal transformation must be done. This article deals with the reflection on the roots of the present political and economical problems and how to solve them. It demonstrates some theoretical conclusions of the articles published in the Political Economy in the previous ten years. Successively, the attention is paid to the most important works which illustrate the possibilities of a radical societal transformation from the different perspectives. To be concrete there are presented works of R. Richta (the 50th anniversary of his well - known work will be commemorated in 2016), of Francis Fukuyama (whose very optimistic original visions had to be reviewed later) and of S. Huntington (who focused on searching the causes of global conflicts in a broader context). Finally, it is proposed a new concept of solving problems - a transition to the society whose economy is based on the productive services which means on the services linked to the human capital in its three phases: gaining, preservation and realization. At the same time the barriers of this transition and possibilities how to overcome them are identified.

Czech society is ageing, and the availability of these services should be important part of social strategy for the Czech Republic. Thus, the development in this area is not optimal and much more attention should be put on. Increasing life expectancy cause not only higher demands on the pension systems but also higher demands on social services. This is emphasised by the slower increase of healthy life expectancy and therefore it can be assumed that more people in higher age will require more social services. The paper deals with the issue of the macroeconomic costs and benefits of satisfying the requirements for residential care activities, especially for homes for the elderly as one of the most important area of social care. The aim of the paper is to estimate overall direct and indirect macroeconomic effects for the Czech Republic at the level of the regions. The relation between demand and supply of residential care activities is illustrated for 2013. While some issues can simply be related to the Czech population as a whole, some estimates are presented at the regional level. Economic impacts on the gross domestic product, employment and government finance are estimated by the semi-dynamic input-output analysis. It is illustrated how the investments into social facilities are transformed into economic development with different regional scale.

The paper deals with an analysis of economic impacts of ICT implementation within the public administration, which is called e-Government. The current situation in the Czech Republic is discussed using data about particular implemented tools, such as the contact points of public administration, data mailboxes or basic registries of public administration and more. In the paper there are evaluated impacts of these projects not only on public administration and public sector, but on the overall economic environment of the state including discussion of the rate of bureaucratic burden, transparency of the legal system or cyberspace security. In spite of the fact that a number of significant e-Government projects has been already implemented in the Czech Republic, there is still unused potential of other projects, whose adaptation could have positive economic impacts.

The conventional view of the sustainability of social development is based on the works of the Roman Club, particularly the book "The Limits to Growth" by Donella Meadows and her colleagues (1972). In their opinion, the human population and economy are depleting the wealth of the Earth and pollutants and wastes are burdening the environment. However, the concern that mineral resources will be depleted is unsubstantiated. Environmental economics argues that a higher number of people and a higher income make resources scarcer on a short-term basis. For investors and entrepreneurs, higher prices represent an opportunity and an incentive to search for solutions. Many of them will not succeed in this search and they will bear the costs on their own. However, in a free society, the solutions are eventually found. And in the long run, we are better off thanks to the new discoveries than if the original problems had never occurred.

The paper analyses impacts of environmental regulation on Czech power system. We employ MESSAGE modelling platform to construct a dynamic linear optimisation energy model of the Czech power system. We analyse regulation impacts on fuel use and CO2 emission, fuel-mix and technology-mix, induced investment and fuel and other O&M costs to generate electricity over the period 2006-2030. Negative external costs attributable to endogenously determined new level of air quality pollutants are quantified to make our cost-benefit analysis more complex. Overall, effects of four policy scenarios are assessed, including subsidies for renewable energy, increase in air quality charge rates and an introduction of the EU ETS in the Czech power system. Based on our simulation, we find that prospected 10-fold increase in charging of air quality pollutant would not have any significant effect on emission and would not bring any stimuli for change in technology and fuel mixes. Subsidy to renewable energy would result in their development; however, larger effect would appear in far future and only if new nuclear power units are not allowed to build. Auctioned EUA, especially above €15 per tonne of CO2, would be the only effective instrument with significant effects on power sector. Key factor on CO2 emission is whether scenario consists of new nuclear power units or these units are banned. Our simulation results hold even if we allow the key model assumption to vary, except, the discount rate that would have effect on whether more-investment intensive technologies are used to generate electricity.

