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This paper investigates whether inflows of FDI and innovative activities act as a channel of knowledge spillovers in improving quality of countries' output. In measuring export quality, sophistication of a country's export basket is utilized. Utilizing panel data of countries for the period 2002-2015 and applying GMM methodology, the results indicate that the level of financial development, the quality of human capital and globalization of a country have a determinant role on the relation between knowledge spillover channels and the quality of exports. Patent applications generally positively affect sophistication of exports. FDI serves as a channel for knowledge spillovers to benefit the sophistication level of exports only for developed, more educated, financially developed and globalized countries.

The aim of this paper is to analyse and evaluate the directions of changes in the development of entrepreneurship in the regions of the Visegrad Group countries, i.e., the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary, in the period 2004-2018. We carried out research using an entrepreneurship model based on the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) methodology. The literature analysis made it possible to formulate the main research hypothesis, which states that the factors of entrepreneurship development in this period had a different impact on the establishment of enterprises at the level of regions in the Visegrad Group countries. Assigning individual regions of these countries to entrepreneurship classes in the investigated years showed significant differences, which means that the NUTS 2 regions of the Visegrad Group countries differ significantly in terms of entrepreneurship development conditions.

The sustainable development of the digital economy has attracted wide attention. To ex-plore how to improve the operational performance of China's digital firms, this paper conducts an influence mechanism model to test the nonlinear effect, heterogeneity effects, and mediation effects using a panel data of China's digital firms from 2008 to 2017. The empirical results indicate that R&D subsidies have an inverted U-shaped effect on operational performance, and these results are still valid after a series of robustness tests. In addition, we find that R&D subsidies have a heterogeneous effect on operational performance in terms of region, company size, governance structure, and executive education background. Moreover, regarding the influence mechanism, R&D subsidies improve operational performance by improving innovation efficiency. This paper proposes some policy implications to improve the operational performance of China's digital firms.

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 and infrastructure. The results confirm the importance of healthcare expenditure and healthcare infrastructure. However, the size and direction of the effect vary among countries with different income levels. In regard to human resources, the number of doctors proved to have a significant effect only in lower-income countries.

Based on data for cities and enterprises in China from 2009 to 2020, we examine the effect of urban greening construction on corporate technological innovation. Urban greening con-struction has a pronounced promoting effect on the technological innovation of enterprises, which is more significant among enterprises in the Eastern Region, enterprises in heavily polluting industries and state-owned enterprises. However, urban greening construction only has a significant promoting effect on enterprise invention and green patent applications and has no significant promoting effect on utility models and design patent applications. In addition, urban greening construction mainly enhances enterprise technological innovation by strengthening enterprise environmental responsibility undertaking, enhancing urban human capital density, and improving urban air quality. Promoting the urban marketability process can significantly enhance the role of urban greening construction in enterprise technological innovation.

We examine the growth effects of public and private investment by using data for a large sample of countries. For the full sample, our dynamic panel estimations indicate that both public and private investment have strong positive effects on growth. Our estimations for income levels also show that the impacts of both public and private investment are positive and statistically significant for developing countries. Interestingly, public and private investment promote growth in developing countries with effective and ineffective governments. It seems that countries can significantly benefit from investment regardless of their institutional quality levels. Furthermore, the effect of public investment generally appears to be larger than that of private investment. Given the robust relationship between investment and growth in both ineffective and effective developing countries, an important policy implication of our study is that both types of investment should be encouraged to foster economic growth.

This paper tests how important the time value of money (TVM) principle is in decision making in real-life conditions, when different selection criteria can be considered. A three-stage survey was administered to students from a Romanian university of economics. They were asked to choose between two cars. These cars have equal total cash outflows but different present values. The benefits from using them were not specified, thus inducing a model ambiguity: respondents may consider only cash flows, but they can consider other benefits, too. It was tested whether the answers remain stable when supplementary information is provided. The respondents explained their motivations. Probit regressions were used to explain the preferences for applying or not applying TVM, for switching from one answer to another, and for converging to a response compatible with a preference for TVM. TVM was not the main selection criterion. Financial education had no impact on the opinion.

This article simulates a programme called Employer of Last Resort, and analyses its potential impact in the Czech Republic. The design of the programme guarantees perfectly inelastic demand for labour at a given wage level. In practice, the state would offer a job to anyone willing to work in order to eliminate involuntary unemployment, reduce poverty and income inequality and secure stable growth. My aim is to estimate hypothetical effects on the main objectives and calculate fiscal demands if the programme was launched on the Czech labour market. The results suggest that the programme could significantly reduce unemployment and decrease income inequality. On the other hand, it would have limited impact on income poverty. The gross wage costs of implementing the Employer of Last Resort programme in the Czech Republic are in all constructed scenarios below 1% of the gross domestic product and further calculations suggest that the total net costs could even be negative.

