Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Jitka Poměnková Author-Name: Roman Maršálek Title: Empirical Evidence of Ideal Filter Approximation: Peripheral and Selected EU Countries Application Abstract: We compare three filters commonly used for business cycle analysis: the Baxter-King, the Christiano-Fitzgerald and the Hamming window filter. Empirical contribution of the paper is numerical evaluation of the approximation of the ideal band-pass fi lters in the discussion of the filters’ theoretical properties (gain and attenuation within the business cycle frequencies, as well as the leakage in the remaining frequencies). We consider the truncation factor for the Baxter-King filter and the sample size for the latter two. We show that the leakage and attenuation of the Christiano-Fitzgerald and the Hamming window fi lter perform similarly across the range of chosen sample sizes and better than the Baxter-King fi lter. Moreover, we apply the fi lters to data of selected EU countries and point out differences in their estimation of growth business cycles. Our findings indicate that Christiano-Fitzgerald fi lter and the Hamming window both are appropriate for the identifi cation of a business cycle. The Hamming window fi lter introduces smaller attenuation near the edges but in case of small samples its approximation of ideal fi lter is very rough. Keywords: business cycle, band-pass filters, frequency transfer function, gain, attenuation, leakage Classification-JEL: C02, C15, E32, E37 Pages: 485-502 Volume: 2015 Issue: 5 Year: 2015 File-URL: http://www.vse.cz/pep/download.php?jnl=pep&pdf=512.pdf File-URL: http://www.vse.cz/pep/512 File-Format: text/html Handle: RePEc:prg:jnlpep:v:2015:y:2015:i:5:id:512:p:485-502 X-File-Ref: http://www.vse.cz/RePEc/prg/jnlpep/references/512 Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Vít Pošta Author-Name: Zdeněk Pikhart Title: Financial Risk and Real Variables: Evidence Based on a SVAR Analysis of the Czech Economy Abstract: Recent financial crisis has brought to attention the issues of interactions between fi nancial markets and real economy. This paper presents an analysis of the possible explicit effects of various measures of financial markets’ risk on real economy based on impulse - response functionswithin structural vector autoregressive models. As discussed in the paper the riskiness of financial markets is closely related to the more traditional mechanisms based on fi nancial akcelerátor approach, however, although the issue of fi nancial risk is closely tied with the fi nancial akcelerátor model, broader effects outside this model may be considered as well. The analysis is carried out for the Czech Republic. The estimates of the responses in the impulse-response analyses typically correspond with the hypothesized effects of the financial risk factors on the real variables; also the interrelations between some of the fi nancial risk factors are obvious. We conclude that increased financial risk seems to be an amplifying element rather than the key driver in the interactions between financial and real economy. Keywords: Czech economy, financial crisis, business fluctuations, financial accelerator, financial markets’ risk, SVAR Classification-JEL: E32, E44, G01 Pages: 516-537 Volume: 2015 Issue: 5 Year: 2015 File-URL: http://www.vse.cz/pep/download.php?jnl=pep&pdf=513.pdf File-URL: http://www.vse.cz/pep/513 File-Format: text/html Handle: RePEc:prg:jnlpep:v:2015:y:2015:i:5:id:513:p:516-537 X-File-Ref: http://www.vse.cz/RePEc/prg/jnlpep/references/513 Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Gordana Marjanovic Author-Name: Ljiljana Maksimovic Author-Name: Nenad Stanisic Title: Hysteresis and the NAIRU: The Case of Countries in Transition Abstract: The paper examines the hysteresis hypothesis in unemployment in the case of eight selected countries in transition, using the Kalman filter and testing whether the NAIRU time series are stationary. The empirical results show that the hysteresis effect is confirmed for the majority of the countries. Testing the influence of the inflation growth rate on the decline in the NAIRU and vice versa, performed using the panel regression with fixed effect, confirmed that the increase in inflation leads to decline in the NAIRU. The conclusion also suggests the existence of the impact of actual unemployment rate on the NAIRU, which may be affected by the change in aggregate demand. Keywords: unemployment, inflation, NAIRU, Kalman filter, hysteresis Classification-JEL: C13, E24, E30, E50 Pages: 503-515 Volume: 2015 Issue: 5 Year: 2015 File-URL: http://www.vse.cz/pep/download.php?jnl=pep&pdf=526.pdf File-URL: http://www.vse.cz/pep/526 File-Format: text/html Handle: RePEc:prg:jnlpep:v:2015:y:2015:i:5:id:526:p:503-515 X-File-Ref: http://www.vse.cz/RePEc/prg/jnlpep/references/526 Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Tereza Fišerová Author-Name: Petr Teplý Author-Name: David Tripe Title: The Performance of Foreign-Owned Banks in Host Country Economies Abstract: The paper deals with the phenomenon of foreign bank ownership, which is prevalent in the countries of Central, Eastern and South Eastern European region as well as in New Zealand. Using a sample of 17 countries and filtering out more than 140 domestically operating foreign-owned banks, we examine the determinants of their performance in relation to host country conditions over the period of seven years between 2005 and 2011. Based on our knowledge, we use the largest data set in this respect compared to other researchers. Using system GMM and fixed effects models, we reveal that macroeconomic fundamentals of the host country affect the foreign-owned banks’ performance but do not suffice in explaining it fully. This result points out that sound banks with higher operational efficiency operating in growing economies with low inflation rate tend to perform better than their