In January 2008 the Czech Republic introduced the environmental taxation based on the directive 2003/96/EC, restructuring the Community framework for the taxation of energy products and electricity. Environmental taxes are imposed on electricity, solid fuels and natural gas. This paper discusses impacts of environmental taxation in the Czech Republic in the period after its implementation, particularly impacts on price indexes of energy intensive sectors, structure of energy products consumption in the economy and production of CO2 emissions by sectors ranking among EU ETS. The paper is divided into six parts. The first part is the introduction where both the main target of the paper and four hypotheses for testing are formulated. The theoretical problems which are connected with the impact of taxation and tax incidence are discussed in the second part. The third part describes the ideas and expectations of lawmakers regarding environmental taxation implementation, precisely European Commission, Ministry of Finance and Ministry of the Environment of the Czech Republic. In the fourth part authors describe the methodology and data, provide results of ex-post analysis based on both linear and non-linear correlation analyses. The next part deals with the discussion of the results and the hypotheses testing. The last part, conclusion, focuses on the main ex-post analysis findings and formulates the recommendations.

The commentary defends the central idea of current institutional social research - that institutions are significant variables influencing the human action regarding the resource allocation. This idea was strongly opposed by the scientific board of the Czech economic faculty (institutionally oriented economic research was labeled as needless). The goal is to open the debate about this issue and ask the opponents to formulate concrete objections. Theoretical arguments and empirical examples are raised in favor of the institutional economics.

This article is a contribution to the discussion of national competitiveness as a concept for analysis of international economic relations. The main goal is the critical reflection of the concept. We consider the Paul Krugman's and Richard Baldwin's remarks regarding the problems associated with using competitiveness as an analytical concept still valid when restrained to the domain of neoclassical economics. Moreover - even though the competitiveness is widely accepted as an analytical concept - we believe a number of problems associated with its current use exist (both in theory and in process of policy formations). Mainly, there is confusion between the micro and macro-economic understanding of concept which stems from confusion between individual and national/territorial level of analysis. We also believe that even if new trade theory (increasing returns and strategic trade) is taken into account, it is quite problematic to formulate policy recommendation for structural and industrial policy on its grounds. When the assumptions of neoclassical economics are loosened, the concept of competitiveness might prove valid. Finally we stress than even if this is the case the sensitiveness of the most of recommendations for competitiveness promotion to retaliation and potential damage resulting to international economic regime from its enforcement is rather high.

The 19th Annual Conference of European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, EAERE-2012, was held in Prague at the end of June 2012. Leading environmental economists discussed new research outcomes and economic theory extensions related to economics of climate change, efficient pollution reduction, optimal use of natural resources, nonmarket valuation and green economy.

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.

The aim of the article is to explore the doctor - patient relationship using the information asymmetry framework and principal-agent theory. From the perspective of economic exchange, this relationship is relatively specific, as an uneven rank and position of the agents involved play an important role here. It is argued that this unevenness arises from several different factors, such as education and qualification, work experience, path dependence, and the nature of goods and services provided. The relationship specificity is then discussed from a theoretical point of view while its most important elements are highlighted and put into a wider context. Further, market approach in healthcare system and healthcare services is partially debated and a simple model analyzing he "double-standard treatment is developed. Subsequently, this type of treatment is analyzed with the aid of vertical differentiation approach. Based on economic rationale, the authors claim that "medical knowledge/information obligation should play a crucial role in all healthcare services. This type of instrument is to be applicable for both parties in the doctor - patient relationship, as it may help overcome the inherently present information asymmetry by rendering the healthcare services provision more transparent.

The article focuses on new possible approaches of total factor productivity measurement. The standard computation takes into account the number of hours worked as the labour input and net or gross fixed capital stock as the capital input. This article improves the computation by using labour services as the labour input (it is necessary to take into account the skills and efforts of the workers) and capital services as the capital input. Substitution of capital stocks by capital services means that only flow indicators are used for TFP measurement. This issue became more popular in recent time in line with the revision of the manual for national accounts - SNA 2008. This paper concentrates on the development of the Czech economy between the years 2002 and 2008.

This paper presents results of repeated economic lab experiments. They were designed to test a model of combinatorial auctions on the case of providing financial support (capital investment subsidies) to polluters. Combinatorial auctions are those auctions in which bidders can place bids on combinations of items. The advantage of combinatorial auctions is that the bidder can more fully express his preferences. This is particular important when items are complements. In the experiment presented in the paper, the polluters have two options: (i) to invest individually or (ii) create coalitions, i.e. to prepare and realize common capital investment projects. The common model of combinatorial auctions is described first in the paper. The design of the laboratory experiment is presented in the next section and the results are shown in the last section.

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.

