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The aim of this paper is to examine the relationship between inflation and income inequality. The article is mainly theoretical, but considerations presented are illustrated by relevant empirical data. Based on our analysis, we claim that inflation, which accelerated after the collapse of the Bretton Woods system in 1971, could have contributed to the rise in income inequality in the USA since the 1970s. Our article transcends the simple notion of an inflation tax and focuses on other redistributive mechanisms of inflation (Cantillon effect) as one of the main causes of income inequality.

This article is a part of a specific research output called Quality Influence on the Performance and Competitiveness of the Company. One of the research phases is elaborated in this article; its subject is measuring customer satisfaction with the quality of food products companies in the Czech Republic. This article aim is to determine the level of customer satisfaction with the quality of food production enterprises. The partial aim of the article is to identify factors that have the greatest influence on the customer satisfaction. The research confirms close relations between customers' quality perception, their satisfaction and the level of fulfilment of their demands.

The article deals with the strategically important problems of metropolisation. In this context, it presents a theoretically based method of assessment of metropolises, the explanatory power of which was verified on the example of the Central Europe. This method is based on three components: population size (initial assumption), economic profile (ties to economic performance) and general attractiveness (the perception of development potential). The results of the evaluation of the 27 identified metropolises were generalized using a typology of their inclusion within the framework of the listed components: most metropolises were classified as type B - an established metropolis, followed by type C - an elementary metropolis, and type A - a dominant metropolis. A practically targeted conceptualization is then demonstrated on the example of the Czech Republic. The main attention was focused on the intensity of the economic links of Prague (and two further Czech centres) with other Central European metropolises.

John Taylor (2009) argues that if the Federal Reserve had followed his famous monetary-policy rule, the severe recession that resulted from the real estate bubble could have been avoided. While one may agree with Taylor's empirical analysis and accept his demonstration that his proposed rule would lead to a more stable economic environment, it is unclear whether central banks are capable of avoiding bubbles by simply following the Taylor rule. One can construct various Taylor rules from the data. Some of those rules model what the Federal Reserve actually did. Following the specific type of Taylor rule recommended by John Taylor would in fact amount to a better monetary policy, but only because it calls for setting interest rates higher. In the second section, we introduce Taylor rules. In the third section, we apply these rules to monetary policy since 2001. The fourth section situates the Taylor rule in the Wicksellian framework of interest rates and macroeconomic stability. In the fifth section, we discuss the effects of policy rules on macroeconomic stability.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the interplay between variables pertaining to the satis-faction of life and economic sentiments of citizens of selected European countries. The analysis of the connections will be conducted based on existing subjective primary data. The data in question are results of international comparative surveys (European Social Survey, ESS; the OECD's Better Life Initiative) and results of consumer economic sentiment surveys ordered by the European Commission. The research procedure also benefitted from the selected items of literature available in the form of books and articles. Population economic sentiments are subject to cyclical changes connected with the changes in economic situation in individual countries. The analysis of secondary data allows for the con-clusion that there is a statistically significant direct or indirect strong relationship between assessments of life satisfaction and consumer confidence indicator. The grouping of the researched countries based on secondary data has made it possible to capture the similarities between individual states.

This study investigates the sensitivity of Consumer Price Index (CPI) sub-items to output gap for an emerging market economy, Turkey. To this aim, we estimate standard Phillips Curve equations for each of the 152 sub-indices of the CPI and determine the goods and services that respond to output gap in a statistically and economically significant manner. Thereby, we propose an alternative view to assess core inflation as a complementary tool to better monitor underlying inflation with respect to its main drivers. Empirical findings show that about one-third of the consumer basket is affected by the output gap. Remaining items that are found to be insensitive to business cycle extensively co-move with import prices and exchange rate. The results imply that controlling inflation through counter-cyclical policies may be a more challenging issue, especially when external factors work in the opposite direction. Policy efforts to reduce exchange rate volatility and import content of aggregate production are as important as cyclical policies geared toward steering the economy with respect to its potential.