The current situation of slower economic growth is leading to a more difficult access to funds and unpredictable payment behaviour of customers, which predetermines growing importance of working capital management. The aim of the present article is to examine the effects of working capital investment and its components (inventories, accounts receivable, accounts payable and cash) on the firm's performance in the case of non-cyclical and cyclical industries in the Czech Republic. The underlying dataset comprises corporate data of 293 firms from 2010 to 2018. The calculations reveal that both industries applied over the period a very similar conservative working capital management strategy consisting in increasing working capital investment accompanied by simultaneous development of all its components. The results also indicate dissimilarities in the importance of working capital components with respect to the firm's performance. Cash seems to be the most important component, contrary to inventories, which are insignificant jointly for both industries. Accounts receivable and accounts payable are significant only for cyclical industry firms.

Based on the AMSZ (1989) criterion, we exploit comprehensive datasets to estimate the dynamic efficiency of world economy. The results reveal that the representative econo-mies conform to a "U-shaped pattern" in their evolution of capital accumulation. That is, a period of decreasing efficiency (over-accumulation) followed by increasing efficiency (de-accumulation). Contrary to previous evidence, the bias-corrected estimates show that major economies have been inconsistently dynamically efficient. As a prime example, China today is unquestionably in a state of severe dynamic inefficiency, and the inefficient status is likely to continue in near future. We also document the limitations of the AMSZ criterion and point out promising research directions in the efficiency literature.

This article deals with the calculation of bank´s medium-sized enterprises clients´ ex-ante profi- tability and the possibility to use Economic Value Added (EVA) tools in such calculation instead of, currently in bank sector, widely used measure of Risk Adjusted Return on Capital (RAROC). Using a sample of medium-sized enterprises clients to whom a credit exposure was approved in one of the banks operating on the bank´s market within a country belonging to the European Union, the expected profitability of these clients was compared by using firstly RAROC and then compared the results to the profitability calculation using EVA tool on the same set of data. Although both measures (RAROC and EVA) are based on the same initial variables, the results of profitability measure show different outcomes in terms of clients´ profitability level and thus their contribution to the total clients´ portfolio profitability. Using EVA tool instead of RAROC measurement thus could help bank´s relationship managers and branch managers focus on those clients creating larger value added than others.

The trend of cryptocurrencies has stirred interest in the underlying technology that qualifies cryptocurrencies as a secure structure with speedy, timely and cheap transactions. The aforementioned technology, the blockchain, in brief terms is a decentralized ledger technology that attains an immutable characteristic through consensus and timestamp mechanics. The model also sets the stage for transparency in transactions, which renders the technology applicable to a myriad of scenarios that involve financial instruments. This research puts forth an argumentative approach to the applicability of blockchain technology and specifically studies the prospect of utilizing smart contracts. This approach probes the feasibility of introducing smart contracts to everyday financial transactions and settlements. An opposing perspective, by taking a devil's advocate standpoint, invokes the impractical or implausible aspects of implementing the blockchain in certain scenarios. Difficulty in auditing is a prominent example among those impracticalities. Research methodology is qualitative in nature and takes the form of exploratory research by examining existing literature on the topic.

The objective of this paper is to examine one of the essential behavioural concepts - the 'status quo bias' - on the available macroeconomic data. The recent global economic crisis has provided a valuable opportunity for analysing the concept and ensured that relevant and sufficient inputs for such academic research are available. Specifically, to study the 'status quo bias', this paper studies the relation between consumption and income before and after the 2008 economic crisis in a selected country. As such, this study attempts to provide answers to such questions as: How strongly is consumption dependent on income prior to and after the crisis? What are the forces behind consumption during the assessed period - income or existing quality of living? What conclusions can be drawn for public finance from the analysis? The findings indicate that the 'status quo bias' behavioural concept could be confirmed based on the tested macroeconomic data, and possible implications for public finance are presented as well.

We present a macro stress-testing model for banks' market and funding liquidity risks with a survival period of one year. The model follows the main principles of the Basel standards LCR and NSFR. Besides, the model takes into account the impact of both bank-specific and market-wide scenarios and includes second- round effects of shocks due to banks' feedback reactions. The presented methodology is then applied to a sample of Czech banks. This allows us to monitor the sensitivity of their liquidity position to the combination of shocks under consideration.

