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The paper is discussing CNB FX intervention and its impact on all segments of Czech financial markets from process and volumes of transactions point of view and possible consequences. The focus is on foreign exchange, bond and stock market. Although the impact of FX intervention was evident on all markets under discussion, it was not so significant having macroeconomic effects. The only exception is the FX market. The Czech National Bank contributed to the widening gap between market and equilibrium exchange rate. The undervalued Czech currency will have a temporal positive impact on the macroeconomic external balance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the paper is to map the economic theory of Gary Becker. The first part outlines the life of Gary Becker. The second part analyses his economic approach to human behavior. The third part covers the economics of discrimination. The fourth part examines the human capital theory. The fifth part is concerned with crime and punishment. The sixth part deals with economics of the family. The seventh part outlines economics of life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper describes the development of household consumption expenditures from a longer perspective. Currently, there are available data for more than forty years and it means that lots of information about changes in structure and main tendencies can be studied. Since the emphasis is put on the comparable time series, it was necessary to prepare transformation of original data into national accounts. Historical figures on private consumption were published in line with the Material Product System that is not fully comparable with the System of National Accounts. Data on private consumption reflecting only material part of consumption had to be transformed into household consumption expenditures covering both expenditures for material and non-material products. The process of transformation of original data reflecting socialist statistical system is briefly described, as well as main differences. Key points of transformation are illustrated on selected years. Finally, original data are compared with reconstructed ones and differences are explained. The analysis provides useful information about main changes in consumption expenditures by CZ-COICOP. Finally, some often discussed issues like the relative increase of expenditures connected with housing, decrease of the share of foodstuff etc. can be proven now. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article deals with the method of construction of symmetric time input-output tables under conditions of the Czech Republic. It is completely new approach to the description and evaluation of the Czech economy even though the effort to include the factor of time in this evaluation is abroad for quite long. In the Czech Republic are these efforts at the beginning. The method used to achieve the goal is based on the Supply and use tables expressed in time units, which is compiled using relevant data sources. The described results inform about the achieving of this goal. The method leads to the compilation of the symmetric time input-output tables. Some problems are discussed and have to be solved before the derivation of the input-output models from the time input-output tables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the purpose of monetary policy analyses dynamic multivariate models are usually applied. The reason is the presence of significant lags between an action and the appropriate effects in the economy. We use the concept of structural VAR models, widely used approach next to the DSGE and simultaneous equations models. We estimate four and five variable VAR containing the key macroeconomic indicators and identify monetary transmission mechanism using SVAR. Using different identification schemes and impulse response functions we compare the effect of a restrictive monetary policy shock on the set of analyzed variables, especially price level. We also compare the results of defined models for the Czech and Polish economies, that both intend to enter EMU. To avoid the possibility of a price puzzle effect, as a result of mixing policy regimes in the sample period, we use data from single monetary policy regime starting 1998, when the Czech central bank switched to the inflation targeting regime. The results indicate high sensitivity to the identification schemes in SVAR and not significant differences between responses to monetary policy shock in CR and Poland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Czech Parliament approved a wide-ranging reform of direct taxes in 2011. Absent other legislative changes, the reform will come into force on January 1, 2015. We evaluate its impacts on the tax burdens and the average and marginal tax rates in a representative sample of Czech individuals and households. The main impact of the reform is a reduction in the average tax rates for the self-employed in the 5th through 10th income deciles, most frequently by 4.4 percentage points. The variation in the change in the average tax rates among the self-employed in low incomes deciles is large and varies between minus 5 to plus 5 percentage points. The reform would reduce the taxes for most employees only slightly but it would increase the average tax rate by up to 5 percentage points for employees with earnings exceeding four times the average wage. The effective marginal tax rates faced by the self-employed would drop most commonly by either 4.4 or 10-11 percentage points, while the effective marginal tax rates faced by employees would remain unchanged. The impacts on the households are highly heterogeneous depending on the share of income from self-employment in the household's total income. The reform would reduce the budget revenues by approximately CZK 19 billion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]