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Empirical Essays in Institutional Microeconomics
Schwarz, Jiří ; Bauer, Michal (advisor) ; Benáček, Vladimír (referee) ; Bjørnskov, Christian (referee) ; Berggren, Niclas (referee)
The dissertation consists of three empirical papers in institutional microeconomics. The first paper examines the role of institutional quality in international trade, the second paper focuses on unintended consequences of intellectual property rights for social welfare, and the last one addresses the impact of banking on corporate financing and investment. An introductory chapter puts these three papers into perspective. In the first paper I analyze the role of institutions in price dispersion among cities in the European region in the 1996-2009 period. Using a number of institutional quality measures I find that the better the institutions, the lower the predicted dispersion. The result is robust to different specifications of the regression model and is consistent with a hypothesis that arbitrage, as an entrepreneurial activity and the main power behind the law of one price, is influenced by institutional quality. In the second paper I use a large data set of U.S. patents applied for between 1980 and 2007 by 22 large technology companies to study development of strategic patenting over time and across industries. Using two complementary methods I reveal strong evidence against the hypothesis of more strategic patenting after 1995. Contrary to the expectations, aerospace patents appear to be on average...
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Náboženství a vlastnická práva
Minárik, Pavol ; Chalupníček, Pavel (advisor) ; Lipka, David (referee) ; Berggren, Niclas (referee)
Religion and post-communist transition are two of the many issues that have earned attention of economists and social scientist in the recent decades. This dissertation collects three papers dealing with different issues concerning religion and the transition. The first one attempts to assess the role of religion in the transition and its impact on country's success in this process; it also outlines opportunities for research in this field. The second paper tries to uncover the role of religion in formation of economic and social attitudes of the people in post-communist countries. Both papers conclude that religion matters; Western Christianity appears to be more compatible with market economy than Orthodox Christianity and Islam, although these two religions are not necessarily an obstacle. Finally, the third paper deals with religious participation in post-communist countries. It shows that religious behavior is not completely independent of economic conditions and religious revivals in the post-communist era can be interpreted in economic terms.
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