Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Author-Name: Jiří Štekláč
Title: Politicko-ekonomické varianty vyhlazování hospodářského cyklu v soudobých úvěrových ekonomikách
Title: Political-Economic Options for Smoothing of Business Cycles within the Current Credit-Economy
Abstract: The article formulates the general political-economic possibilities for smoothing of business cycles under the realistic assumptions of the current credit-economy. Firstly it endeavours to explain the mechanism of the financial and real economy functioning with an emphasis on banking sector. The initial theoretical model is considered as unrealistic but proper for demonstration of the consequences of money endogeneity, mechanism of banking financing and dependency of economic growth on credit growth and savings. On the basis of this explanation the article identifies the real causes of credit cycles in the current credit-economy and performs some relevant empirical evidence. The causes include insufficient credit growth, significant concentration of monetary assets, disproportionate development between inflation and excess money growth, deregulation, transmission of credit risk, deleveraging of private sector and imperfect steering of interest rates. Subsequently, author constitutes the basic political-economic tools which could possibly eliminate (or at least mitigate) both the deep and shallow recessions in ex-ante and ex-post periods. The study concludes that possible political-economic tools are following: traditional and non-traditional monetary policy, fiscal expansion, redistribution through progressive taxation, microeconomic and macroeconomic regulation. The entire study is based on US data.
Keywords: economic policy, business cycles, bank and other depository institutions, credit cycles, money supply and credit, money hoarding
Classification-JEL: E32, E51, E61, G21
Pages: 3-31
Volume: 2015
Issue: 1
Year: 2015
File-URL: http://www.vse.cz/polek/download.php?jnl=polek&pdf=986.pdf
File-URL: http://www.vse.cz/polek/986
File-Format: text/html
Handle: RePEc:prg:jnlpol:v:2015:y:2015:i:1:id:986:p:3-31
X-File-Ref: http://www.vse.cz/RePEc/prg/jnlpol/references/986

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Author-Name: Martin Mandel
Author-Name: Vladimír Tomšík
Title: Dynamika a rovnováha úspor, investic a úvěru v hospodářském cyklu: příklad České republiky
Title: Dynamics and Balance of Savings, Investments, and Credits in Business Cycle: The Case of the Czech Republic
Abstract: The goal of the article is a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the relationship among savings, investments and credits in a business cycle in the Czech Republic. The presented analysis brings specific recommendations on the interaction between monetary policy and macroprudential regulation. The article starts with a critical analysis of the Austrian Economic School and its monetary theory of business cycle, which provides a methodological base for further empirical analysis in the paper. Based on the data of the Czech economy, the authors empirically test a hypothesis whether credits create a financial bubble when a credit growth exceeds a real GDP growth. The financial cycle had a significantly higher volatility comparing to real business cycle volatility in the Czech Republic in the period 1997-2013. The existence of the credit bubble was confirmed by statistically significant model parameters, when using the differences in relative year on year changes of banking client credits as a depended variable and relative year on year changes of real GDP as an independent variable. Currently valid European regulation doesn’t allow using the same tools to host regulator and supervisor towards the bank subsidiaries and branches in a need to react to the different phases of financial cycle. If a host supervisor needs to influence and safeguard the financial stability, it has only the following tools applying to both forms of banking operations in the host countries: counter cyclical capital buffer, capital regulation of real estate exposures, and setting the loan to value (income) limits.
Keywords: Austrian school, credit cycle theory, monetary and macroprudential policy
Classification-JEL: E58, G21, G28
Pages: 32-56
Volume: 2015
Issue: 1
Year: 2015
File-URL: http://www.vse.cz/polek/download.php?jnl=polek&pdf=987.pdf
File-URL: http://www.vse.cz/polek/987
File-Format: text/html
Handle: RePEc:prg:jnlpol:v:2015:y:2015:i:1:id:987:p:32-56
X-File-Ref: http://www.vse.cz/RePEc/prg/jnlpol/references/987

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Author-Name: Martin Komrska
Title: Rakouská teorie hospodářského cyklu: VAR analýza pro USA v letech 1978-2013
Title: The Austrian Business Cycle Theory: VAR Analysis for USA between 1978-2013
Abstract: The aim of this paper is to empirically investigate the explanatory power of Austrian business cycle theory (ABCT). My dataset consists of US quarterly time series within the period 1978-2013. Following Wainhouse (1984), Keeler (2001) and others I employ Granger causality as one of the primary tools of the analysis. Furthermore I also add impulse response functions to analyse the observed relations in closer detail. Two main hypotheses were tested. First one analyses how changes in interest rate affects relative proportion of investment and consumption outlays. Second hypothesis investigates how labour resources are reallocated as a consequence of an increase in interest rate. In both hypotheses, two concepts of interest rate were employed. Application of “explicit” interest rate does not seem to generate significant results. On the contrary, results fit in the Austrian story much better when implicit rate is employed. The traditional version of ABCT, which relies more on explicit interest rates, seems to suffer from invalid assumption about the allocation of credit during expansionary phase of business cycle.
Keywords: business cycle, structure of production, VAR, Granger causality, impulse response, implicit interest rate, ABCT
Classification-JEL: C32, E32, E43
Pages: 57-73
Volume: 2015
Issue: 1
Year: 2015
File-URL: http://www.vse.cz/polek/download.php?jnl=polek&pdf=988.pdf
File-URL: http://www.vse.cz/polek/988
File-Format: text/html
Handle: RePEc:prg:jnlpol:v:2015:y:2015:i:1:id:988:p:57-73
X-File-Ref: http://www.vse.cz/RePEc/prg/jnlpol/references/988

