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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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Three essays on Joseph Stiglitz, information asymmetry, and credit rationing
Pospíšil, Martin ; Mertlík, Pavel (advisor) ; Čech, Jan (referee)
This thesis contains three essays related to the work of economist Joseph Stiglitz. The first essay describes the contribution of Stiglitz to economic theory by analysing problems of information asymmetry, new Keynesian and institutional economics, rationality, and market theories. Shortcomings of neoclassical economics are described and possible solutions are outlined. The last part of this essay summarizes the main critique of Stiglitz's work. The second essay applies the topic of information asymmetry by discussing whether the current level of economic development leads to convergence or divergence in the technology and information levels. The conclusion is that even though globalisation affects the level of technology and information, we do not see convergence as predicted by several theoretical models and information asymmetry remains an important element in the economy. The last essay links the Stiglitz-Greenwald theory of credit rationing using recent Czech data from years 2007-2009. Data confirm that credit rationing increases, information asymmetry increases, and the transmission mechanism does not function well during economic decline. I conclude that Czech banks increase their screening of clients and consequently credit rationing in the times uncertainty leading to ambiguous development...
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Bankruptcy, Investment, and Financial Constraints: Evidence from a Post-Transition Economy
Pospíšil, Martin ; Swarz, Jiří
In this paper we use balance-sheet data and information on bankruptcy to study the relationship between investment, financial constraints, and bankruptcy in a post-transition country. Our data constitute a dynamic panel and cover the period 2006–2011, which also allows us to study the impact of the 2008 crisis on Czech companies. Using investment–cash flow sensitivity to analyze financial constraints we find there is robust evidence that cash flow and the level of debt have a positive and significant impact on the investment rate. By taking a closer look at individual subsamples we reveal that the existence of financial constraints, proxied by investment–cash flow sensitivity, is evident mainly after 2008 and in small and medium-sized enterprises. At the same time, we do not uncover any evidence that firms going bankrupt during our observed period faced more severe financial constraints. Moreover, companies going bankrupt had significantly higher levels of external debt and bank loans, which indicates that they may have been, in fact, less constrained than others.
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The role of banks in the Czech monetary policy transmission mechanism
Pruteanu, Anca
Objective of this work is to enrich the knowledge about the monetary policy transmission mechanism in the Czech Republic with empirical evidence on the impact of monetary policy on bank lending. Using a panel of quarterly time series for Czech commercial banks for the period 1996–2001, it studies the overall effect of monetary policy changes on the growth rate of loans and the characteristics of the supply of loans.
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