E17 - General Aggregative Models: Forecasting and Simulation: Models and ApplicationsReturn

The study explores a relationship between divergence in ESG scores (measurements of a company's performance in environmental, social and governance issues) and excess stock returns on the European equity market. The sample consists of 851 European stocks in the period from January 2015 to May 2022. It is concluded that, despite previous findings on the US stock market, a similar effect is not observed for equities in Europe. Even though the stock portfolios with the most and the least divergent ESG scores bear excess returns, the effect disappears when it is adjusted for Fama-French factors. The effect is not relevant for any specific industry, nor does it depend on the level of ESG awareness of the issuer's country. Deeper exploration of the nature of ESG score divergence, specifically by decomposition of the individual elements of ESG scores, could further contribute to the understanding of the relationship between the quality of non-financial disclosures and stock performance.

Economic growth has been the subject of much focus throughout the history of economic thought as it has profound economic, social and political consequences. The sources of economic cycles are surrounded by intense and controversial scientific dispute. In our article, we want to contribute to the institutional economics debate by analysing selected institutional factors and testing their influence on economic growth. On a 2012-2018 dataset, we prove that soft factors such as property rights, freedom of corruption, level of freedom on different markets and other components of the Index of Economic Freedom and legal framework explain the differences in GDP per capita dynamics across countries. We present new evidence on how institutional factors determine economic growth. Unlike previously conducted studies, we use panel data and a set of general control variables in an attempt to respect causal inference. Moreover, we show that the mainstream economic conviction - more economic freedom leads to higher economic growth - fails in some cases, and regulation does not always hamper economic growth.

This study questions the importance of accounting for sectoral heterogeneity in a DSGE model for the Czech Republic. The benchmark DSGE model originally developed by the Czech Ministry of Finance benefits from features such as wage and price stickiness, habit formation in the utility function and capital adjustment costs. The Input-Output DSGE model extended hereby proves to provide more precise estimates for the evolution of aggregate variables and to supply a more detailed structure of the economy. The set of variables the dynamics of which significantly improve consists of inflation rate and nominal interest rate. The disaggregated model also fits data well in terms of sectoral production functions. Finally, the absence of industrial heterogeneity in the model is shown to lead to an underestimation of the impact of the technology shock on the Czech gross domestic product.