The paper attempts to analyse the effects of the cumulated public sector debt (in this relation essentially government debt and family debt), primarily on the development of the population's standard of living. In this regard, the paper quantifies the impact of debt on the real standard of living - whether we define it merely as the ability to consume, or broadly as the sum of multiple criteria including, for instance, the quality of the environment. This quantification uses data from the economy of the Czech Republic; however, this method can be in principle used for other national economies, but must be adjusted to reflect the specific features of their development. Using the analysis of time series, the paper investigates some other aspects of the debt situation of families in the Czech Republic, especially the development of the relationship between families' savings and debt, and finds that debt prevails over savings in the long run. Several conclusions for the future can be derived from these results. These conclusions can be summarized in a statement that future political representations will have to continuously bridge the gap between the need to reduce the standard of living of large groups of the population on the one hand, and the need to make sure that the necessary reforms are politically viable on the other hand.

This paper analyses the crucial factors determining the foreign direct investment (FDI) going to the privatized glass sector in the Czech Republic. In our research we felt that there was a scant evidence in Central and Eastern Europe of the determinants of foreign direct investments (FDI) at the micro level and we were aware of the endogeneity issue of FDI. The aim of this paper is to fill these gaps. The choice of the glass sector allows for an analysis of a firm's micro characteristics that attract foreign direct investors in an industrial sector, while reducing the impact of macroeconomic factors in their choice. Our econometrical analysis, using original panel data from 1990 to 2006, gives strong evidence that foreign direct investors in the glass sector in the Czech Republic have chosen larger and more profitable firms that were intensively restructured and privatized at the beginning of the transition. Our results support the relevance of the endogeneity issue in the choice of foreign direct investors in transition countries.

An exposure to macroeconomic risk factors across banks is a source of systemic risk that influences the banking sector performance. In this paper, we present some evidence on macroeconomic variables affecting the non-performing loans (NPL) ratio in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Slovenia. The GDP growth might have improved borrowers' ability to serve their bank loans in Slovenia, meanwhile the accelerating NPL ratio dynamics has failed to support the hypothesis that the GDP growth fosters an improvement in the NPL ratio in the case of Slovakia. Meanwhile deceleration in the NPL ratio on export impulses has supported a procyclical theory in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Slovenia. The response of non-performing loans to inflation supports the hypothesis about the lowering inflation that decelerates the NPL ratio. Savings have accelerated the NPL ratio in the case of Slovakia and Slovenia. The banking sector performance is possibly reflecting a favourable assessment of the economic growth and an increasing indebtedness of private sector could become causes of concern if the macroeconomic environment should develop less favourably.

This paper examines the role of financial development in promoting innovation-related activity using panel data for seven East Asian countries for the period from 1998-2009. On overall financial development, we find that, financial sector size and the overall activity of banks and stock market exert positive influences on patent applications. In particular, our results show that all measures of banking development are positively and significantly related to the number of patent applications after controlling for variables known to affect innovative activities. Interestingly, we find no evidence that variation in patent applications is affected by a country's stock market development. The findings suggest that banking sector plays important roles in supporting innovation activity in East Asian countries.

Much has been written on the distinction between vertical and horizontal foreign direct investment. However, most of the empirical literature relies on indirect and aggregated measures only. The aim of this paper is to help fill this gap by examining the differences between German affiliates in the Czech Republic and their mother companies in Germany on the basis of direct evidence on factor requirements. Using a cluster analysis on firm-level data from the unique ReLOC survey, we identify four main groups of firms that partition the sample by broad sectoral lines and by technological, educational and skill intensity of their operations within each of them. More detailed analysis of the clustering reveals that the vertical model dominates in manufacturing, while the horizontal model of investment prevails in the service sector.

