National Repository of Grey Literature 19 records found  1 - 10next  jump to record: Search took 0.00 seconds. 
Empirical Essays on Unemployment, Inflation and Access to Human Capital
Franta, Michal ; Münich, Daniel (advisor) ; Blien, Uwe (referee) ; Galuščák, Kamil (referee)
This dissertation consists of three distinct topics within labor macroeconomics, applied microeconomics, and applied time-series econometrics. The first essay extends the standard methodology used in analyzing unemployment duration. The extension is applied on empirical data for the Czech Republic and France. Furthermore, unemployment dynamics are examined in terms of unemployment incidence and duration for the Czech Republic, 1992-2007. The second essay belongs to the field of the economics of education. It contributes to the discussion on the equal access to higher education. The theoretical (structural) model of an individual schooling decision is set up and the implied reduced form is estimated on a unique data set of all secondary school graduates in the Czech Republic in 1998. Finally, the third essay deals with the inflation dynamics. It draws on extensive research in the modeling of the inflation process in developed countries. Nevertheless, the focus is on developing countries where specific economic and consequently econometric issues have to be considered.
Essays on Interbank Interest Rates
Kovář, Kamil ; Slobodyan, Sergey (advisor) ; Franta, Michal (referee) ; Burlon, Lorenzo (referee)
Essays on interbank interest rates This thesis studies the behavior of interbank interest rates in the af- termath of the global financial crisis. This crisis and its macroeconomic consequences led to a sharp break in how monetary policy is conducted, with unconventional tools such as quantitative easing (QE) programs gain- ing prominence. One consequence of such policies is a change in the behavior of interbank interest rates. This behavioral change is due to the emergence of excess reserves, which are a side effect of many unconventional policies including quantitative easing. The first chapter explores the nexus between the QE program conducted by the European Central Bank, its policy of negative policy rates and the interbank interest rates. It starts with data analysis that demonstrates two salient features of the behavior of interbank interest rates in the presence of excess reserves. First, when excess reserves are present interbank interest rates are anchored by the deposit rate rather than by the main refinancing rate, as was the case before emergence of excess reserves. Second, the amount of excess reserves is negatively correlated with the level of interbank interest rates whenever excess reserves are present. The chapter proposes a semi- structural time series model that links interbank interest...
Balance sheet implications of the Czech National Bank’s exchange rate commitment
Franta, Michal ; Holub, Tomáš ; Saxa, Bronislav
We present projections of the Czech National Bank’s balance sheet after the discontinuation of the exchange rate commitment. Our model addresses the situation of a large central bank balance sheet with assets consisting almost exclusively of foreign exchange reserves in the circumstances of a catching-up economy exhibiting an exchange rate appreciation trend. Apart from the baseline projection, several counter-factual scenarios are discussed. The scenarios concern the evolution of the balance sheet in the cases of no exchange rate commitment and a commitment with earlier discontinuation. The simulated counter-factual duration of negative CNB equity, and thus the period of no profit distribution to the government, does not differ substantially from the baseline. The fiscal implications of the exchange rate commitment are thus estimated to be relatively small and related only to the period after the year 2030. Our stochastic simulations, however, show that the uncertainty bands are very wide. In addition, we show that the simulation tool can be employed to discuss the consequences of a long-run decline in currency in circulation, the composition of the asset side and the resumption of foreign exchange income sales by the central bank.
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A BVAR Model for Forecasting of Czech Inflation
Brázdik, František ; Franta, Michal
Bayesian vector autoregressions (BVAR) have turned out to be useful for medium-term macroeconomic forecasting. Several features of the Czech economy strengthen the rationale for using this approach. These include in particular the short time series available and uncertainty about long-run trends. We compare forecasts based on a small-scale mean-adjusted BVAR with the official forecasts published by the Czech National Bank (CNB) over the period 2008q3–2016q4. The comparison demonstrates that the BVAR approach can provide more precise inflation forecasts over the monetary policy horizon. For other macroeconomic variables, the CNB forecasts either outperform or are comparable with the forecasts based on the BVAR model.
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Empirical Essays on Unemployment, Inflation and Access to Human Capital
Franta, Michal ; Münich, Daniel (advisor) ; Blien, Uwe (referee) ; Galuščák, Kamil (referee)
This dissertation consists of three distinct topics within labor macroeconomics, applied microeconomics, and applied time-series econometrics. The first essay extends the standard methodology used in analyzing unemployment duration. The extension is applied on empirical data for the Czech Republic and France. Furthermore, unemployment dynamics are examined in terms of unemployment incidence and duration for the Czech Republic, 1992-2007. The second essay belongs to the field of the economics of education. It contributes to the discussion on the equal access to higher education. The theoretical (structural) model of an individual schooling decision is set up and the implied reduced form is estimated on a unique data set of all secondary school graduates in the Czech Republic in 1998. Finally, the third essay deals with the inflation dynamics. It draws on extensive research in the modeling of the inflation process in developed countries. Nevertheless, the focus is on developing countries where specific economic and consequently econometric issues have to be considered.
