Politická ekonomie, 2005 (vol. 53), issue 2

Nazrál čas k vyváženému hodnocení české privatizace?

Has the time come for a balanced view of the czech privatization?

Marek Loužek

Politická ekonomie 2005, 53(2):147-162 | DOI: 10.18267/j.polek.500

The paper is concerned with the Czech privatization. According to the author, there was no economic theory of privatization in 1989. Therefore, decision makers in transition economies had to improvise and solve a dilemma: a fast, or slow privatization? The Czech literature on privatization as well as the strengths and weaknesses of privatization methods in the Czech Republic, including of the voucher one, are discussed. The paper argues against the pessimistic view on the Czech privatization, which predominated in the literature in the second half of the nineties.

Articles

Nerovnováha běžného účtu platební bilance v členských státech eurozóny

The current account imbalance in the euro area member countries

Jaromír Šindel

Politická ekonomie 2005, 53(2) | DOI: 10.18267/j.polek.501

The article discusses a current account imbalance in the eurozone member countries, respectively whether the economic policy institutions should respond to the rising external imbalance, even if there is no threat of the monetary crisis. The monetary policy reactions can not be expected resulting from the general current account surplus in the eurozone as the whole. The relevancy of deficits for the eurozone member countries acts as an important factor by an intertemporal budget constraint, where the threat of the monetary crisis that limits the foreign debt accumulation is eliminated and at the same time the financial integration joint with the higher...

Proč centrální banky systematicky podstřelují svůj cíl

Why central banks undershoot their inflation targets

Jiří Škop

Politická ekonomie 2005, 53(2) | DOI: 10.18267/j.polek.502

The goal of this article is to explain why central banks undershoot their inflation targets as we can observe also in the case of the Czech Republic. In other words, I am trying to find out if this undershooting is due to unpredictable desinflation shocks or due to asymmetric behaviour of central banks. Specifically, positive deviations from the target (i.e. overshooting) are weighted more in central bank"s loss function than the negative ones. It is shown that the Czech National Bank is asymmetric in its preferences but not so much as in the case of Canada, Sweden and the United Kingdom. On the other hand, some part of undershooting attributes to...

Simulace vývoje výdajů a příjmů důchodového systému České republiky do roku 2050

The simulation of the future development of expenditure and revenue of the czech pension security scheme up to 2050

Radka Rutarová, Michal Slavík

Politická ekonomie 2005, 53(2) | DOI: 10.18267/j.polek.503

The long-term sustainability of the public finance in the context of population ageing is becoming a hot topic in most of the European countries including the Czech Republic. Moreover the Czech population will be one of the oldest in the world according to the forecasts of different institutions (UN, OECD, etc.). It poses challenge for the Czech pension security scheme. This paper presents possible scenarios of the future development and illustrates future fiscal impacts of the ageing assuming a preservation of the current Czech pension security scheme in the period up to 2050. The analysis is based on a detailed one-year age structure. This allows...

Trh práce v nových spolkových zemích Německa

Labour market in new federal states of Germany

Václav Lerch

Politická ekonomie 2005, 53(2) | DOI: 10.18267/j.polek.504

The situation on the labour market in East Germany is difficult since the beginning of economic transition in the early 90's. The reasons for such a situation are complex. The implementation of single currency, the collapse of East Germany's foreign trade, the privatization method and high wages should be mentioned above all. The macroeconomic reasons for the persistently high unemployment rate are supported by microeconomic reasons, too. The unification of Germany was not perceived as a unique chance to reform the outdated German labour market. Active labour market policy measures known from the old Federal Republic of Germany were not as effective...

Bola hospodárska reforma účinným nástrojom na riešenie finančnej krízy v Juhovýchodnej Ázii?

Was the economic reform sufficient instrument for solving the financial crisis?

Peter Baláž, Martin Líner

Politická ekonomie 2005, 53(2) | DOI: 10.18267/j.polek.505

The study deals with analysis of economic reforms in South-Eastern Asia affected by financial crisis in 1990s. Authors have stressed, that it was a result of internal and external influences, which caused not only the fatal destabilization of main economic fundaments of affected countries and they have had consequences on international business authority of these countries. It was approved, that the high rate of internal interdependence of countries affected by crisis and also the interdependence on Japan, could be considered as basic, but hidden accelerators of crisis. Nevertheless using of important reforming interventions eliminated most of the...