This paper examines if the volatility exhibits a symmetric or an asymmetric response to past shocks, particularly the relevance of structural breaks for Central European (hereinafter referred to as "CEE") stock markets. In addition, it is of great interest to see if the CEE emerging markets are correlated with other emerging ones, as well as to analyse the correlation with the developed markets, for optimizing investment portfolios. Using a CEE group approach (regional index) and daily data from 2002 to 2015, the results suggest that markets react differently to similar negative and positive returns, except for the rapid growth period, when the greed sentiment dominates the markets. Furthermore, the structural break dates affect volatility, the highest asymmetric coefficient being recorded for the pre-crisis period. For the bivariate approach, the emerging markets and developed markets indexes provided by the Morgan Stanley Capital International (hereinafter referred to as "MSCI") have been considered and the results suggest that CEE stock markets are correlated with emerging stock markets rather than developed ones. For both pairs, the correlation is consistently higher for the break dates characterized by an increase in volatility, which is in line with the literature that claims that the co-movements increase when international factors dominate the national ones, and influence stock markets.

The paper examines determinants of sovereign bond spreads (in relation to Germany) of the peripheral euro area countries in the period 2007Q3-2015Q3. The study indicates that the introduction of the Outright Monetary Transactions (OMTs) by the ECB in the third quarter of 2012 led to a change in the sensitivity of the spreads to the developments of certain macroeconomic fundamentals of these economies. In particular, the ratio of public debt to GDP, which significantly and strongly determined the spreads in the period 2007Q3-2012Q2, proved to be insignificant in the period 2012Q3-2015Q3. In addition, the counterfactual analysis carried out shows that the spreads in the analysed countries would have been much higher if the ECB had not decided to introduce this programme.

This study purpose is a questionnaire development used to quantify survey interviewer cha- racteristics. Five dimensions of personality were used: conscientiousness, extraversion, agree-ableness, emotional stability and openness. Those dimensions where measured using a Likert scale with 6 points. In total, 107 survey interviewers from a branch of private companies specialized in public opinion research answered the questionnaire's questions. Reliability of the questionnaire was assessed by internal consistency. A preliminary list of 25 items was prepared as a starting point. After evaluation of validity, five items were rejected. The new measurement instrument with 20 items was finally developed. The content validity index for the final questionnaire was found acceptable. Results showed that final questionnaire was internally consistent.

The present paper is focussed on the impact of introducing the common European currency on export performance. Our objective is to explore the impact of introducing the common European currency on the export performance of Slovakia in comparison to the Czech Republic and the old EU member states. Our findings suggest that the export performance and other export-related indicators evolved largely in parallel in both countries. Positive trade effects brought about by the introduction of the euro are rather moderate - up to 5%. The results to some extent do confirm the existence of the so called "Rose effect" - the effect that two countries sharing the same currency trade more than they would otherwise.

The purpose of the survey and to some extent polemical article is to present the issue of green growth, a new operating strategy, which the OECD is currently working on. Green growth is seen as a practical tool for achieving the timeless objective, which is sustainable development. In the paper, a particular attention is put on the following question: what kind of relationship occurs between green growth, green economy and sustainable development. The author analyses the purpose of simultaneous functioning of the three "green" ideas. The added value of this paper is a presentation of the author's model of GG-GE-SD relations and a new approach to defining the phenomenon of green growth. It is concluded that co-existence of the trio green economy - green growth - sustainable development is reasonable due to the complementary and synergistic nature of correlations between these concepts.

This paper evaluates the accuracy of real GDP growth forecasts published in the period 1995-2013 by two Czech institutions: the Ministry of Finance (MF) and the Czech National Bank (CNB). A two-stepped approach is adopted: first a battery of forecasting errors (MAE, RMSE, MASE) is calculated, complementary to evaluation papers already available. Then statistical analysis is carried out by comparing both MF and CNB forecasts with OECD, European Commission and consensus benchmarks (Kruskal-Wallis test), assessing the presence of systemic bias (Wilcoxon test) and determining their incremental improvement (Page trend test). The results show that although some error patterns might suggest performance deficiencies (i.e. during the recession periods), the accuracy of forecasts prepared by both the MF and CNB does not differ significantly from the benchmark forecasts; MF and CNB predictions do not contain systemic bias and their accuracy improves as the horizon shortens. The paper also highlights several methodological shortcomings in the internal evaluations conducted by both institutions, indicating a potential for further improvement.

