Prague Economic Papers, 2017 (vol. 26), issue 5

The Metropolisation Processes A Case of Central Europe and the Czech Republic

Milan Viturka, Vilém Pařil, Petr Tonev, Petr Šašinka, Josef Kunc

Prague Economic Papers 2017, 26(5):505-522 | DOI: 10.18267/j.pep.624  

The article deals with the strategically important problems of metropolisation. In this context, it presents a theoretically based method of assessment of metropolises, the explanatory power of which was verified on the example of the Central Europe. This method is based on three components: population size (initial assumption), economic profile (ties to economic performance) and general attractiveness (the perception of development potential). The results of the evaluation of the 27 identified metropolises were generalized using a typology of their inclusion within the framework of the listed components: most metropolises were classified as type B...

Forward Guidance, Pros, Cons and Credibility

Maciej Ryczkowski

Prague Economic Papers 2017, 26(5):523-541 | DOI: 10.18267/j.pep.631  

The goal of the article is to verify the credibility of time contingent Forward Guidance (FG) as well as its possible time-inconsistency based on the rarely addressed example of the National Bank of Poland (NBP). The NBP's FG constitutes a unique case study as this measure in its 'Odyssean' form was not introduced to overcome the limits of further policy rates cuts. It allowed us to verify the FG's credibility and time-inconsistency by applying OLS and GMM estimated contemporaneous and forward looking Taylor type rules with interest smoothing. Our empirical evidence reveals that the annual period of FG in Poland was perceived as a credible promise...

Stochastic Claims Reserving in Insurance Using Random Effects

Michal Gerthofer, Michal Pešta

Prague Economic Papers 2017, 26(5):542-560 | DOI: 10.18267/j.pep.625  

Estimation of claims reserves, which should be held by the insurer so as to be able to meet expected future claims arising from policies currently in force and policies written in the past, presents an important task for insurance companies to predict their liabilities. A common approach to the reser-ving problem is based on generalized linear models (GLM). In this article, the application of genera-lized linear mixed models (GLMM) - an extension of the GLM - for estimation of the loss reserves is shown. Since the GLMM allows incorporating a random effect instead of several fixed effects corresponding to the accident years as in case of the GLM, volatility...

The Proposal of a Tool for Candidates Selection for Employment. The Case of Survey Interviewers

Alina Morosanu, Elisabeta Jaba, Daniela Serban

Prague Economic Papers 2017, 26(5):561-577 | DOI: 10.18267/j.pep.629  

This study purpose is a questionnaire development used to quantify survey interviewer cha- racteristics. Five dimensions of personality were used: conscientiousness, extraversion, agree-ableness, emotional stability and openness. Those dimensions where measured using a Likert scale with 6 points. In total, 107 survey interviewers from a branch of private companies specialized in public opinion research answered the questionnaire's questions. Reliability of the questionnaire was assessed by internal consistency. A preliminary list of 25 items was prepared as a starting point. After evaluation of validity, five...

Evidence of Asymmetries and Nonlinearity of Unemployment and Labour Force Participation Rate in Ukraine

Iryna Lukianenko, Marianna Oliskevych

Prague Economic Papers 2017, 26(5):578-601 | DOI: 10.18267/j.pep.633  

With respect to instability and structural changes for maintaining effective functioning of economy an important issue is to study the dynamics of processes in the labour market, including labour supply and employment. Considering negative demographic trends and an acute problem of population aging in Ukraine the article presents an empirical research of the dynamics of labour force participation and unemployment rate, as well as the correlation relationship between them in various periods of time. On the basis of threshold-disturbance moving average and threshold-disturbance autoregressive models there are elicited significant asymmetric reactions...

Volatility Strangeness of Bonds - How to Define and What Does it Bring?

Bohumil Stádník, Václav Žďárek

Prague Economic Papers 2017, 26(5):602-629 | DOI: 10.18267/j.pep.636  

The aim of this article is to complement the existing economic and financial strand of the literature by defining three alternative regimes of the clean price volatility of a bond with respect to the level of interest rates in the economy. The suggested method takes into account responses to the changing nature of financial markets and allows for the possibility of observing negative interest rates. Our approach enables to find particular values of switching points between alternative regimes. After showing main theoretical steps, an investigation of the dependence of such points on key parameters of bonds is provided. An empirical illustration follows,...