Prague Economic Papers 2023, 32(3):320-349 | DOI: 10.18267/j.pep.828
Africa is endowed with both natural resources and a young growing workforce. In light of this, it is obvious that regulations on labour markets will have significant impacts on economic growth, especially through effects on employment and productivity. This study provides information on labour market regulations (labour market flexibility) and their impacts on economic growth in Africa. In particular, this study examines the impact of labour market flexibility (regulations) on economic growth (real GDP per capita growth) relying on the Driscoll-Kraay fixed-effects estimator and the two-step system generalized method of moments (GMM) estimation techniques...
Prague Economic Papers 2023, 32(3):292-319 | DOI: 10.18267/j.pep.833
Against the background of green development, green technology innovation is an important driving force for high-quality economic development. Countries are facing energy shortages, environmental deterioration and other issues that limit high-quality economic development by extending green technology innovation. The study aims to investigate the impact of green technology innovation and its spillover effect on high-quality economic development. For this purpose, the study applies panel data on 30 provinces in China from 2010 to 2019 to construct a spatial Durbin model. The study finds that green technology innovation in the region plays a positive role...
Prague Economic Papers 2023, 32(3):273-291 | DOI: 10.18267/j.pep.832
The relationship between R&D expenditures and firm growth is examined for a cross-country firm-level dataset for the EU countries in the period from 1989 to 2019. A panel dynamic average treatment effect is estimated using a panel time-varying dynamic difference-in-differences model. The methodology can be counted as novel. The results show a positive and significant relationship between R&D and firm growth within the first five years of R&D investment in the 22 EU countries, over 700 firms and 30 years. The main novelty of the present study comes from examining the time-varying effect of R&D expenditures on firm growth for manufacturing...
Prague Economic Papers 2023, 32(3):246-272 | DOI: 10.18267/j.pep.831
The tax wedge mainly quantifies the extent to which tax on labour income enervates employment and it reflects the total labour costs. It is commonly defined as the ratio between the amount of taxes paid by the worker and the related total labour costs for the employer. As such, the tax wedge affects both the labour force (unemployment) by reflecting the burden of the employer and indirectly the household disposable income. It is conferred that the alteration caused by the tax wedge on income distribution has been analysed with a small number of empirical studies. Based on the hypothesis that the tax wedge may affect income distribution from different...
Prague Economic Papers 2023, 32(3):225-245 | DOI: 10.18267/j.pep.827
The manufacturing sector has been regarded as a key factor in the history of economic devel-opment and growth. However, economic fluctuations affect manufacturing seriously. This study examines the impact of the 2008 global economic crisis on Turkish manufacturing sector profit-ability. This paper uses micro-econometric difference in differences methods in conjunction with the macroeconomic forecasting method to investigate how profit levels in the Turkish manufacturing industry are affected by the crisis. The results indicate that the profit levels changed significantly after the crisis with a one-year lag and actual profits exceeded the estimated...
Prague Economic Papers 2023, 32(2):205-224 | DOI: 10.18267/j.pep.830
This study aims to evaluate the effects of selected key factors on health outcomes. Unfortunately, statistical reporting in this field is not harmonized, and in some countries it is completely absent. For this reason, valuable information for health determinant analysis may be lacking or overlooked. Using two different databases, we obtained data from 61 countries for the period 2000-2015. To analyse panel data with over 660 observations, a linear mixed model was applied. This paper contributes to the health economics debate by statistically testing the relationship between health outcomes and variables such as healthcare personnel, healthcare expenditure...
Prague Economic Papers 2023, 32(2):184-204 | DOI: 10.18267/j.pep.826
Uncertainty about monetary policy associated with uncertainty in interest rate is an important determinant of economic decisions. Due to the dominant position of the US economy on global financial markets, in addition to countries' own uncertainties, uncertainty related to the monetary policy of the USA may have an impact on other economies. In this study, we investigated the impact of interest rate uncertainties for different maturities on industrial production, inflation, unemployment and exchange rate. We used the impulse response functions based on the vector error correction model (VECM). We also conducted the Granger causality test to analyse...
