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This paper investigates the possible reasons why many microfinance institutions (MFIs) have gradually experienced a decrease in the share of female borrowers in their portfolios over the last few years. We confirm that the share of women may be decreasing due to the growing proportion of low-income inhabitants in the area and unpaid family workers. Our results further show that the share of women is also strongly dependent on employment policy that has a positive impact on the dependent variable. Unexpectedly, none of macroeconomic variables such as economic growth, wage and household consumption has an impact on the number of female borrowers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The models from the GARCH family are often estimated by maximum likelihood method, either parametrically or non-parametrically. Since the parametric estimation procedure is based on an a priori distribution, its misspecification can lead to the inconsistency of the estimators. Therefore non-parametric approach, in which both model's parameters and the distribution of error terms are estimated from the data, seems to be a better alternative. In our work, we propose a non-parame-tric technique with the use of a heuristic called differential evolution to estimate the parameters of a GARCH-M model. This technique can more likely reach to a global solution of maximum likeli-hood estimation (MLE) task. Further, it can also more effectively control the required properties of the estimates. The suitability of our approach is verified on modeling the CZK/USD and CZK/ EURO forward exchange rate premium of period from 2007 to 2012 by a GARCH-M model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Though DSGE models have provided very modest macroeconomic modeling results, they have enjoyed some massive support both from theorists and practitioners. To find an explanation for this state, this paper reviews the reasons why DSGE models fail to perform. For this purpose, first we present the opinions of leading American economists on DSGE models before the Committee on Science and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives in 2010. According to many experts in the USA, DSGE models are considered to be one of the main culprits of the recent economic crisis. Then we provide our own analysis where we point to some relevant drawbacks in the models' construction that may lead to their failure. They are the continuum notion, log-linearization issue and natural production concept. Finally, we suggest the return to the endogenous cycle macroeconomic modeling approach as an alternative solution to DSGE models. In our opinion, this approach may better capture the more complex nature of economic processes with the existence of non-periodic oscillation and chaos. With respect to the current state of macroeconomic modeling, we consider both microeconomic and macroeconomic approaches at least as two equivalent alternatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge ability about interest rates set by a central bank is very important for all participants in an economy. In this paper we have used publicly available data to model how Czech National Bank manipulates its 2W repo rate when conducts its monetary policy. For this purpose, eight indicators are chosen. They are the Consumer Price Index (CPI), GDP growth rate (HDP), the monthly exchange rate EURCZK (KURZ), the monthly growth rate of monetary aggregate M2 (M2), the monthly unemployment rate (NEZAM), the monetary policy interest rate of the European Central Bank (EBC), the two-week Prague Inter bank Interest rate PRIBOR14 and Economic Sentiment Indicator (IES). First, they are used as explanatory variables and then as the input signals to two different artificial neural network types with different architecture: the multi layer perceptron (MLP) and radial basis function (RBF) nets with different number of hidden. Neurons to model 2W repo rate of CNB. As a result, we find that while the RBF network fails to provide stable results superior to the one of the linear model, the MLP network always can deliver better results than the one of the linear model. The best results are achieved with a network with only two hidden neurons. Further, these results are relatively stable with minimum time needed to complete the calculation. The MLP network therefore seems to be a promising tool for modeling the 2W repo rate of CNB. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the article is to answer the question if the Czech stock market price dynamics is generated by non-linear deterministic dynamic process. To solve this complex problem requires using sophisticated computational operations to analyze huge amount of data input. To overcome this obstacle the visual recurrence analysis is applied in this article. This method enables visualization of the state space reconstructed from a time series in the so called recurrent plot. Further, it quantifies various geometric structures occurred in recurrent plots and gives us more exact information about the nature of the underlying process generating the time series. This analysis is then applied to the most liquid stock returns and the Czech stock market index PX series. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Efficient Market Hypothesis has dominated the field of research on capital market theory. It postulates that asset prices are rationally connected to economic realities and always incorporate all the information available to the market. A huge quantity of theoretical works around the world have been devoted to testing this hypothesis. In this paper, the weak form of the Efficient Market Hypothesis is tested on data from the Czech stock market of period 1996-2006. The tested hypothesis is verified by both linear and nonlinear methods. Those linear are: Box-Pierce test, variance ratio test, test of sequences and reversals nad Hurst exponent. The nonlinear ones are: White test, Engle test, Hinich test and BDS test. These tests are carried on stock returns time series of Czech stock market index PX and individual stocks as Telefónica, Komerčni banka and ČEZ and series with randomly changed order from original series. The results of the testing indicate that returns, when randomly permutated, are independent, hence they follow a random walk. But it is impossible to maintain it in case of original returns series.It implies that returns of either Czech stock market index or its stocks are not independent and do not follow a random walk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

VaR and CVaR are effective quantitative measurement of market risk. These measures can quantify the risk of unexpected changes within a given period. In this paper, we examine the market risk of four stock indices: the Czech PX, the Austrian ATX, the London FTSE, and the American S&P 500. First, the returns of these indices are approximated using two distributions showing semi-heavy tails: a t-distribution and a normal inverse Gaussian distribution. For comparison, the normal and empirical distributions are also included since they often work as convenient alternatives. Subsequently, the VaR99 and CVaR97.5 values corresponding to four candidate distributions are calculated for each index. We also analyze the ability of theoretical distribution to approximate the left tail behavior of stock market indices returns. It turns out that the normal distribution is not suitable for this purpose. Furthermore, it appears that CVaR97.5 is higher (in absolute value) for all indices than the corresponding VaR 99, which may require higher need for economic capital, which banks should allocate.

Leontief model has been a significant contribution to the economic theory for more than a half of century. Since its inception the model was intensively developed in 1960s and 1970s. Among others there has been a great effort to dynamize it, to which Polish economist Lange was one of the most known contributors with his work on the theory of reproduction and accumulation (Lange, 1966). The paper investigates the existence and properties of stationary growth in the Leontief dynamic optimization model, in which the optimization criterion is a specific utility function. In the model, we focused on the determination of stationary growth. We also set conditions for determining the steady growth rate and for calculating the initial trajectory value, which must be met for their existence. In the last section of the article, we focused on numerical computations. For this purpose we use the input output table for the Czech economy in 2013 which is aggregated in to 19 sectors according to NACE standard. The results depend on the shape of the utility function, which is affected by the values of the discount coefficient and the elasticity parameter. The article can be served as the basis for analyzing the relationship between the two parameters of the utility function, which are very important for the existence as well as for the economic acceptability of the solution. The results we obtain show the dynamized version of Leontief model can be used to solve the structural and endogenous growth problem as well as to determine its stationary trajectories.

Migration is very wide term describing any case of object movement in given space. Migration phenomena can be modelled from a theoretical as well as an empirical perspective. Many researches have been analysing the causes of this timely event to give the answer to questions who, why, when and where people migrate and what are the social and economic consequences for migrants as well as for those in the origin and destination areas This study is focused on theoretical background of anomalous diffusion of points in 2D spaces. Meanwhile the theory of traditional diffusion is connected with Gaussian distribution and Brownian motion, the anomalous diffusion is driven by alpha–stable distribution and particles perform Lévy flights. Basic properties of stochastic migration model with anomalous diffusion and various boundary conditions are demonstrated and compared with traditional diffusion. This approach will be useful for more complex investigation of economical subject migration involving deterministic driving forces, spatial inhomogeneity and complex geographical boundary conditions in the future.