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China's Outward Foreign Direct Investment in CEE Countries--Based on Gravity Analysis
Xiong, Xiaoyi ; Paulus, Michal (advisor) ; Li, Yating (referee) ; Semerák, Vilém (referee)
Over the past decade, economic and trade co-operation between China and Central and Eastern European countries has developed at a high rate. In the year of 2022, China has developed into an important trading partner with most CEE countries in terms of the ranking and share of total trade volume. However, problems such as trade surpluses and economic downturns in the post-pandemic era have made future cooperation between China and CEE countries facing a lot of new challenges. Based on the panel data of China and 16 selected countries in Central and Eastern European region from 2012 to 2021, this paper conducts empirical analyses and uses the extended gravity model to figure out the influencing factors of China's OFDI towards CEE countries. In addition, this paper also calculates the efficiency of China's OFDI based on Stochastic Frontier Gravity Model and finally give suggestions for the future.
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Customer Satisfaction's Mediation Role in the Relationship Between Service Quality and Customer Loyalty: Evidence From ČSOB
Zhong, Yu ; Vokoun, Marek (advisor) ; Chondrogiannis, Ilias (referee) ; Paulus, Michal (referee)
455 questionnaires data from ČSOB customers about their satisfaction towards digital service quality is used to investigate the relationship between digital service quality and bank customer loyalty. This study introduces a six-dimensional model, i.e. Tangibility, User-friendliness, Security & Privacy, Responsiveness, Efficiency, and Personalization. To assess mediating effects of bank customer satisfaction, structural equation model is employed. ČSOB brand equity is also selected for the moderating effects. The empirical results entails that all six dimensions selected for this study are positively related to bank customer satisfaction and loyalty. The moderating effects of ČSOB are not significant between digital service quality and bank customer satisfaction, but they are between bank customer satisfaction and loyalty. Therefore, six main factors influencing users' perceptions of digital service quality at ČSOB were identified, and brand equity does not allow customers to build satisfaction with digital services directly but can build customer loyalty in the long-term use of digital services. These findings give additional empirical evidence for the digital service quality model and provide theoretical support for the transformation of traditional banks into digital to meet users' expectations...
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The Role of FDI in the Green Transition of Central and East Europe Countries: From Empirical Evidence
Huang, Shiyuan ; Svoboda, Karel (advisor) ; Li, Yating (referee) ; Paulus, Michal (referee)
This paper empirically examines the role of FDI in the green transition for CEE countries from the perspectives of greenhouse gas emissions and renewable energy production. For the analysis of the two perspectives, the PMG and MG estimators based on nonlinear EKC and the fixed effect model were applied to the sample of CEE countries from 2001 to 2021. The results demonstrate that FDI has an inverted U-shaped relationship with greenhouse gas emissions, indicating that FDI accelerates the transition to a greener economy by reducing emissions after the turning point. However, the effect is only significant in the long term, and the turning point threshold varies by income group. On the other hand, there was no evidence of a correlation between FDI and the growth of renewable energy production, but energy intensity would substantially reduce the growth of renewable energy production. To maximise FDI's positive impact on their green transition, empirical evidence suggests CEE nations should implement policies to encourage FDI inflow and direct more investment towards renewable production and sustainable development. Key words: FDI; Green transition; CEE countries; EKC
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The Political and Economic Influence of the 16+1 Initiative on CEE Countries: Focus on Visegrad Group
Wang, Ziyi ; Semerák, Vilém (advisor) ; Akdogan, Idil (referee) ; Paulus, Michal (referee)
This investigates the political and economic influence of the 16+1 Initiative on Central Eastern Europe countries, particularly on the Visegrad Group countries. In the recent decade, this initiative, which serves as an economic framework between CEE countries and China, has garnered significant interest in academia and within the policy dimension due to its probable economic and political implications in the region. This study, therefore, investigates the multifaceted nature and impact of the 16+1 initiative by analysing the economic influence on FDI inflows and bilateral trade between the Visegrad Group countries and China. It also delves into the political influence of the initiative in the region. To accomplish these objectives, this study conducts an econometric and comparative analysis of the existing FDI and trade flows data from the Eurostat database, World Bank Databases, academic journals and publications databases, and the United Nations Comrade Database. Two models are developed to aid the econometric data analysis: the fixed-effect panel model and the gravity model for trade flow. The findings of this study reveal a statistically significant positive influence of the Initiative on FDI inflows to the CEE countries (Visegrad Group) from China, highlighting that participation in the initiative is...