Prague Economic Papers 2023, 32(2):159-183 | DOI: 10.18267/j.pep.829
Czechia is one of the most export-oriented countries, reaching high levels of economic complexity. However, its innovative capabilities remain limited. Taking these factors into consideration, we determined the country's optimal diversification path by identifying prospective export sectors which would enhance the country's competitiveness. We combine the product space and proximity methodologies on predicted export data together with a company-level analysis. We identified machinery for specialized industries and parts thereof (SITC 7284), machine-tools for specialized industries parts or accessories (SITC 7281) and power hand tools, pneumatic or...
Prague Economic Papers 2023, 32(2):129-158 | DOI: 10.18267/j.pep.824
The paper aims at measuring the efficiency of the digital economy in EU countries. For that purpose, data envelopment analysis (DEA) is used. Sub-dimensions of the Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI) are used as inputs and the Sustainable Development Goals Index (SDGI) as an output. The results revealed that Bulgaria, Italy and Romania are the most efficient digital economies in terms of human capital; Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Croatia, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Lithuania, Poland and Portugal in terms of connectivity; Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania in terms of integration of digital technology; and Romania in terms of digital public services....
Prague Economic Papers 2023, 32(2):107-128 | DOI: 10.18267/j.pep.825
This paper examines the effects of public debt on the growth rate, investment and domestic credit provided to private sector using the dynamic panel threshold regression method for a large number of developing countries, namely 53 (48) economies for growth and invest-ment (credit) regressions. Our results suggest that public debt does not have a significant impact on the economic growth rate. Despite a strong negative effect of public debt on the total investment, our results do not support the existence of a (strong) threshold effect of public debt on total (private) investment. On the other hand, we present evidence for a threshold effect of public...
Prague Economic Papers 2023, 32(1):84-106 | DOI: 10.18267/j.pep.823
This study evaluates the effects of opening new segments of mass rapid transit (MRT) lines on housing prices near the MRT stations in Tucheng District and Xinzhuang District, New Taipei City, Taiwan. The effect of proximity to each MRT station is estimated separately with difference-in-differences regressions integrated with spatial econometrics with heteroscedasticity-robust standard errors. The opening of the new segment of the Blue Line, also known as Bannan Line of the Taipei Metro, does not significantly influence housing prices within 600-metre road network distance of the MRT stations, compared to prices outside the distance range. In contrast,...
Prague Economic Papers 2023, 32(1):61-83 | DOI: 10.18267/j.pep.822
This study aims to estimate a dynamic fiscal reaction function in a state-space setting to obtain time-varying reaction parameters for appraising the evolution of public debt sustainability in Turkey. The data set used for estimation is the longest for Turkey in the literature. Succinctly speaking, this function quantifies the corrective fiscal efforts exerted to preserve the stability of public debt. The time-varying estimation findings in this study suggest that the recent fiscal history of Turkey can be divided into two subperiods in terms of fiscal stability. Before the mid-1990s, no systematic fiscal response existed to restore the...
Prague Economic Papers 2023, 32(1):45-60 | DOI: 10.18267/j.pep.819
The aim of the paper is to analyse the association between the use of accrual-based and real earnings management practices before the company goes public and the decision of institutional investors on buying or refraining from buying shares offered in initial public offering (IPO). The sample consists of 258 Polish new stock companies over the period 2005-2020. We find that such companies refrain from massive earnings management in the pre-IPO period: both real and accrual-based. However, we find evidence that the presence of institutional investors in the IPO is related to earnings inflation (selling, general and administrative expenses). Our study...
Prague Economic Papers 2023, 32(1):26-44 | DOI: 10.18267/j.pep.821
This article investigates the relationship between environmentally related taxes introduced in OECD countries and air pollution, represented by carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emission levels in the atmosphere. The article makes a statistical analysis of data on environmental taxes, specifically energy and transport taxes, and other variables that might affect air quality in the OECD member countries. The ARDL model used on the panel data of all OECD member countries shows statistical significance in only one out of five models. A subsequent comparative analysis of the reduced sample of OECD countries that are members of the EU exhibits a statistically...
Prague Economic Papers 2023, 32(1):1-25 | DOI: 10.18267/j.pep.820
This paper examines the impact of financial market development, financial crises and deposit insurance on bank risk based on macro data of 86 countries during the period 1998-2014. The results show that banking sector development and stock market development have opposing effects on bank risk measured as bank non-performing loan ratio. The introduction of an explicit deposit insurance system plays a significant role in reducing banks’ risk. However, the bank market development after the introduction of this system also increases banks’ risk. The impact of financial market development and deposit insurance system on banks’ risk was...
