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Are subsidies to business R&D effective? Regression discontinuity evidence from the TA CR ALFA programme
Bajgar, Matěj ; Srholec, Martin
Governments subsidise business research and experimental development (R&D) to promote development of the economy, because externalities and information asymmetries inherent to the innovation process make private funding of these activities fall short of what is socially desirable. Nevertheless, how effective such subsidies are and whether they achieve their goals is an open question that needs to be studied empirically. This study leverages the state-of-the-art method of regression discontinuity (RD) that allows us to come very close to making causal inferences about the effects of subsidies, to find out whether the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic’s (TA CR) ALFA programme stimulated new business R&D inputs, outputs, and positive economic impacts that would not have happened otherwise.
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(Not) increasing social benefits in 2012–2023: an overview
Janský, Petr ; Kolář, Daniel
In this overview, we map trends in the value of social benefits over the past ten years and compare them to trends in inflation, average salaries and old age pensions. If the real purchase power of benefits is to remain stable, they should be raised at least at the same rate as inflation. If we want social benefits to continue to provide the same level of financial security, keeping pace with economic developments in the long term, then their value should rise at approximately the same rate as the average salary, and spending on benefits should increase at approximately the same rate as GDP.
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Evolution in Czech public attitudes towards war refugees from Ukraine
Münich, Daniel ; Protivínský, Tomáš
In the wake of Russia’s military assault on Ukraine at the end of February 2022, an atmosphere of solidarity prevailed in the Czech Republic and most of the Czech population supported the country’s intake of war refugees. By the end of November 2022, that support had fallen by approximately one quarter. Czechs’ perceptions of how well integrated Ukrainians were into Czech society worsened similarly. This change in Czech public attitudes over time did not, however, stem primarily from personal or first hand experience of welcoming refugees, rather, it was related to a gradual decrease in public interest in the conflict after the initial shock of it first beginning. Although several aspects of Ukrainian refugees’ integration improved in real terms in the second half of 2022, for example in relation to schools and to the labour market, this progress was not reflected in Czech public opinion.
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Pandemics and parental beliefs about returns to education
Korbel, Václav
This study summarises the findings of an empirical survey of the impacts that interruptions to in-person teaching in schools had on parents’ expectations about the returns to their financial and time investments in their children’s education. The study made use of four repeated questionnaire surveys carried out during 2020 and 2021, in which parents responded to hypothetical scenarios involving two fictitious families who invest different amounts of time and money in their children’s education. On the basis of these scenarios, the parents estimated how much each fictitious child would earn at the age of 30, taking into account the given level of investment in their education. They also estimated how much the quality of the child’s schooling would impact their future earnings. This experimental methodology enables us to identify how parents’ expectations changed during the pandemic.\n
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Czech women’s heads and hands remain unused
Grossmann, Jakub ; Münich, Daniel
This analysis maps life-long profiles in the unemployment rate and hours worked by Czech women and changes in these over the past twenty years. Its key findings are presented in the form of graphs with commentary. The economic and statistic details are provided in the accompanying texts.
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Teacher salaries in 2021: peak reached so what next?
Münich, Daniel ; Smolka, Vladimír
In the long term, the level of teacher salaries co-determines the attractiveness of the teaching profession and ensures sufficient interest in choosing to embark on a career in teaching. The selectivity of the profession, both in the process of university preparation and during the career itself, stimulates the quality of teachers’ work. However, these are long-term processes, occurring through continuous entry into and exit out of the profession and through further training. Therefore, the effects of teacher salaries on interest in the profession, teacher quality and educational outcomes can only be traced over a period of years, or rather decades. The level of teacher salaries relative to other salaries in the economy is an important indicator. Until 2017/2018, teacher salaries in the Czech Republic (CR) were among the lowest in the EU and top ten most economically advanced countries in the world (OECD). In 2021, however, thanks to an unusually dynamic rate of increase for several years in a row, salaries of Czech teachers reached levels significantly closer to the average of OECD and EU countries, reaching 122% of the average salaries in the Czech economy. Thus, in just a few years, the government of Andrej Babiš achieved what no previous government had managed to do: it succeeded in making significant steps towards fulfilling its ambitious commitment, which few people had believed was possible given the lack of success the past. In the coming years, maintaining the achieved relative level of teacher salaries will require increasing them at the rate of nominal wage growth in the economy. However, relative teacher salaries are likely to fall slightly to 119% in the 2022 outlook. Based on promises made in the summer following the government’s negotiations with unions, salaries are likely to remain at the same level in 2023. Teacher salaries will certainly not reach the 130% level promised by the previous and current governments, let alone the salaries of the wider pedagogical workforce.
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