peers. Keywords: foreign ownership, banks and banking, bank performance measurement, fixed effects model, generalized method of moments Classification-JEL: G21, L25 Pages: 538-561 Volume: 2015 Issue: 5 Year: 2015 File-URL: http://www.vse.cz/pep/download.php?jnl=pep&pdf=527.pdf File-URL: http://www.vse.cz/pep/527 File-Format: text/html Handle: RePEc:prg:jnlpep:v:2015:y:2015:i:5:id:527:p:538-561 X-File-Ref: http://www.vse.cz/RePEc/prg/jnlpep/references/527 Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Martina Šimková Author-Name: Jitka Langhamrová Title: Remittances and their Impact for the Czech Economy Abstract: Migration of population has been a significant feature of the international economy for a long time. It is an important source of income, foreign exchange and workforce for a large number of economies. The most studies dealing with the international migration consider it as efficient instrument for developing countries, because inflow of money (through remittances) has a positive impact on their economy. However, on the other hand, economically developed countries are threatened by outflow of money abroad. From this perspective, remittances may have negative consequences on the economy. This issue connected with remittances is very often neglected. The Czech Republic and most developed European countries are the immigration countries. It means that many foreigners come here because of work or study, especially from non-EU countries. The paper focuses on rarely discussed issues of migration standing on the border between demographics and economic statistics. It deals with positive and negative aspects of labour immigration with the specific focus on foreigners´ behaviour - incomes, expenditures, savings and remittances. It is aimed to determine specific impact of migration and remittances on the economy of the Czech Republic. Keywords: labour market, migration, remittances, foreigners Classification-JEL: F22, F24, J61 Pages: 562-580 Volume: 2015 Issue: 5 Year: 2015 File-URL: http://www.vse.cz/pep/download.php?jnl=pep&pdf=548.pdf File-URL: http://www.vse.cz/pep/548 File-Format: text/html Handle: RePEc:prg:jnlpep:v:2015:y:2015:i:5:id:548:p:562-580 X-File-Ref: http://www.vse.cz/RePEc/prg/jnlpep/references/548 Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Arnošt Veselý Author-Name: František Ochrana Author-Name: Stanislav Klazar Title: An Analysis of Expenses for the Outsourcing of Policy Advice on the Level of the Ministries of the Czech Republic Abstract: The study is a contribution to the theoretical/empirical analysis of the problem of outsourcing of policy advice in the public administration. It provides the typologies of expenses for policy advice in the public administration and examines the relationship between internal and external expenses on an example of the ministries of the Czech Republic for the period from 2001 to 2011. It shows that extreme changes in the form of increases in expenses for outsourcing arise when an amendment to the Act on Public Contracts is prepared. We explain the problem on the basis of changes in the behaviour of the clients as a result of expected changes to the contracting conditions. The study shows that several factors influence the amount of expenses for the outsourcing of policy advice. The "large" ministries have relatively fewer expenses for the outsourcing of policy advice than "small" ministries. Ministries that have their own workplaces available in their structures (i.e. in the form of their own scientific research workplaces) have lower than average expenses for the outsourcing of policy advice. Ministries with higher average wages are ministries with a relatively large number of managers in relation to the number of analysts, and thus they implement a higher degree of external services (measured as a share of the wage expenses). Keywords: outsourcing, policy advice, external expenses for policy advice, internal expenses for policy advice, expenses for policy advice on the level of the ministries in the Czech Republic Classification-JEL: G14, H57 Pages: 581-601 Volume: 2015 Issue: 5 Year: 2015 File-URL: http://www.vse.cz/pep/download.php?jnl=pep&pdf=549.pdf File-URL: http://www.vse.cz/pep/549 File-Format: text/html Handle: RePEc:prg:jnlpep:v:2015:y:2015:i:5:id:549:p:581-601 X-File-Ref: http://www.vse.cz/RePEc/prg/jnlpep/references/549 Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Libor Dušek Author-Name: Klára Kalíšková Author-Name: Daniel Münich Title: The Poor or the Kids? Distributional Impacts of Taxes and Benefits Among Czech Households Abstract: This paper provides an up-to-date analysis of the redistributive effects of the Czech tax and benefit system at the household level. We provide several measures of the extent in which the tax and benefit system redistributes from the rich to the poor and from the childless households to the households with children. We find a rather weak combined power of the tax and benefit systems in alleviating income inequalities. The system redistributes primarily towards households with children. While households with children earn 55 per cent of total earnings, they pay 39 per cent of total taxes and receive 68 per cent of total benefits. Even the richest households with children contribute a lower share of total net taxes (8 per cent) than their share in total earnings (10 per cent). About a quarter of households with children in the upper income deciles collect some benefits while only half of the poorest households without children do. Keywords: Czech Republic, redistribution, income inequality, TAXBEN models Classification-JEL: H22, H24, H55, I38 Pages: 602-618 Volume: 2015 Issue: 5 Year: 2015 File-URL: http://www.vse.cz/pep/download.php?jnl=pep&pdf=550.pdf File-URL: http://www.vse.cz/pep/550 File-Format: text/html Handle: RePEc:prg:jnlpep:v:2015:y:2015:i:5:id:550:p:602-618 X-File-Ref: http://www.vse.cz/RePEc/prg/jnlpep/references/550