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.

I take a Bayesian approach to estimate and forecast the effects of fiscal stimulus in various versions of the model by Smets and Wouters (2007) for the US economy. Specifically, I proxy various simpler DSGE sub-models by imposing a tight prior on a single parameter or a combination of tight priors on multiple parameters in the Smets-Wouters model. I find that the present-value government spending multipliers obtained are all in a reasonable range. Moreover, I forecast the effect of fiscal stimulus in a scenario similar to the 2008/2009 recession in the US, where the public expects a large and temporary increase in government spending to stimulate a fragile economy. The forecasts, generated individually by a group of representative models, are weighted averaging by means of the posterior model probabilities that are computed on the basis of their corresponding marginal data densities. According to the Diebold-Mariano test, I find that the forecast error of the combination forecast, computed via Bayesian model averaging (BMA), is statistically larger than the individual forecast, obtained only from the one that has the best fit among those DSGE models.

Over the last two decades, the current accounts in the European Union (EU) have diverged substantially. This divergence has raised concerns about the sustainability of the core countries' current account surpluses since the peripheral countries' financing of their significantly rising levels of current deficits depends on them. In this study, by applying both linear and nonlinear unit root tests and taking into account structural breaks in the data-generating process, we examine the current account sustainability of the main core countries with large external surpluses. We find that the current accounts of Austria, Denmark and Germany are not on sustainable paths, which suggests that the core economies might not continue to run surpluses to finance the peripheral countries' external deficits. The results of this study imply that the policymakers in peripheral countries might take proactive measures against possible borrowing problems and capital outflow risk in the future.

This paper focuses on national support for export and examines whether, following the OECD arrangement, long-term financial sustainability is assured without sustained fiscal help. Rules on permitted state support in this area are stated by the OECD Consensus, which is meant to guarantee a level playing field for all exporters, to encourage competition among exporters based on the quality and prices of goods, and at the same time, not distort the free market. The main objective is that every export credit agency (ECA) should be self-sustainable with no need for state subsidies. However, this may not be achieved. This research proves inadequacy of minimum premium rates (MPR) due to insured interest. This issue arises mainly from the application of MPRs to the principal value of the insured loan with no correspondence to the insured interest amount. As many ECAs are publicly owned, all systematic losses must be covered by state budgets, which is against OECD agreements and is not allowed.

The behavioral theory of the firm assumes that firms react on performance feedback by increasing their search for alternative courses of action. However, the empirical literature is full of contradictory findings. This paper puts forward the idea that at least part of these contradictions can be explained if we can identify groups of firms behaving differently from firms in other groups and theoretical propositions. The paper uses exploratory analysis of US and German industrial firms and changes in R&D expense as their response to financial performance feedback. The cluster analysis of behavioural patterns of these firms results in identifying several behaviourally distinctive groups. The findings support the idea that contradictions in previous studies may partially stem from having a different mix of heterogeneously behaving firms. Also, they point to the proposition that for further understanding of responses to performance feedback, these groups of firms should be analysed separately.

This study provides evidence on the probability of adopting an accounting approach for emission allowances and greenhouse gas emissions as a function of each company's GHG emissions performance. The different accounting treatments adopted by national standard-setters and the lack of specific guidance from the International Accounting Standard Board (IASB) allow identification of the use of multiple accounting approaches. Based on a sample of 85 companies registered with the Portuguese, Spanish, and French National Plans of Allocation, data collected from the annual reports were analysed for the period 2008-2014. The results suggest that the probability of adopting omission strategies is positively associated with better GHG emissions performances. It addresses the importance of introducing the transactions of the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) in financial reporting as the visibility of the costs of polluting is one of the purposes of the market mechanism.

This study aims to investigate the impact of international remittances on income inequality in the post-communist region. The association between the variables is examined via static and dynamic panel models. Using macroeconomic data from 27 countries over the period 1991-2014, we discover that income inequality progresses along a U-shaped course as a country becomes more dependent on remittances. For most of the countries, the relationship between remittances and inequality is inverse. When remittances account for more than 20% of GDP, they exacerbate economic inequality. This finding challenges the view that remittances should only be viewed as a pro-poor redistribution mechanism because in certain cases, additional migrant transfers may actually increase income inequality.

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.

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether financial markets contribute to the eco-nomy when needed. The quantile regression model and causality in variance tests are applied to monthly data from December 1989 to July 2016 for 19 OECD economies. The results confirm that the response of capital markets to economic growth depends more on the state of the economy than the state of the country's development. Generally, interaction between financial markets and the economy is weak in OECD countries except Japan and Estonia.

