Politická ekonomie, 2005 (vol. 53), issue 4

O ekonomické odpovědnosti

A Word of Economic Responsibility

Václav Klusoň

Politická ekonomie 2005, 53(4):435-458 | DOI: 10.18267/j.polek.516  

The article deals with socio-economic aspects of responsible behaviour of owners, entrepreneurs and managers in practice of economic transformation. As the starting point of defining the concept of responsibility serves the elaboration of basic theoretical economic, juristic, philosophical and ethical approaches. The validity of the hypothesis that private owner is invariably the responsible owner is examined. The article argues, that social responsibility isn't the bare result of private property and that it heavily depends on appropriate institutions. The study proceeds to the institution of liability as realized in basic forms of business organizations....

Mechanismus stabilizace ultrakrátkých úrokových sazeb prostřednictvím repo operací České národní banky

The stabilization mechanism of ultra short-term interest rates in the context of Czech national bank's repo tenders

Karel Brůna

Politická ekonomie 2005, 53(4):459-476 | DOI: 10.18267/j.polek.517  

Effectiveness of actual monetary policy depends on the ability of central banks to stabilize the fluctuations of overnight interest rates around their official policy rate. To ensure the functionality of the stabilization mechanism needs the successful balancing between bank's demand for reserves and central bank's supply of the reserves in interbank market. I discuss the main sources of temporal gaps between the demand for and the supply of the reserves and their impact on the volatility of overnight interest rates. In our theoretical explanation there is stressed the role of intertemporal substitution in fluctuation of demand for reserves. In the...

Mezní efektivní daňové sazby zaměstnanců na českém a slovenském pracovním trhu v období transformace

Marginal effective tax rates on employees on czech and slovak labour market in the period of transformation

Jan Pavel, Leoš Vítek

Politická ekonomie 2005, 53(4):477-494 | DOI: 10.18267/j.polek.518  

During the transition of the central planned economies to the market system unemployment has become one of the most serious problems. The article describes the current state of unemployment in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Using models of marginal effective tax rates developed by the OECD we discuss the influence of wage taxation, social security contributions and the benefit system on taxpayers' incomes and therefore on the motivation to work. The first part describes alternative indicators for measuring taxation of labor, analyses the methodology of measuring marginal effective tax rates and shows the calculated results. The next part discuses...

Typologie a příjmové postavení zemědělských domácností v České republice

Typology and income situation of farm households in the Czech republic

Emil Divila, Tomáš Doucha

Politická ekonomie 2005, 53(4):495-511 | DOI: 10.18267/j.polek.519  

Due to the specific corporate structure of the agriculture sector farm households in the Czech Republic comprise not only households of self-employed persons or private farmers (similarly like e.g. in countries of Western Europe) but also households headed by employees of agricultural enterprises. Data on the size and structure of farm households according to their social and professional types were derived from the census including the census of houses and flats. Data on the income of (farm and non-farm) households were taken from the last microcensus and family account statistics. In spite of some restraints ensuing mainly from the number of farm...

Politika inovácií v Slovenskej republike

Innovation policy in the Slovak republic

Vladimír Baláž

Politická ekonomie 2005, 53(4):513-526 | DOI: 10.18267/j.polek.520  

Slovakia ranked to the poorest innovation performers in the EU 25 area in early 2000s. While the country's economics was booming due to high influx of foreign investment, there was real danger that Slovakia would convert to the "greatest assembly line" in Europe, with little own innovation efforts employed in production. Poor innovation performance of Slovakia was given by an ineffective national innovation system and inadequate innovation policies. Substantial increases in R&D spending and structural changes in allocation of public resources (towards applied research and new technologies) were the basic preconditions for establishing a knowledge-based...

Karel Kouba a jeho místo v českém ekonomickém myšlení

Karel Kouba and his position in the czech economic thought

Michal Bauer

Politická ekonomie 2005, 53(4):527-543 | DOI: 10.18267/j.polek.521  

Karel Kouba belongs among the most prominent Czech economists of the second half of the 20th century. The paper analyzes his major contribution to the Czech economic thought in the context of economic reforms of the Prague Spring of 1968 and of economic transition in 1990s. In the communist era special focus is devoted to the theory of growth in the socialist economies, compatibility of plan and market and his inclusion of individual motivations into decision-making of agents within the centrally planned economy. After the Velvet Revolution in 1989, K. Kouba showed the importance of microeconomic relations for the macrostability and the relevance of...

Instituce a výkonnost

Institutions and performance

Petr Vymětal, Milan Žák

Politická ekonomie 2005, 53(4):545-566 | DOI: 10.18267/j.polek.522  

The article is based on the thesis that institutional quality influences the economic performance. From this point of view under certain circumstance the government policy is able to increase efficiency and performance of economies through creation, maintenance and cultivation of appropriate political and economic institutions ("political and economic design"). This way is not about state engineering indeed, but about possibility to accept and/or cancel measures which in principle influence both current production capability of economies and its long-term potential too. Authors do not refuse to analyse an influence of informal institutions, which undoubtedly...