Politická ekonomie, 2007 (vol. 55), issue 1
Měnová politika, změny trendové inflace a nestabilita úrokových relací: analýza dynamiky dlouhodobých úrokových sazeb v kontextu změn repo sazby české národní banky
Monetary policy, trend inflation changes and volatility of interest rates relations: an analysis of long-term interest rate dynamics in the context of changes in czech national bank repo rate
Karel Brůna
Politická ekonomie 2007, 55(1):3-22 | DOI: 10.18267/j.polek.587 
The paper deals with theoretical and empirical aspects of the interactions between monetary policy and swap rates in the Czech Republic in 1999 through to 2005. In the theoretical part main sources of volatility of swap and forward rates on changes of repo rate are studied (actual stage of business cycle and changing level of monetary restriction, investor's misunderstanding of future main policy rate dynamics or inconsistency between expected monetary policy outcomes and actual dynamics of real level of repo rate). The empirical analysis proved low sensitivity of Czech crowns swap and forward rates to CNB repo rate changes, high volatility of interest...
Reálná konvergence České republiky k Evropské unii v porovnání s ostatními novými členskými zeměmi
Real convergence of the Czech republic to the EU in comparison with the other new member countries
Ctirad Slavík
Politická ekonomie 2007, 55(1):23-40 | DOI: 10.18267/j.polek.588
The paper analyzes the process of real convergence of the Czech Republic and the other new EU member countries towards the old EU. The new member countries were beta converging towards the EU in the period 1992 - 2004. The speed of convergence was 1.77% which is a number comparable to the speed of convergence among the states of the USA. The Czech Republic has been growing more slowly than what would correspond to its level of real GDP per capita. This trend seems to have been overcome by faster growth in the last two years. Still, even in the optimistic scenario, it will take more than 30 years for the Czech Republic to reach the EU-15 average, which...
Regionálna integrácia a intra-regionálny obchod: komparatívna analýza
Regional integration and intra-regional trade: a comparative analysis
Saleh Mothana Obadi
Politická ekonomie 2007, 55(1):41-59 | DOI: 10.18267/j.polek.589
This paper deals with regional integration in general and examines the intra-regional trade of selected regional groups and trade blocks as a comparative analysis. We pay particular attention to the periods after the founding of regional integration ( NAFTA and MERCOSUR) and after the signing of the AFTA (regards ASEAN) as well as the crucial years prior to and following the Asian crisis and since 1990 to 2003 for EU as a result of processes of trade liberalization in the mentioned regional groups. Using the statistical analysis, we found that the ratio of intra-EU trade has decreased from 66 per cent in 1993 to 60 per cent in 2003. In terms of the...
Využití analýzy obalu dat pro hodnocení efektivnosti českých nemocnic
Use of data envelopment analysis for efficiency evaluation of czech hospitals
Martin Dlouhý, Josef Jablonský, Ivana Novosádová
Politická ekonomie 2007, 55(1):60-71 | DOI: 10.18267/j.polek.590
Efficiency of hospitals belongs among frequently discussed topics of public policy. This paper deals with a nonparametric model for efficiency evaluation of hospitals - data envelopment analysis (DEA). DEA evaluates efficiency of production units with the help of mathematical programming. DEA specifies the production frontier as the most pessimistic piecewise linear envelopment of the data. In case that a hospital is inefficient DEA determines the sources of inefficiency and defines corresponding target values. In this study, authors analyze the sample of 22 Czech acute-care hospitals with the constant-returns-to-scale model (the CCR model) and the...
Opomíjená heterogenita lidí aneb proč Afrika dlouhodobě neroste
On omitted heterogeneity and lack of growth in sub-saharan Africa
Michal Bauer, Julie Chytilová
Politická ekonomie 2007, 55(1):72-90 | DOI: 10.18267/j.polek.591
There is hardly any bigger economic tragedy than poor economic development of sub-Saharan Africa. The persistent character of its slow growth or even decline is not possible to explain when using standard growth theories and cross-coutry data. We have suggested a classification framework for existing theories and it allowed us to show that all these approaches (despite their broadness and different policy implications) assume that people's preferences everywhere in the world can be embodied in Homo oeconomicus concept. Growth incompatible behavior is then explained by unfavorable environment being it geography, colonial legacy or bad policy environment....
Max Weber ekonom
Max Weber - an economist
Marek Loužek
Politická ekonomie 2007, 55(1):91-105 | DOI: 10.18267/j.polek.592
The article presents Max Weber as an economist. Weber's relation to economics is discussed. His inaugural speech in Freiburg "National State and Economic Policy" (1895), "Lectures on General (Theoretical) Economics" (1898), writings about stock exchange (1893-1898) as well as his article "Marginal Utility Theory and Psycho-physic Law" (1908) show that economics had been always especially close to him. The methodological paper "Roscher and Knies. The logical problems of historical economics" is mentioned as well.
Zpochybnění deskriptivnosti teorie očekávaného užitku
Doubts about the descriptive validity of the expected utility theory
Michal Skořepa
Politická ekonomie 2007, 55(1):106-120 | DOI: 10.18267/j.polek.593
This paper summarizes the major events in the recent history of modelling human decisions under risk. After presenting the basics of expected utility theory, the key pieces of evidence are described which showed that under certain circumstances, this theory is not descriptively valid. The most promising alternative, cumulative prospect theory, is then presented in some detail, including a brief discussion of how it avoids violations of stochastic dominance and how it explains the above evidence. It is pointed out that there are other empirical observations which cannot be explained by cumulative prospect theory either, so that a model which would explain...