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Author-Name: Vratislav Izák
Title: Soukromý a veřejný dluh
Title: Private and Public Debt
Abstract: We analyse potential sources of internal imbalances, specifically as regards private and public indebtedness. The combination of a high public debt and increasing private sector indebtedness have been a source of concern in the perspective of the funding of the economy in examined countries. We utilize the detailed financial accounts as an analytical framework for revealing the development of private sector ´s indebtedness in 18 EU countries in the period 1995-2012. Ratio of private debt (non-financial corporations, households and non-profit institutions serving households) to GDP was steadily increasing till 2009 with a decrease in the following years. After the decomposition of the private sector debt several facts stand out. Highly indebted, on the average, are households in Denmark and The Netherlands. Postsocialist countries have still low indebtedness, but are catching up. In panel regressions (fixed effects) the dependent variable is overlapping two-and free-year forward looking averages. The control variables are those usually used in growth equations a la R. Barro. We have utilised also instrumental variables (Pooled IV Two-stage EGLS) and 3 years averages for all variables to capture medium-run impacts. Having analysed the impacts of different private debt variables on the growth rate of real GDP we assert that the impact has been negative and statistically significant in almost all growth regressions.
Keywords: public debt, flow of funds, private debt, panel analysis, growth equation
Classification-JEL: D9, E6, H3
Pages: 74-90
Volume: 2015
Issue: 1
Year: 2015
File-URL: http://www.vse.cz/polek/download.php?jnl=polek&pdf=989.pdf
File-URL: http://www.vse.cz/polek/989
File-Format: text/html
Handle: RePEc:prg:jnlpol:v:2015:y:2015:i:1:id:989:p:74-90

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Author-Name: Petr Musílek
Author-Name: Tomáš Jeřábek
Title: Hedgeové fondy a akciové trhy
Title: Hedge Funds and Stock Markets
Abstract: The presented article can be divided in three main parts. In the first one the authors define the term hedge fund and discuss briefly the history of these investment entities and their current position on the global financial markets. The second part of the article investigates the impact of hedge fund activities on stock markets. The findings of this analysis which is based on descriptive statistics and distribution of the yields of a hedge fund index and two representative stock market indices and the lagged correlation between them don't indicate that hedge funds have the potential to contribute in a significant way to the instability of stock markets. The third and final part of the article deals with the regulation of hedge funds. While the regulation of these investment vehicles before the 2007-2008 global financial crisis was rather light, significant changes were adopted as part of the regulatory response and overhaul of the financial markets. The Dodd-Frank Act in the US implemented among others new registration requirements for hedge funds and their advisors and imposed wide ranging information and record-keeping requirements on their activities.
Keywords: global financial crises, Institutional investors, hedge funds managers, regulation and supervision
Classification-JEL: G23
Pages: 91-107
Volume: 2015
Issue: 1
Year: 2015
File-URL: http://www.vse.cz/polek/download.php?jnl=polek&pdf=990.pdf
File-URL: http://www.vse.cz/polek/990
File-Format: text/html
Handle: RePEc:prg:jnlpol:v:2015:y:2015:i:1:id:990:p:91-107

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Author-Name: Karel Janda
Author-Name: Pavel Zetek
Title: Mikrofinanční revoluce: kontroverze a výzvy
Title: Microfinance Revolution: Controversies and Challenges
Abstract: This article provides a brief but comprehensive overview of microfinance academic literature with emphasis on recent innovations, trends and efficiency. In particular, we focus on controversial issues of microfinance, such as commercialization, regulation, interest rate policy and the balance between outreach and performance of MFIs. In summary, the findings of the reviewed literature underline the great improvement in the microfinance field that, however, has not reached its full potential yet. At the same time, we outline potential risks and drawbacks which are being discovered along the way of microfinance development and maturing, many of which still waiting for more rigorous scholarly examination.
Keywords: efficiency, Microfinance, microcredit, mission drift
Classification-JEL: G21, O11, O12, O16
Pages: 108-130
Volume: 2015
Issue: 1
Year: 2015
File-URL: http://www.vse.cz/polek/download.php?jnl=polek&pdf=991.pdf
File-URL: http://www.vse.cz/polek/991
File-Format: text/html
Handle: RePEc:prg:jnlpol:v:2015:y:2015:i:1:id:991:p:108-130

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Author-Name: Pavel Sirůček
Title: Nositel Nobelovy ceny za ekonomii pro rok 2014
Title: Nobel Prize in Economics 2014 Winner
Pages: 131-138
Volume: 2015
Issue: 1
Year: 2015
File-URL: http://www.vse.cz/polek/download.php?jnl=polek&pdf=992.pdf
File-URL: http://www.vse.cz/polek/992
File-Format: text/html
Handle: RePEc:prg:jnlpol:v:2015:y:2015:i:1:id:992:p:131-138

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Author-Name: Petr Pavlík
Title: Rozvojová problematika pohledem ekonomického mainstreamu
Title: Development Problems from the Mainstream Economy Point of View
Pages: 139-144
Volume: 2015
Issue: 1
Year: 2015
File-URL: http://www.vse.cz/polek/download.php?jnl=polek&pdf=993.pdf
File-URL: http://www.vse.cz/polek/993
File-Format: text/html
Handle: RePEc:prg:jnlpol:v:2015:y:2015:i:1:id:993:p:139-144