Prague Economic Papers, 2010 (vol. 19), issue 2

The Problem of the Yearly Inflation Rate and Its Implications for the Monetary Policy of the Czech National Bank

Josef Arlt, Milan Bašta

Prague Economic Papers 2010, 19(2):99-117 | DOI: 10.18267/j.pep.366  

The yearly inflation rate might not always be an appropriate measure of inflation, mainly due to the fact that it does not provide up-to-date information on the level of inflation. The harmonic analysis shows that the yearly inflation rate deforms and delays the information with respect to the monthly inflation rate and is thus delayed behind the true inflation at yearly levels. This conclusion can be extremely important in the forecasting of the inflation rate at yearly levels and in the process of economic decision making. The problem of the yearly inflation rate is illustrated on the example of the monetary policy of the Czech National Bank. The...

Bank Efficiency and Non-Performing Loans: Evidence from Malaysia and Singapore

Mohd Zaini Abd Karim, Sok-Gee Chan, Sallahudin Hassan

Prague Economic Papers 2010, 19(2):118-132 | DOI: 10.18267/j.pep.367  

The objective of this paper is to investigate the relationship between non-performing loans and bank efficiency in Malaysia and Singapore. To achieve the objective, cost efficiency was estimated using the stochastic cost frontier approach assuming normal-gamma efficiency distribution model proposed by Greene (1990). The cost efficiency scores were then used in the second stage Tobit simultaneous equation regression to determine the effect of non-performing loans on bank efficiency. The results indicate that there is no significant difference in cost efficiency between banks in Singapore and Malaysia although banks in Singapore exhibit a higher average...

Impact of Harmonisation on Distribution of VAT in the Czech Republic

Barbora Slintáková, Stanislav Klazar

Prague Economic Papers 2010, 19(2):133-149 | DOI: 10.18267/j.pep.368  

The aim of this paper is to analyse progressivity of value added tax in the Czech Republic under the framework of both annual incidence and lifetime incidence. Moreover, impact of the harmonisation of VAT rates connected with the accession of the Czech Republic to the EU on the income distribution is examined. The burden table serves to show the distribution of the VAT burden among households by income categories; the generalised entropy measures and the Gini coefficient are used for measurement of inequality of income. Results show that the Czech VAT is regressive when annual income is analysed while the lifetime income analysis indicated that VAT...

Do Investigations of Competition Authorities Really Increase the Degree of Competition? An Answer From Turkish Cement Market

Aydin Çelen, Burak Günalp

Prague Economic Papers 2010, 19(2):150-168 | DOI: 10.18267/j.pep.369  

In this paper, we assess the effects of the investigations carried by the Turkish Competition Board in 1997, 2002 and 2003 on the degree competition in the Turkish cement market. For this aim, we used proverbial Bresnahan-Lau framework with alternative definitions for the supply relation. Our first finding is that cement producers had a considerable amount of market power at the period prior to the first investigation in 1997. In addition, this study shows that, parallel to our initial expectation, competition in the cement market increased thanks to the investigations. The positive effect of the first investigation is found to be especially significant....

Sources of Economical Growth in the Czech Food Processing

Lukáš Čechura, Heinrich Hockmann

Prague Economic Papers 2010, 19(2):169-182 | DOI: 10.18267/j.pep.370  

The paper attempts to assess the development path of the Czech food processing and to identify the presence of idiosyncratic developments in industries. We elaborate it by using a fitted production function for the construction of TFP and by decomposing TFP into a scale effect, a technical change effect and an efficiency effect for total food processing and its selected branches. The results suggest that despite more than one decade of transition, serious adjustment problems exist, including problems on the capital market. Furthermore, contrary to the large differences among firms in the whole sample, the various sectors are rather homogeneous. TFP...

Looking Back to Reforms, Looking Back to the Conference "Twenty Years of Financial and Bank Reforms in the Czech Republic"

Vladimír Tomšík

Prague Economic Papers 2010, 19(2):183-190 | DOI: 10.18267/j.pep.371