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The Rebelling Material. Jiří Weil's 1920s Journalism and his Doctoral Thesis as a Revolutionary Gesture
Kittlová, Markéta ; Heczková, Libuše (advisor) ; Bauer, Michal (referee) ; Merhaut, Luboš (referee)
This Ph.D. thesis deals with Jiří Weil's affinity with the Russian revolutionary, avant-garde culture and studies the ways the affinity manifested itself in the author's journalism and dissertation. It focuses on various realizations of the revolutionary gesture which Weil's activities linked to the Russian revolutionary culture are accompanied by as well as on the discordance associated with the gesture. Weil's activities are examined from a "rebelling material" point of view defined, following on Bohumil Mathesius' observation, as a conflict between ideology and intuition that is characteristic of Weil's work. The manifestations of the conflict became the focus of the comparative analyses based on the research material consisting of the selected Weil's 1920s and, occasionally, 1930s journalist texts and his dissertation defended in 1928 under the title "Gogol and the 18th Century English Novel" at Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague.
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How matching grants and their size affect behaviour and where
Caisl, Jakub ; Bauer, Michal (advisor) ; Štika, Pavel (referee)
In this work we focus on a large scale randomized field experiment described in Karlan & List(2007). Using direct mail solicitations to more than 50000 prior donors of a large U.S. non-profit organization, they examine the effects of matching grants on behaviour. They describe the effects of the matching grants in general, for the whole population, and find that matching grant size has no impact on behaviour. We use a different approach, dividing the population into subgroups by income and education and then measuring the effects of matching grant size on donating behaviour in these subgroups. We find significant heterogenity in the effects of grant size on behaviour. Also we try to apply the theory of social identity when interpreting the effects of matching grants.
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Microfinance: Fighting poverty vs. sustainable banking
Tesař, Martin ; Streblov, Pavel (advisor) ; Bauer, Michal (referee)
The thesis deals with microfinance institutions and their ability to serve very poor clients even without a continuous inflow of subsidies from donors. After disclosing the specificities that distinguish the clientele of these organizations from the clients of commercial banks in the developer world, the analysis of selected institutions from South Asia, includng the famous Grameen Bank of Bangladesh, is performed. Using the data gathered from their annual reports of these microfinance institutions, the individual dependence on subsides during one decade is evaluated. The final part of the thesis utilizes the similarities that appear in the individual axamination and the econometric analysis of the data for the extraction of the key factors and strategies that can help to decrease the dependence of this sector on donor financial support. The analysis finds that higher depth of outreach of an organization to the very poor does not inevitably lead to lower level of self- sustainability. The way to profitability may reside in appropriate interest rate policy and mobilization of savings.
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Human capital affects religious identity: causal evidence from Kenya
Alfonsi, L. ; Bauer, Michal ; Chytilová, Julie ; Miguel, E.
We study how human capital and economic conditions causally affect the choice of religious denomination. We utilize a longitudinal dataset monitoring the religious history of more than 5,000 Kenyans over twenty years, in tandem with a randomized experiment (deworming) that has exogenously boosted education and living standards. The main finding is that the program reduces the likelihood of membership in a Pentecostal denomination up to 20 years later when respondents are in their mid-thirties, while there is a comparable increase in membership in traditional Christian denominations. The effect is concentrated and statistically significant among a sub-group of participants who benefited most from the program in terms of increased education and income. The effects are unlikely due to increased secularization, because the program does not reduce measures of religiosity. The results help explain why the global growth of the Pentecostal movement, sometimes described a “New Reformation”, is centered in low-income communities.
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Essays on Information and Discrimination
Korlyakova, Darya ; Bauer, Michal (advisor) ; Lergetporer, Philipp (referee) ; Haaland, Ingar (referee)
Darya Korlyakova In the first chapter, we study experimentally whether public beliefs about ethnic discrimination, an emotionally loaded issue, are shifted more by information from experts or from ordinary people. We also examine whether people are inclined to choose the most influential sources. For this purpose, we combine, in a novel design, the random provision of information from different sources with endogenous information acquisition from the same sources. We find that individuals update their beliefs most in response to information from experts, namely researchers studying ethnic minorities and human resource managers. Exogenous adjustments in beliefs do not induce changes in attitudes to ethnic minorities. Consistent with the strength of belief updating, more individuals choose information from experts over information from ordinary people. This result suggests that, in the aggregate, people behave rationally as they favor a source that is perceived to be relatively accurate. The findings have implications for information-dissemination policies. In the second chapter, we shift the focus from the general public to racial minorities and study the effects of information provision on minorities' beliefs and behavior. There is a long-standing concern that expected discrimination discourages...