The paper deals with a problem of conceptualization of historical time in Post Keynesian models. The authors introduce a new notion that they call hysteretic persistence, which they see as essential because such a phenomenon as path-dependence in the short-run equilibrium cannot be described by the existing of notions of hysteresis and persistence. In the field of system (ir)reversibility, drawing upon their previous research (Chytil, Máslo, 2014, 2015), the authors introduce a new notion of general reversibility, which they justify on the account that such phenomena as a shock - counter-shock sequence in both hysteretic-persistent and hysteretic systems cannot be described by either of Setterfield's (2008) notions of super-reversibility and irreversibility. Questioning Setterfield's (1998b, 1995) only too general dichotomy of lower/higher level of historical time, the authors rather suggest a characterization of historical time based on 6 attributes of "high-level" historical time based on the criteria of path-(in)dependence of equilibrium and (ir)reversibility. The suggested attributes underlie the authors' conceptualization scale which enables an assessment of a degree of "historicity" of any system. Finally, a practical application of the concept of hysteretic persistence is demonstrated on a case of Lavoie's PKA model (Lavoie, 2006) affected by a transitory demand shock. Setting the hysteretic persistence of Lavoie's PKA model into the conceptualization scale, the authors draw conclusions for a degree of "historicity" of this system.

The contribution deals with the risk regulation in the framework of Solvency II, which is the new regulatory system in insurance valid in majority of the EU countries since 2016. It concentrates on the underwriting risk (in particular, on the reserve risk) and on the counterparty default risk (i.e. mainly on the reinsurers' default risk), since such risks are crucial for insurance activities. Various actuarial approaches to the underwriting risk applied by subjects respected by insurance regulators and supervisors are surveyed. Moreover, one of them suggests by means of a real data example a simplified approach to the reserve risk, which may be appreciated in practice just for its simplicity. As to the counterparty default risk, the paper presents a method that can be suitable when the reinsurers form a small group of heterogeneous subjects imperilled by a common shock as a financial crisis or a natural catastrophe; this methodological approach is also demonstrated by a numerical example.

The main objective of this article is to test the existence of Stolper-Samuelson theorem between Turkey and EU-15 countries for the period 2005-2014. According to the results, a significant relationship is found between exports and real wages especially in the labour and raw intensive sectors of Turkish exports, where Turkey is relatively labour and raw abundant in comparison with the EU-15. Test results indicate a long-run relationship between exports of manufacture of wearing apparel, food, textiles and real wages, a unidirectional Granger causality relationship is found from exports to wages in manufacture of wearing apparel and food. The international trade between Turkey and the EU-15 validates to some extent the Stolper-Samuelson theorem.

The paper investigates how the problem of NIMBY (Not-In-My-Back-Yard) related to the location of unwanted facilities is dealt in a hierarchically organized city. The conventional view of NIMBY is based on two premises: first, that locally unwanted facilities are essential to achieve an important societal benefit and realize the public good; second, that selfish opposition of local community prevents the realization of that societal good. The NIMBY effect is studied as a conflict between the City of Prague and its city districts. The official documents of the Prague City Council and of the Prague City Assembly were searched to find examples of decisions on the location of unwanted facilities. The documents search was concentrated on five selected facilities: municipal waste dumps, services for the homeless, services for drug users, regulation of gambling facilities, and the system of parking zones. In the documents, the authors identified five types of approaches to NIMBY that are called financial compensation, fair distribution, local autonomy, gradual problem shifting, and consultation/cooperation. It was observed that city districts, lower level of public administration, behave as guardians of local interests if they communicate with a higher level of public administration, a guardian of global interests. As local politicians depend on their local voters, it is not surprising that they prefer local interests to global ones. This naturally creates an internal policy conflict in the city that is divided into smaller units.