Effects of Fiscal Policy in the DSGE-VAR Framework: The Case of the Czech Republic
Babecký, Jan ; Franta, Michal ; Ryšánek, Jakub
In this paper we explore the potential of the DSGE-VAR modelling approach for examining the effects of fiscal policy. The combination of the VAR and DSGE frameworks leads theoretically to more accurate estimates of impulse responses and consequently of fiscal multipliers. Moreover, the framework allows for discussion about the differences of the effects of fiscal shocks in DSGE and VAR models and to some extent discussion about misspecification in fiscal DSGE models. The DSGE-VAR model is estimated on Czech data covering the period from 1996 to 2011 at quarterly frequency. The government consumption multiplier attains a value close to 0.4 at the horizon of four years. The public investment multiplier is about 0.4 higher, which confirms findings in the literature. On the other hand, the DSGE model alone implies a similar government consumption multiplier but a much lower public investment multiplier, suggesting misspecification of the fiscal DSGE model.
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Iterated Multi-Step Forecasting with Model Coefficients Changing Across Iterations
Franta, Michal
Iterated multi-step forecasts are usually constructed assuming the same model in each forecasting iteration. In this paper, the model coefficients are allowed to change across forecasting iterations according to the in-sample prediction performance at a particular forecasting horizon. The technique can thus be viewed as a combination of iterated and direct forecasting. The superior point and density forecasting performance of this approach is demonstrated on a standard medium-scale vector autoregression employing variables used in the Smets and Wouters (2007) model of the US economy. The estimation of the model and forecasting are carried out in a Bayesian way on data covering the period 1959Q1–2016Q1.
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Rare Shocks vs. Non-linearities: What Drives Extreme Events in the Economy? Some Empirical Evidence
Franta, Michal
A small-scale vector autoregression (VAR) is used to shed some light on the roles of extreme shocks and non-linearities during stress events observed in the economy. The model focuses on the link between credit/financial markets and the real economy and is estimated on US quarterly data for the period 1984–2013. Extreme shocks are accounted for by assuming t-distributed reduced-form shocks. Non-linearity is allowed by the possibility of regime switch in the shock propagation mechanism. Strong evidence for fat tails in error distributions is found. Moreover, the results suggest that accounting for extreme shocks rather than explicit modeling of non-linearity contributes to the explanatory power of the model. Finally, it is shown that the accuracy of density forecasts improves if non-linearities and shock distributions with fat tails are considered.
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Forecasting Czech GDP Using Mixed-Frequency Data Models
Franta, Michal ; Havrlant, David ; Rusnák, Marek
In this paper we use a battery of various mixed-frequency data models to forecast Czech GDP. The models employed are mixed-frequency vector autoregressions, mixed-data sampling models, and the dynamic factor model. Using a dataset of historical vintages of unrevised macroeconomic and financial data, we evaluate the performance of these models over the 2005–2012 period and compare them with the Czech National Bank’s macroeconomic forecasts. The results suggest that for shorter forecasting horizons the accuracy of the dynamic factor model is comparable to the CNB forecasts. At longer horizons, mixed-frequency vector autoregressions are able to perform similarly or slightly better than the CNB forecasts. Furthermore, moving away from point forecasts, we also explore the potential of density forecasts from Bayesian mixed-frequency vector autoregressions.
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The Exchange Rate as an Instrument at Zero Interest Rates: The Case of the Czech Republic
Franta, Michal ; Holub, Tomáš ; Král, Petr ; Kubicová, Ivana ; Šmídková, Kateřina ; Vašíček, Bořek
This study examines the use of the exchange rate by the Czech National Bank as a monetary policy instrument at the zero lower bound on interest rates. It provides a review of the economic literature on unconventional monetary policy instruments and particularly on the possibility of using the exchange rate. It explains the CNB’s reasons for further easing monetary policy and for choosing the exchange rate instrument and its specific level, and discusses its expected benefits in the case of the Czech Republic. It also explains why the CNB ultimately decided to transparently declare a one-sided exchange rate commitment with potentially unlimited foreign exchange interventions. The article concludes by assessing the impacts of the exchange rate weakening on the Czech economy to date, as compared to what the CNB had expected, and by describing the public debate of the CNB’s action and related changes in its communication strategy.
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17 Franta, Michal
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