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The impact of vaccinations on the development of Covid-19 pandemic
Kulhánek, Vít ; Kalabiška, Roman (advisor) ; Bauer, Michal (referee)
This thesis aims to examine the e ect of vaccination on the development of the Covid-19 pandemic. The three key variables are used as dependent vari- ables: the number of new cases, new deaths, and hospitalization. The dataset containing numerous countries and capturing periods from 2020 to 2022 was obtained, therefore a panel data estimator was employed. Moreover, the Czech Republic and Israel were selected for deeper investigation, and their data were filtered from the dataset. The data structure changed from panel data to time series, so OLS regression was selected as an appropriate method. In all mod- els, vaccination variables and also several others were included in lags because a time gap is necessary to increase individuals' immunity in the case of the vaccine. Last but not least, the excess deaths analysis is created and focuses on investigating excess deaths caused primarily or secondarily by the Covid-19 pandemic. Furthermore, it predicts the amount of money not paid in the form of pensions till 2030 for the elderly who are included in the excess deaths. Fi- nally, it compares this amount of money with the expenditures associated with vaccine purchases. JEL Classification C01, C23, I10, I31 Keywords Covid-19, vaccination, panel data, time series data Title The Impact of Vaccinations on the...
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Vulnerable benthic water bug species \kur{Aphelocheirus aestivalis }(Fabricius, 1794) (Heteroptera: Aphelocheiridae): distribution and habitat preference in the Czech-Austrian border area of the Lužnice river basin
BAUER, Martin
The occurence, ditribution, habitat preference of benthic water bug Aphelocheirus aestivalis, and structure of macroinvertebrate benthic communities were studied in the upper Lužnice River basin. A. aestivalis is distributed only in a lower part of the upper Lužnice river basin. It inhabites stony biotopes of Dračice river (= Reissbach in the Austrian side), Lužnice river downstream from Suchdol nad Lužnicí, Old part of Lužnice river, Nová řeka river, and Nežárka river. This species occurs only in the rocky and sandy bottom where current speds and dissolved oxygen are both high in the investigated area. Prefered microhabitats are represented by sand and coarse gravel, that overline the larger boulders, rocks, dead woods or rootlets of trees growing in banks and sandy places with submerged plants. Though the Lužnice river has numerous sites of character of prefered habitats and microhabitats also upstream from Suchdol nad Lužnicí, any specimens of A. aestivalis were never found upstream from this small city and in the Koštěnický potok brook (mouth of this right side tributary into Lužnice river is located dovnstream from Suchdol nad Lužnicí). The macroinvertebrate benthic communities in the sites with occurence of A. aestivalis include larvae of following species of water insects: Cloeön dipterum, Baetis vernus, Ephemera danica, Ephemerella ignita, Heptagenia sulphurea (Ephemeroptera); Isoperla cf. rivulorum, Leuctra cf. albida (Plecoptera); Hydropsyche pellucida or incognita, H. angustipennis, Limnephilus sp., Molanna angustata, Polycentropus flavomaculatus, Potamophylax sp. (Trichoptera). Dominant and most abundant insects were Hydropsyche larvae. It is possible to suppose that the larvae of Baetis, Ephemerella (Ephemeroptera) and Hydropsyche (Trichoptera) larvae are prefered prey of A. aestivalis in the investigated area. The Lužnice river is characteristic by often floods including the destructive ones. Chemical parameters of water change espec
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The relationship between populism and COVID-19 vaccination rates in the Czech Republic
Bazaykina, Anna ; Palanský, Miroslav (advisor) ; Bauer, Michal (referee)
The bachelor thesis raises the problem of how political preferences can affect the readiness of people to be vaccinated in the Czech Republic. The entire study is provided at district level. The study primarily focuses on populism as main factor which negatively influences on people vaccination activity. The research defines two major populist parties: ANO party and SPD party. The study includes theoretical and empirical approaches. Theoretical analysis explains what specific characteristics electorate of populist parties has and how these characteristics could be related with unwillingness to be vaccinated. Empirical analysis includes graphical analysis and regression model analysis. Graphical analysis helps to understand how cumulative vaccination rate (%) changes over time in different districts. In other words, graphical analysis visualizes how the difference in vaccination rate between populist and non-populist districts develops over time. Another graphical analysis which shows how rate of growth of vaccinated people (%) changes over time helps us to identify time trend. Time trend is needed to be constructed in order to build more precise regression model. Regression model analysis is used in the thesis in order to confirm the assumption that districts which express their support for...
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