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 paper investigates whether national social progress influences dividend payout policy of companies around the world. Using a large database of 12,312 companies from 70 countries, for 7 years (2008-2014), I provide strong evidence that social progress is significant in relation to important corporate decisions on paying dividends. Dividend payout policy is explained by the social progress of the country in which the company is active. Access to higher education, satisfaction of basic human needs, overall wellbeing and opportunities positively influence the dividend payout ratio and the propensity to pay dividends. Moreover, the Social Progress Index may be more significant than GDP per capita in relation to dividend policy. Hence, the new measure of quantifying the population's standard of living, from the social perspective and not from the economic one, is more relevant in the decision-making process on dividend payout.

Based on panel data from 2000 to 2017 on 30 provinces in China, we analyse the threshold effect of environmental regulation on the quality improvement of economic growth in Eastern, Central, and Western China using a threshold regression model with entrepre-neurship as the threshold variable. The conclusions are as follows: (1) With a low entre-preneurship index, environmental regulation inhibits the quality of regional economic growth. When the entrepreneurship index is at a middle level, the effect changes from an original adverse impact to a favourable impact, which is very significant in Eastern and Western China, but not significant in Central China. When entrepreneurship is highly active, environmental regulation is beneficial to economic growth quality in all regions, and environmental regulation can bring into play the function of "reversed mechanism" to promote economic growth quality. (2) The differences in entrepreneurship level in the three regions lead to regional heterogeneity of the threshold effect between environmental regulation and economic growth quality. Eastern China realizes a double dividend of environmental improvement and economic growth. The entrepreneurial activity in the Central and Western regions is a little far away from their threshold values, at which environmental regulation can produce a significant incentive effect. In conclusion, we put forward three suggestions to improve the entrepreneurial activity and fully realize the double dividend of environmental improvement and economic growth.

We analyse the economic impact of the economic recession caused by the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic by estimating the amplitude, duration and scope of influence of the recession. We employ the turning point method to extract the characteristics of the historical recessions since 1980 in 153 countries and use the information to obtain the distribution characteristics of the GDP growth rate in these countries during the current pandemic-induced recession with Monte Carlo simulation. We then make judgment on the scope of influence of this pandemic-induced recession by investigating the co-movement relationship between the historical recessions in the 153 countries. The results show that this pandemic-induced recession is likely to be a severe global recession. The mean of the average simulated ΔGDP of the 153 countries will plunge into a trough at -1.16% in 2020 with a recession amplitude of approximately 4.50% and recover to the pre-crisis level of 3.29% in 2023.

Financial sector is prone to cyclical movements and procyclicality of the financial system may endanger financial stability, which depends on asset prices and loan losses due to the fact that the deterioration of bank assets through non-performing loans is characteristics of banking distress. This was the case during Japan's lost decade and the Nordic banking crises. Even the classic banking panics of the Great Depression are being revised in the light of new evidence on the fundamental deterioration of bank assets. Much empirical evidence supports the view that balance sheet variables, such as net worth affect investment and produce business cycle dynamics. In an upswing, the greater availability of credit leads to higher asset prices, which then serve as collateral for more borrowing. Relatively unstable development of share prices on the capital market increases equity risk. This paper is based on the presumption that the stability of macro economic environment, less pronounced cyclical movements and insignificant procyclicality between GDP and equity (used as collaterals for credit insurance) lower equity risk. There was proved no significant procyclicality between collaterals and GDP according to low stock market capitalization. And due to the relation that equity risk (as a part of market risk) is determined by unstable development of shares prices, I accepted the hypothesis of low equity risk in the analysed transition economies on the basis of tested procyclicality.

This study examines the role of firm-specific, macroeconomic, banking and financial environment factors in determining whether they were able to access external finance during the global financial crisis. Heckman's selection approach is used to model the demand and supply of credit in the euro area during and after the financial crisis period. We conclude that since 2011, when the rejection probabilities for external credit applications peaked, the chances of obtaining credit have improved. However, young and small firms are still more likely to have their credit applications rejected. A decrease in government support such as guarantees increases the probability of rejec-tion, as does a reduction in firms' own capital and a worsening credit history. Among the bank-specific factors, an increase in banks' equity capitalization reduces the rejection probability, while an increase in the cost of borrowed funds and a decrease in the competition levels raise the rejection probability. The legal structure to deal with insolvency disputes and the development of the credit information market have a significant bearing on credit availability, as we find that an increase in the time to resolve insolvencies and a reduction in adverse selection problems by credit information sharing increase the credit rejection probabilities.