Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Author-Name: Colin Lawson
Author-Name: Emília Zimková
Title: The credit crisis: what lessons for Visegrad?
Abstract: The origins, growth and importance of the 2007-2009 American and European credit crisis are analysed. The causes lie in the speculative bubbles, the changed attitudes to domestic property, the growth of securitisation and derivatives trading, the changing roles of financial institutions, poor policy choices and inadequate regulation. The Visegrad states are being affected by declining export markets that have triggered domestic recessions, and growing credit problems. The recession is especially penalising economies they have followed risky policies. The course of the recession is currently impossible to predict. But it is possible for these states to draw on the regulatory lessons inflicted on others, and to respond to the challenge of co-regulating the international banks that dominate their domestic markets, and which while too large to fail, are also too large to rescue unaided.
Keywords: regulation, central banking, Bank of England, credit crisis, European Central Ban, Federal Reserve Board (US), Visegrad
Classification-JEL: E4, E5, F4
Pages: 99-113
Volume: 2009
Issue: 2
Year: 2009
File-URL: http://www.vse.cz/pep/download.php?jnl=pep&pdf=344.pdf
File-URL: http://www.vse.cz/pep/344
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Handle: RePEc:prg:jnlpep:v:2009:y:2009:i:2:id:344:p:99-113
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Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Author-Name: Vratislav Izák
Title: Primary balance, public debt and fiscal variables in postsocialist members of the european union
Abstract: The primary balance has influenced the unit costs of debt servicing in 10 postsocialist members of the EU.  The effects of the GDP growth and the inflation are equally robust and significant. The coefficients of lagged debt are at variance with the expectations from Bohn´s 1998 paper, and one cannot speak until now about the corrective actions of fiscal authorities in these countries. Only Poland has had on average a higher real long-term interest rate than the growth rate. Other countries could stabilize their debt-GDP ratio by running a primary deficit. But comparing the level of investment with profits only in Slovenia one can speak about the dynamic inefficiency. Especially in the Czech Republic and Slovakia the relationship between debt and deficit is blurred by high negative stock-flow adjustments.
Keywords: public debt, primary balance, panel analysis, postsocialist members of EU
Classification-JEL: E62, H63
Pages: 114-130
Volume: 2009
Issue: 2
Year: 2009
File-URL: http://www.vse.cz/pep/download.php?jnl=pep&pdf=345.pdf
File-URL: http://www.vse.cz/pep/345
File-Format: text/html
Handle: RePEc:prg:jnlpep:v:2009:y:2009:i:2:id:345:p:114-130
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Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Author-Name: Tomáš Havránek
Title: The supply of foreign direct investment incentives: subsidy competition in an oligopolistic framework
Abstract: This paper examines the microeconomic motivation of governments to provide tax incentives for foreign direct investment. Author applies the classical models of oligopoly to subsidy competition, endogenousing investment incentives, but leaving tax rates exogenous. According to the conventional wisdom, subsidy competition leads to overprovision of incen-tives. This paper suggests that, in the oligopolistic framework, supranational coordination can either decrease or increase the supply of subsidies. Further, in the setting of subsidy regulation, the host country's corporate income tax rate has an ambiguous effect on the provision of incentives.
Keywords: foreign direct investment, investment incentives, subsidy competition, productivity spillovers, oligopoly, multinational corporations
Classification-JEL: F12, F21, F23, H25, H71, H87
Pages: 131-155
Volume: 2009
Issue: 2
Year: 2009
File-URL: http://www.vse.cz/pep/download.php?jnl=pep&pdf=346.pdf
File-URL: http://www.vse.cz/pep/346
File-Format: text/html
Handle: RePEc:prg:jnlpep:v:2009:y:2009:i:2:id:346:p:131-155
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Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Author-Name: Kam Ki Tang
Author-Name: Leopoldo Yanes
Title: The hierarchical structure of the firm: a geometric perspective
Abstract: This paper incorporates hierarchical structure into the neoclassical theory of the firm. Firms are hierarchical in two respects: the organization of workers in production and the wage structure. The firm's hierarchy is represented as a sector of a circle, where the radius represents the hierarchy's height, the width of the sector represents the breadth of the hierarchy at a given height, and the angle of the sector represents the span of control.  A perfectly competitive firm chooses height and width, as well as capital, in order to maxi-mize profit. We analyse the short-run and long-run impact of changes in scale economies, input substitutability, and input and output prices on the firm's hierarchical structure. We find that the firm grows as the specialization of its workers increases or as its output price increases relative to input prices. The effect of changes in scale economies is contingent on the price of output. The model also brings forth an analysis of wage inequality within the firm, which is found to be independent of the firm's hierarchical organization of workers, and only depends on the firm's wage schedule.
Keywords: inequality, theory of the firm, hierarchical structure, economies of scale, input substitutability
Classification-JEL: D63, L22, L23
Pages: 156-175
Volume: 2009
Issue: 2
Year: 2009
File-URL: http://www.vse.cz/pep/download.php?jnl=pep&pdf=347.pdf
File-URL: http://www.vse.cz/pep/347
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Handle: RePEc:prg:jnlpep:v:2009:y:2009:i:2:id:347:p:156-175
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Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Author-Name: Martin Dlouhý
Title: Efficiency and productivity analysis in health services
Abstract: Efficiency and productivity analysis is widely used in health services research. In the paper, two major modelling approaches to efficiency and productivity analysis in health services are evaluated. The first group comprises non-parametric methods based on the theory of mathematical programming, such as data envelopment analysis. The second group originates from econometric analysis of production function. Although the application of quantitative economic analysis in health services is not without problems, the methods discussed are able to help us with identifying best and worst practices within the health systems.
Keywords: data envelopment analysis, frontier analysis, health services
Classification-JEL: C50, C60, D24
Pages: 176-184
Volume: 2009
Issue: 2
Year: 2009
File-URL: http://www.vse.cz/pep/download.php?jnl=pep&pdf=348.pdf
File-URL: http://www.vse.cz/pep/348
File-Format: text/html
Handle: RePEc:prg:jnlpep:v:2009:y:2009:i:2:id:348:p:176-184
X-File-Ref: http://www.vse.cz/RePEc/prg/jnlpep/references/348