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Analysis of the business strategy and potential challenges of Japanese fast fashion brand Uniqlo's entry into the CEE market
Mao, Haoxuan ; Gregor, Martin (advisor) ; Ramesh, Sangaralingam (referee) ; Paulus, Michal (referee)
Fast fashion is one of the fastest growing segments of the fashion industry. Benefitting from fast production cycles and extensive distribution channels to keep up with dynamic consumer preferences, Uniqlo is one of the world's top three fast-fashion brands, with overseas markets accounting for 48.7% of its total revenue. At a time when the business is currently preparing to enter the Central and Eastern European (Czech Republic) market, this paper analyses Uniqlo's overseas market strategy in three chapters, including its business strategy to enter the Czech market and potential opportunities and challenges. The data and information for this study were obtained from secondary sources such as company annual reports, websites, industry publications, information released by authoritative organisations, and official media interviews. The results of the study found that Uniqlo had adopted different strategies and had made strategic shifts in the Chinese, European, and Southeast Asian markets based on global consolidation and local responses. Furthermore, the results of the data analysed in the regression analysis indicate that strategic investments in human resources and administration have a significant positive impact on revenues. A comparison of Uniqlo's business strategies, alongside those of Zara...
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Assessing the Impact of the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Areas on Foreign Trade: the EU-Georgia, EU-Moldova, and EU-Ukraine DCFTAs
Cai, Yaqi ; Paulus, Michal (advisor) ; Akdogan, Idil (referee) ; Svoboda, Karel (referee)
Assessing the Impact of Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Areas on Foreign Trade: the EU-Georgia, EU-Moldova, and EU-Ukraine DCFTAs Abstract The Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Areas (DCFTAs) are three free trade areas established between the EU and Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine, respectively. This paper provides the estimates on the effects of the DCFTAs on foreign trade. Using gravity model on a sample of 178 countries during 2002-2019, we obtain the following results. First, the DCFTAs have significantly enhanced the trade between the EU and three countries, and also facilitated the exports of other countries to the EU and three countries, while the exports of the opposite direction have been restrained by the DCFTAs. Second, the positive influence of the DCFTA on the trade with the EU is significant for Ukraine, and not significant for Georgia and Moldova. Third, in terms of the Central European countries, the DCFTAs have promoted the trade with three countries for Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovakia, whereas the positive effect is not significant in cases of Austria, Germany, and Poland. For Slovenia, the impact is also insignificant but negative. Fourth, the full implementation of the DCFTAs has additional contribution to the trade between three countries and Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovakia....
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Can a Dual-beta Five-Factor Model Explain Stock Market Variation in CEE?
Lu, Shuhong ; Čech, František (advisor) ; Chondrogiannis, Ilias (referee) ; Paulus, Michal (referee)
The study applies a dual-beta five-factor model to investigate how return is correlated with market factor, size, value, profitability and investment factors in the CEE region. Dual betas are employed in a pooled regression to account for different behaviour in different market conditions. The results show that market factor is significant across the sample period from 2003 to 2017, and the coefficient of the market factor is lower in bearish market and higher in bullish market. By employing dual betas, the explanatory power of a model has increased. However, the effect is limited, and we do not recommend using the dual-beta model due to the loss of simplicity. Post-regression diagnosis has confirmed the appropriateness of using our model by checking the key assumptions of Ordinary Least Square. Limitations are presented at the end to suggest future study.
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Estimating the Extent of Inefficiencies in the Czech Health Care System
Pachovský, Tomáš ; Janský, Petr (advisor) ; Paulus, Michal (referee)
In this thesis, we tried to find possible methods of estimation the extent of inefficiencies in healthcare and apply them on Czech data. We reviewed recent literature on this subject and from the literature we selected 3 methods that were used in this thesis. We estimated that costs of error and fraud concerning payments and provision of care in 2010 is roughly between 9,5 to 25,8 billion CZK, extra treatment for people abusing prescription opioids cost approximately 247,8 million CZK in 2011 and that costs of unnecessary use of C-Section in 2011 amounted to 184,4 million CZK. We also broke down the 2010 Czech healthcare expenditures and compared indicators across countries to uncover other possible problems.
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Public Procurements as a Corrupting Sector in RBC Model
Paulus, Michal ; Baxa, Jaromír (advisor) ; Gregor, Martin (referee)
The aim of the thesis is to create a RBC model incorporating corrupting sector. The thesis contributes to the few existing DSGE models with corruption by introducing the corrupting sector into the sector of firms and political parties which is regarded as a sector of public procurements where firms bribe politicians for gaining public tenders. This setting is new and is supposed to catch better the phenomenon of political corruption. The model predicts that all shocks that positively affect the economy motivate firms to invest more into the bribes and vice versa. The increase of the overall level of corruption stimulates economy but is leading an economy to the instability. The model also examines the effect of various forms of fiscal spending in the households ' utility function. The model exhibits several non-intuitive results (too high portion of stolen money by firms, stimulation of the economic performance caused by higher corruption and negative holding of government bonds) that should be solved in next research.
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