H11 - Structure, Scope, and Performance of GovernmentReturn

This paper empirically analyses the determining factors of the growth in the migration rate in the countries of the Western Balkans. The analysis is carried out with panel data over 17 years from 2005 to 2021. The purpose of this paper is to analyse social variables such as unemployment and standard of living, and political variables such as corruption, political stability, government effectiveness, rule of law and the level of corruption in the migration of citizens. For this purpose, we employ different econometric models and techniques such as OLS, OLS robust fixed and random effects models, and GMM (generalized method of moments). The study's findings demonstrate that high levels of unemployment in the Western Balkan region are the primary cause of the surge in migration; thus, large levels of labour force migration are also present in these countries. The findings also show that variables related to the political situation have statistical significance in reducing migration. The paper does not find a statistically significant influence of the level of corruption on migration. The recommendations for the countries of the Western Balkan region are to create long-term sustainable employment policies and increase wages as preventive measures for migration.

This paper presents the impact of fiscal councils in the European Union on public fi- nance. Using a fiscal reaction function, the impact of fiscal councils on the discretionary component of fiscal policy is examined. The impact of fiscal councils is a topical issue due to the fact that most EU countries have established fiscal councils in response to the EU legislation adopted after the last financial crisis. The empirical results imply that fiscal councils are complementary to numerical fiscal rules and instrumental for limiting deficit bias in the EU countries, most importantly through monitoring of compliance with fiscal rules and endorsement of macroeconomic and budgetary forecasts. Despite certain research limits, the empirical results point to similar conclusions as from recent papers. Out of the empirical findings, several recommendations can be made for fiscal policy-making.

Mature market economies steadily raise full-benefit retirement ages and add flexible (or variable) retirement age: early/late retirement is punished/rewarded to neutralize the budgetary impact of free choice within wide age limits. New EU member states also raise full-benefit retirement ages, but typically restrict downward flexibility, conditioning it on long enough length of contribution (e.g., Czechia) but sometimes even forsake the deduction (Females40 scheme in Hungary). In this paper, we shall study the costs of removing restrictions on flexibility. In our dynamic model, we show that even if early retirement is duly punished, diminishing the effective retirement age by 1 year raises the first year's and the total expenditures during transition by 8% and 70% of the original annual expenditures, respectively.

Municipalities with extended administration, in which public administration offices are located, were selected within the frame of public administration reform (Act No. 344/1997 Coll., on the Territorial Arrangement of the State and Establishment of Higher Territorial & Administrative Units). These municipalities with extended administration partly substitute the function of district authorities. The selection of municipalities was carried out on the basis of criteria set by the government and political subjects. From the point of view of citizens, the most important criterion for the dislocation of public administration branch offices is the transport availability. Nevertheless, transport availability was not paid relevant attention in the decision making process in question. This fact becomes more and more important in connection with the growing problems related to ensuring regional transport. The paper deals with the creation of a mathematical model of the optimisation of branch offices dislocation and subsequent implementation. The solution of this model has three outputs. The first output is the evaluation of the contemporary state from the point of view of accessibility of branch offices. The second one is the sensibility analysis of accessibility depending on the number of branch offices. The third output is the post-optimisation analysis, which brought about numerical expression of the relationship between the cost of running a branch office and losses due to citizens travelling to municipalities with extended administration.

The purpose of the analysis presented in the paper is to identify various factors, including economic, social, political, demographic and cultural ones, that could shape the differences in the size of government across countries and to verify their effect with the use of econometric analysis. The analysis focuses on "budgetary" government, usually measured with some government spending ratio, as well as on "non-budgetary" government, measured with the index of the extent of regulation in the economy. The results of the analysis show that economic factors are more important in explaining the variation in the size of government consumption and in the size of non-budgetary government, whereas political, social and cultural factors are more important in explaining the variation in the size of transfers. Besides, the results also indicate, that there exists "trade-off" between budgetary and non-budgetary government.