In the present paper, we analyse the determinants of employment growth in V4 countries. While a standard approach relies on the parametric estimation of labour elasticity coefficients, we employ a novel approach based on structural decomposition analysis. This allows us to identify several determinants which mitigate the effects of economic growth on employment. We decompose the overall change in employment into the contribution of six factors: changes in labour productivity, changes in the import of intermediate products, changes in the structure of production, changes in the final demand structure by industries and by sectors, and a change in final demand volume. We show that besides the generally accepted influence of labour productivity growth on employment, other factors such as structural changes and changes in final demand played an important role in employment changes. These results shed some light on low labour elasticity in V4 countries and go beyond the simple labour productivity growth argument.

The text demonstrates out-of-sample performances of minimum variance portfolios in the German stock market in the period 2002-2015. Because of two huge drawdowns on equity markets in the period 2000-2010, scholars and professionals have tried to find an alternative to the market-cap weighted investing; potentially the minimum variance investing approach. The paper presents the construction of minimum variance portfolios, the description of their compositions and empirical risk-return characteristics under various holding periods. As anticipated, minimum variance portfolios have lower risk vis-à-vis the CDAX index, but they have also higher returns. Finally, minimum variance portfolios have better risk-adjusted performance figures in comparison with equal-weighted alternatives.

A high proportion of nascent entrepreneurs do not make it to an operational venture. Even though entrepreneurial exit decisions occur more frequently than many think, the literature on entrepreneurial discontinuance is not much developed. The paper first examines whether factors influencing early-stage discontinuance differ in the Czech Republic in comparison with Western countries. Second, it contributes to existing theories on nascent entrepreneurial activity of ""modest majority"" low-growth businesses by focusing on the role of expectations in discontinuance decisions. A sample of nascent entrepreneurs was interviewed in 2011 and then in two follow-up waves in 2012 and 2013. Building on hubris theory of entrepreneurship and theory of performance thresholds, the paper discusses subjective decision-making about entrepreneurial launch and exit. The results show that people with higher industry experience are more likely to discontinue from nascent entrepreneurship, a finding contrasting most research in Western countries. The paper also provides added value in relating growth aspirations to solo vs. team entrepreneurship. Solo entrepreneurs with high initial expectations were found more likely to discontinue from their efforts, whereas teams disbanded more often in case of low-ambition plans on new venture.

This paper attempts to develop a theoretical framework that builds on heterogeneous beliefs to explain the financial anomalies related to IPO stocks. In particular, we develop a dynamic analysis framework to study the valuation of IPO price and the short-term probability of falling below IPO price based on perspectives of investors' heterogeneous priors and gradual information flow. Our study shows that the valuation of IPO price increases as the degree of heterogeneity due to investors' heterogeneous priors increases. Moreover, the short-term probability of falling below IPO price increases as the degree of investors' cognitive biases caused by gradual information flow increases.

The paper examines the duration of unemployment in the Czech Republic in the three selected years (2008, 2010 and 2014). It is based on the Czech Statistical Office data collected from the Labour Force Sample Survey. Lognormal probability distribution (unimodal positively skewed heavy-tailed distribution) is used in the Accelerated Failure Time regression model including the following factor explanatory variables: years (three levels, 2008, 2010, 2014), gender (two levels), education (four levels), five-year age groups (nine levels) and municipality size (five levels). Apart from this parametric model, Turnbull's nonparametric estimator of the survival function is evaluated for subsamples defined by the year, gender and education. The effects of education and gender - a strong positive one of the former and less significant one of the latter, respectively - are quantified and assessed.

The paper poses the question whether the economics of science could be the key to economic methodology. First, the sociology of science, which tries to put science in social context, is described. Then, the economic approach to science inspired by Bartley, Wible, Tullock, Stigler and Becker is explained. We point out that knowledge originates in the competitive process of scientific criticism in similar way as economic wealth originates in the competitive market process and the competition among many individuals.