Volumen 14 (2014): Heft 3 (September 2014)

The aim of this paper is to evaluate mutual interaction of monetary and fiscal policies in the countries of the Visegrad group, i.e. in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland and Hungary. The relationship of monetary and fiscal policy - their coordination, cooperation or mutual antagonism - are basic determinants of successful implementation for economic policy of the state. Fiscal and monetary policies usually have different aims, and some conflict situations may arise in practical economic and political decision- making. Each policy has to make its decision with regard to the other one. Methodical approaches of this contribution are based on the game theory, which deals with the analysis of a wide range of decision situations with more participants (players) and it is primarily focused on the conflict situations. This game-theoretical approach is responsible for creating the theoretical model which is then dealt with in the empirical analysis. We find a distinctly stabilizing role of monetary policy and relatively problematic stabilizing role of fiscal policy in the analyzed countries. The dominant role of monetary policy is statistically confirmed in the case of the Czech Republic and Hungary.

This paper introduces a model of innovation that explains some of the stylized facts presented in recent empirical literature. In the model, firms choose R&D expenditures that maximize their expected profits under the assumption that R&D expenditures of firms might be constrained by the size of their profits. Optimal decisions of firms generate relationships between profitability and innovation of individual firms that may create the observed patterns at the industry level. In particular, the model is able to explain an inverted-U relationship between profitability and innovation in the industry together with decreasing or flat and concave relationships between profitability and the dispersion of productivity in the industry. Additionally, the paper investigates the parameter space for which the model generates the observed relationships.

This paper aims to provide an efficiency evaluation of selected hospital bed care providers during years 2010 -2012 with respect to selected factors: The size of the hospital establishment according to number of beds, number of hospitalized patients, the average length of stay per a patient in care, total staff cost calculated per bed, total revenues calculated per bed, and total costs calculated per bed. For this purpose, hospitals providing primarily acute bed care were chosen. From the legal point of view, they are allowance organizations of a particular region. The evaluation concerns both allocative efficiency and technical efficiency. The allocative efficiency is treated from the proper algorithm point of view and it compares total costs calculated per bed with total revenues calculated per bed. A method denominated Data Envelopment Analysis was applied for the calculation of the technical efficiency of units. To be more specific, it was input-oriented model with constant returns to scale (CCR). The input parameters involve the number of beds, the average length of stay and costs per day of stay. Output parameters were as follows: Bed occupancy in days and the number of hospitalized patients. The data published by the Institute of Health Information and Statistic of the Czech Republic and by ÚFIS system (the Data Base of Ministry of Finance of the Czech Republic) were used as the source of data. The evaluation implies that only three hospitals were economically-effective: Silesian Hospital in Opava, Hospital Jihlava, and TGM Hospital Hodonín. The most significant factor influencing the efficiency was determined - the average length of stay.

By joining the European Monetary Union (the “EMU”), member countries lost the ability to use monetary policy as a tool for macroeconomic regulation. The attention was then focused on regulation of fiscal policy and Stability and Growth Pact (the “SGP”) was the instrument agreed upon. The states of the EMU have agreed to meet the 3% of GDP requirement for the maximum annual public budget deficit. Based on evolution of public debt in member countries, we can say that the SGP has failed as a tool for fiscal discipline. In this paper, we answer the question of whether the failure was due to the incorrect concept of the SGP or whether the development of the debt was affected more by arbitrary disrespect of the agreed rules. The two reasons mentioned above are interdependent. To separate them, we construct a dynamic model of EU countries’ public debt. By using real data, we simulate the potential values of public debt in a situation where the SGP rules have been respected in recent years. Comparing the results for the potential debt given by simulation of the model with the current real values, we are able to quantify the impact of non-compliance for each country. The initial results indicate that there are both EU states where non-compliance led to a negligible increase in public debt - up to 7% of GDP - and other states where this factor caused the growth of public debt by more than 30% of GDP.

Non-governmental organizations play a vital role in the economy of every country. They are not only providers of special type of services that public sector is not capable of providing in full quality and quantity, and private sector is not interested in, but they are also watch dogs of the society and builders of active citizenship. Thus they have become an object of many research studies. The divergence in their goals, sizes, roles, types of services provided, and ways of funding make NGOs an interesting subject. As a goal for our research we therefore chose a comparison of the development and state of the Slovak and Austrian non-profit sector in the view of historical development of both countries. Consequently, we want to evaluate the funding of NGOs in Slovakia and Austria. In the paper we map the development of non-profit sector in Slovakia and Austria and in the context of a common historical development we assess a current state and a potential of economic strength of NGOs in both countries. The output is comparison of funding of NGOs in Slovakia and Austria based on statistical data evaluation. Subsequently, we propose recommendation for suitable diversification of the funding sources.

Labour market development is an important macro-economic indicator of every national economy. Labour supply in particular fields should reflect on demands of employers on newly recruited employees. These demands can be analysed by studying published job offers. This analysis of Czech labour market is conducted based on the aggregated statistical data collected by an on-demand application. The studied data sample covers more than 60% of all the job offers published in the Czech Republic. The situation in respective occupational fields is compared with aggregate nation-wide average as well as with data from other fields. Results show distinct differences in absolute quantity of offers, compensations to employees offered as well as qualification requirements.