Prague Economic Papers, 2003 (vol. 12), issue 2
Original contributions, Original article, Research article
Czech economy in 2002: record-low inflation
Kamil Janáček, Eva Zamrazilová
Prague Economic Papers 2003, 12(2):99-120 | DOI: 10.18267/j.pep.208 
Gross domestic product continued to grow in 2002, faster than in the economies of most of the Czech Republic's major partners, albeit at a slower pace than in 2001. The major driving force of economic growth was private consumption, followed by government consumption. Investment demand registered a slowdown as an indirect result of weak foreign demand. 2002 was the year of record-low inflation in the history of the Czech Republic - at the end of the year, the consumer price index stood at 0.6 %. During 2002, nominal appreciation of the Czech currency accelerated - the koruna appreciated against the euro by almost ten per cent. The labor market was...
Performance of czech voucher-privatized firms
Evžen Kočenda
Prague Economic Papers 2003, 12(2):121-130 | DOI: 10.18267/j.pep.209
This paper works with a broad data sample of Czech voucher-privatized firms. The period of 1996 - 1999 enables to capture true post-privatization effects. It analyzes the effect of ownership structure on corporate performance and firm's characteristics. Results show that overall ownership concentration cannot be associated with improving corporate performance. Further, particular types of domestic owners do not affect firm's performance but they do affect firm's characteristics. Effect of foreign owners is limited. No clear or unambiguous effect of changes in ownership structure on corporate performance emerged.
Czech banking in comparative perspective
Martin Myant
Prague Economic Papers 2003, 12(2):131-144 | DOI: 10.18267/j.pep.210
Banks played a central and, at times, controversial, role in the post-1989 transformation of the Czech economy. This article is trying to assess that role by setting it in a historical and comparative context. Economic historians have specified two broad models of banking behaviour, although the differences can be exaggerated. Transition economies show some common characteristics, but past history gave Czech banks a particularly important role and policy makers pursued a conception under which they would finance rapid economic transformation, partly following a model from the past. With varying degrees of willingness, established banks took on this...
An institutional setup of the czech market for treasury securities
Zdeněk Dvorný
Prague Economic Papers 2003, 12(2):145-153 | DOI: 10.18267/j.pep.211
This theoretical paper maps the transition experience of the financial sector using evidence from the Czech money market. Especially, the respect is paid to the structure of interest rates during the period from 1993 to 2001. The main components of the money market that mostly determine the term structure are the interbank deposit market and the market for short-term securities. The study abstains from interbank market survey and provides a detailed description of the default-free short-term securities market and its impact on past interest rate movements.
Heterogeneous agent model with memory and asset price behaviour
Miloslav Vošvrda, Lukáš Vácha
Prague Economic Papers 2003, 12(2):155-168 | DOI: 10.18267/j.pep.212
The efficient markets hypothesis provides a theoretical basis on which technical trading rules (TTRs) are rejected as a viable trading strategy. TTRs, providing a signal to the user when to buy or sell asset based on such price patterns, should not be useful for generating excess returns. Technical traders tend to put little faith in strict efficient markets hypothesis. This approach relies on heterogeneity in the agent information and subsequent decisions either as fundamentalists or as technical traders. Switching between the technical trader's and fundamentalist's strategy is a basis of the cycle behaviour. This event is analysed by the Brock and...
Causality between exports and economic growth: empirical estimates for slovenia
Jani Bekő
Prague Economic Papers 2003, 12(2):169-186 | DOI: 10.18267/j.pep.213
This paper employs error-correction representation approach and conditional causality technique to assess the patterns of export-economic growth link in Slovenia. In general, the results support the existence of bi-directional causality between export variables and indicators of domestic economic activity. The evidenced bi-directional causality of exportoutput relation for Slovenia suggests that any characterization of a small country's growth as export-driven may be at least perfunctory. As the results imply, there are no trade-offs between whether to pursue a growth strategy of structural reforms for internal competitiveness with the goal of higher...