Neoclassical environmental economics, ecological economics and free market approaches to environmental protection are currently three main schools of thoughts that are systematically focused on interactions between the society and the environment. They all have strong defenders as well as opponents. Although the environmental economics is still considered as mainstream, the critique from alternative approaches is increasing. The goal of the article is to briefly introduce main thoughts of all three schools and their interactions. The intensity of mutual interactions in the last decade was investigated via the analysis of articles published in high-rated journals.

The article deals with structural factors affecting decisions about the provision of services in large Slovak cities. In addition to introducing an economic model based on transaction cost theory, models of political decision making regarding the provision of services by cities (ideological model, public choice theory and political risk-aversion model) are described. The article concentrates upon decisions regarding the provision of seven selected services in eight major Slovak cities. In addition to collecting data on the means of providing the selected services, relevant decision makers about the perceived asset specificity and about the measurability of selected services have been interviewed. The findings partly confirm economic hypotheses about the provision of public services, which suggest that oursourcing is expected if the services to be provided are easily measurable. The findings are also consistent with models based on political decision-making, but do not allow to pinpoint any of the political models as the facts are consistent with all three of them.

Efficiency of hospitals belongs among frequently discussed topics of public policy. This paper deals with a nonparametric model for efficiency evaluation of hospitals - data envelopment analysis (DEA). DEA evaluates efficiency of production units with the help of mathematical programming. DEA specifies the production frontier as the most pessimistic piecewise linear envelopment of the data. In case that a hospital is inefficient DEA determines the sources of inefficiency and defines corresponding target values. In this study, authors analyze the sample of 22 Czech acute-care hospitals with the constant-returns-to-scale model (the CCR model) and the variable-returns-to-scale model (the BCC model). The data comes from regional yearbooks of the Institute of Health Information and Statistics of the Czech Republic (ÚZIS ČR). A fundamental problem of evaluation in health care is a definition of inputs and outputs, especially a measurement of case-mix of patients. Interpretation of the results is described on one selected hospital (Hospital of Prachatice). One hospital was identified as efficient by the CCR model and six hospitals were efficient according to the BCC model.

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 is focused on the theory of optimal taxation applied to environmental regulation. The first part summarizes the current state of knowledge in this field, especially it concentrates on the so called double dividend hypothesis. The second part of the paper defines the concept of triple dividend in transport, which is modelled in the normative neoclassical framework. Based on econometric estimation, we calibrate a model and empirically investigate this hypothesis on the Czech data.

The paper shows the current state of environmental concerns in economic theory. Different economic schools have incorporated the environmental analysis into their theoretical framework. They use different presumptions, focus on different environmental aspects and come to diverse conclusions and political recommendations. However, there are many unclear frontiers between one another. This paper would like to help to understand these differences. It characterises and compares the main economic schools and theories. The paper focuses on environmental economics, ecological economics, new institutional economics, free market environmentalism, coevolutionary theory in economics and bioeconomics.

This paper reviews important approaches to discounting in economic modelling. It summarizes historical approaches and discusses why exponential discounting has been adopted as a widely accepted benchmark. The article then presents hyperbolic discounting as an alternative, while stresses different interpretation of discounting in positive and normative economics. In positive economics, the paper uses recent evidence to show that some observed regularities implied by exponential discounting are counterfactual and we illustrate different implications of the two approaches to discounting using numerical simulations of a stylized model of investment-consump- tion behaviour. It also concerns with applications of discounting in normative models of environmental economics. Many authors claim that exponential discounting, when used for long-term project evaluation, leads to an unfair treatment with generations living in a far future. We construct a model of optimal non-renewable resource exploitation to illustrate different normative implications of exponential and hyperbolic discounting.

The paper deals with the impact of the economic development level and given economic system on sectoral structure of employment with special regard to the services sector. It describes the topic on the case of the Czech Republic, or Czechoslovakia. At first, it reviews the employment structure in Czechoslovakia during the period of 1948 - 1983, then in the Czech Republic between 1990 and 1998.

Nowadays, many our organizations try to be successful on world markets. They meet with stiff competition in which satisfied customer has increasingly important role, besides a product able to compete and reasonable prices in corresponding class. Realization of such a product demands perfect control of processes and activities in all areas of an establishment. At present, well-though-out and systematic care about quality is natural demand on realization of business aim. Worldwide, ISO 9000 standard becomes a pattern of standards for quality systems. In this paper, three basic conceptions of the security of quality in organization with emphasis on the conception based on realization of ISO 9000 standards are described. Further, the need for great revision of ISO 9000 standards and the comparison of ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 standards with revised version 2000 is mentioned. In conclusion, some problems about certification are discussed and some prizes for quality are mentioned.