Volume 13 (2013): Edizione 1 (March 2013)

The paper investigates mean and volatility spillover effects from the U.S and EU stock markets as well as oil price market into national stock markets of eight European countries. The study finds strong indication of volatility spillover effects from the US-global, EU-regional, and the world factor oil towards individual stock markets. While both mean and volatility spillover transmissions from the US are found to be significant, EU mean spillover effects are negligible. To evaluate the magnitude of volatility spillovers, the variance ratios are also computed and the results draw to attention that the individual emerging countries’ stock returns are mostly influenced by the U.S volatility spillovers rather than EU or oil markets. Additionally, examination of only global and regional stock markets spillover transmissions into European stock markets also confirms the dominating presence of the U.S spillover transmissions. Furthermore, I also implement asymmetric tests on stock returns of eight markets. The stock market returns of Hungary, Poland, Russia and the Ukraine are found to respond asymmetrically to negative and positive shocks in the US stock returns. The weak evidence of asymmetric effects with respect to oil market shocks is found only in the case of Russia and the quantified variance ratios indicate that presence of oil market shocks are relatively higher for Russia. Moreover, a model with dummy variable confirms the effect of European Union enlargement on stock returns only for Romania. Finally, a conditional model suggests that the spillover effects are partially explained by instrumental macroeconomic variables, out of which exchange rate fluctuations play the key role in explaining the spillover parameters rather than total trade to GDP ratios in most investigated countries.

We use a matching model in which the horizontal job differentiation results from the rationale response of firms to the state of the labor market. We show that a decrease in the labor market tightness gives firms an incentive to raise the differentiation degree of jobs. Comparative statics suggests that an increase in unemployment benefits and in the minimum wage improves productivity of skilled workers by making jobs more differentiated, and leads to a raise in unemployment rate.

This paper will assess transparency in the decision-making process in sports grants allocation. In comparison with other parts of the public sector, surprisingly little is known about transparency in the sports sector. An increasing portion of public funds is spent on sport grants; this establishes the necessity for research. Can any positive effects of sports grants be expected to appear without transparency in the decisionmaking process? An examination of the process in reality is crucial for future public resources allocation. Based on the general assumption that NGOs are important actors in economic and political development, we address the Czech Republic at the municipal level.

The main goals of this paper are to assess the transparency of the allocation of public grants for sport organizations on the municipal level in the Czech Republic and to discuss one possible method for improving system transparency and efficiency: vouchers.

We discuss sport vouchers as a possible tool for improving transparency. Vouchers solve the problem of transparency in the decision-making process by transferring the purchasing power to the client. Although using sports vouchers as a tool for allocating public resources is quite rare, there are a few examples of this practice in the Czech Republic. We established two research questions: (1) Do sport clubs perceive the allocation of sport grants at the municipality level as transparent? (2) Do sport clubs consider a voucher system as helpful for the transparency? To answer these questions, we discuss the theory and specific conditions in the Czech Republic; we perform a survey among sport clubs and we examine examples of voucher implementation; and we discuss the general consequences of our results.