C52 - Model Evaluation, Validation, and SelectionReturn

In the last two decades, advances in globalization have evolved remarkably and countries have become more integrated with the entire world. The implications of this process have attracted interest of researchers and monetary policy authorities. This paper provides an assessment of the impact of globalization on macroeconomic dynamics at the level of four representative Central Eastern European countries (Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Romania) between 2003Q2 and 2022Q4. The method proposed in this study is a time-varying vector autoregressive model with stochastic volatility estimated using the Metropolis-Hastings algorithm through Bayesian inference. The results of the impulse response functions suggest a slight decrease in inflation and an increase in economic activity for some of the analysed countries, after a positive shock in the degree of trade openness, a proxy used for the advance in globalization.

Green development prioritizes ecology and sustainability and strengthens scientific and technological innovation to drive high-quality economic development. This paper con- structs a coupled coordination model of a system evaluation index to explore the spatial and temporal pattern of green technology innovation and high-quality economic development. it also employs a Tobit regression model to analyse the influencing factors of coordinated development further. For this purpose, panel data on 30 Chinese provincial administrative regions were selected, ranging from 2010 to 2019. The results indicate that the level of coupling and coordination of green technology innovation with high-quality economic quality shows a steady upward trend and the evolution trend of "basic, moderate, and high coordination". At the same time, differences in coordinated development between regions are obvious, showing a development trend of "high in the east and low in the west". It is affected positively by the industrial structure, urbanization level, economic development level, R&D investment, foreign investment and education investment. In contrast, energy consumption has inhibited the coordinated development of green technology innovation and a high-quality economy coupling.

This paper analyses the impact of German macroeconomic news announcements and ECB meeting days on the conditional volatility of the Czech, Polish, and Hungarian Foreign Exchange markets as proxied by CZK/EUR, PLN/EUR, and HUF/EUR exchange rate returns over six years (2010-2015). A currency intervention period (11/2013-2015) in the Czech Republic is examined separately. EGARCH-type models with normal and Student's t-distributions are employed. The comprehensive analysis shows the following results. (i) The IFO index, Factory Orders increase and the PMI index from the Service Sector, the labour market data decrease conditional volatility of PLN/EUR. (ii) The IFO index and Industrial Production increase conditional volatility of HUF/EUR on the day of the announcement. (iii) Data from the labour market has a calming effect on CZK/EUR after the central bank launched currency interventions. (iv) IFO index increases and the PMI index from the Manufacturing Sector decreases conditional volatility of CZK/EUR before currency interventions were introduced (2010-11/2013).

In this paper the authors examine the determinants of NPL ratio using a cross-county analysis from the sample of 25 emerging countries. Using the panel data approach, determinants of NPL are analysed for the period from 2000 to 2011. The main aim of this paper is to draw a relevant econometric model, to demonstrate the impact of independent variables on the dependent variable by using static and dynamic model estimation techniques. The results show that NPLs rate can be mainly explained by crucial macroeconomic factors, such as the GDP and inflation rate, and bank-specific factors, such as ROA, CAP and lagged NPLs rate.

The New Rural Cooperative Medical Service System (NRCMS) in China has been established to ensure improved medical care support for all categories of Chinese peasants to offset their burden of excessive medical care expenditures. The primary aim of this paper is to identify an appropriate alternative modelling approach for the patients' medical expenditures. Data were collected from Jiaojiang city through cluster and multistage random sampling procedure, which was comprised of 4,630 enrolled rural people under NRCMS. The paper presented the first comparison of common econometric medical expenditures modelling approaches. Major findings reveal that the Generalized Linear Model (GLM) predictive accuracy appears to be better than the Finite Mixture Model (FMM) and GLM (log link) was the best performer among all approaches. It may be attributed due to the structural difference of medical expenditures between China and other developing countries compared to the developed countries. This suggests that the Chinese government may find an alternative to choose GLM approach among others to minimize the peasants' medical expenditures under NRCMS.

This study empirically attempts to unveil the contradictive findings regarding the relationship between fiscal imbalances and inflation in the context of the latest theoretical indications. The empirical analysis covers the period of 1970 to 2009 and applies dynamic panel techniques in a pool of 52 countries that comprises 19 developed and 33 developing ones. This segmentation is applied to illustrate the groups' specific features and the implications of heterogeneity. The findings provide supportive evidence for developing countries. We also find a significant degree of heterogeneity between the groups and the statistical significance of the relationship between fiscal imbalances and inflation in the case of developed countries cannot be ratified.

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 cointegration analysis revealed the presence of the long-run relationship of the repo rate, the yearly adjusted inflation rate and the euro area repo rate in the analyzed period.

In this paper we discuss the estimation and methodology of the real equilibrium exchange rate partial equilibrium models and analyse to what extent the resulting estimates are applicable for setting the central parity prior to ERM II entry in the New EU Member States. Given the uncertainty surrounding the estimates, we argue that they are informative in the sign rather than the size of the misalignment of the exchange rate, but may still serve as useful consistency checks for the decision on the setting of the central parity. We argue that policy makers should consider the estimates in their decision-making only if the real exchange rate is substantially misaligned.

This paper is aimed at testing the German Dominance Hypothesis (GDH) in the context of Eastern enlargement of the EU based on the hitherto unexamined former Eastern Bloc countries of Slovakia and Czech Republic using macroeconomic data spanning the period between 1991 and 2004. Cointegration analysis and a vector error correction mechanism validate the GDH. This finding raises the question of what drives these linkages and causes them to register these characteristics. While one could make the case that the Treaty of Maastricht may have caused some form of macroeconomic convergence and thus cointegration, it could also well be argued that, given our country sample and the fact that our data refers to the interbank market, these linkages may be more resulting from changes in the European banking sector and financial markets as the latter prepared for the adoption of the euro and responded to the harmonization of European banking and financial market regulations via the EU Banking Directives.

The article is concerned with pro-natalist policies, examining empirically their effectiveness. There are proposed four hypotheses: continuous decline of the birth rate; adaptive model; natural-rate hypothesis; crowding-out hypothesis. Nine countries are tested: Germany, Italy, Sweden and France before the World War II and Romania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and East Germany during the communism. Best empirical results arise from the crowding-out hypothesis. Good results follow from the adaptive model and the continuous decline of birth rates. The natural-rate hypothesis has small explanatory power. Pro-natalist policies, according to this study, are not too effective.

The demand for money represents one of the most important components of the transmission mechanism. Its analysis plays an important role in the decision-making process of central banks dealing with monetary policies. This paper follows a post-Keynesian approach to the analysis of the demand for money. The econometric analysis is based on the Arestis's model, adjusted for the conditions of the Czech Republic. The cointegration analysis on the basis of both the VAR and ADL models is applied. The premise is confirmed that the demand for money in the Czech Republic from 1994 - 2000 had developed in the long-run mostly under the influence of GDP and interest rate development. This conclusion is valid for balances in both real and nominal money.