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The Macro-finance Model of the Czech Economy
Urbánková, Jana ; Baxa, Jaromír (advisor) ; Cahlík, Tomáš (referee)
The thesis introduces the macro-finance model of the Czecheconomy by setting the VAR model, which includes components representing theyield curve estimatedwithin theNelson-Siegel framework. The thesis contributes to the current streamof researchby including both the policy interest rateand the interbank interest rateas endogeneous variables in the VAR model, which allows for differentiation between monetarypolicy shocks and shocks to interbank rates. The above-mentioned model then serves as a frameworkfor analyzing interactions betweenfinancial and macroeconomicvariables in the period from 2000 to 2015. The thesis pays special attention to theperiod 2008-2013 and shows that the introduction of the FX commitment in November 2013 had a significant positive effect on GDP and inflation within 12 months after the introduction of the FX commitment. The thesis concludes that exchangeratemovements affectedalmost uniformly short-term and long-terminterest rates, and thus the yield curve slope stayed largelyunaffected by exchangeratemovements.
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Determinants of FDI flows in Europe: The Recent Evidence
Korbelius, Vojtěch ; Baxa, Jaromír (advisor) ; Kopečná, Vědunka (referee)
JEL Classification B22, C11, C23, D92, E22, O52 Keywords FDI, Financial crisis, EU, integration Author's e-mail v.korbelius@gmail.com Supervisor's e-mail jaromir.baxa@fsv.cuni.cz Our work analyses the determinants of FDI in Europe, at the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st century. It finds out that the FDI is positively and significantly influenced by the size of the economy (GDP, growth of GDP), total size of the labor force, openness of the economy and institutional framework. The findings show the EU accession does not have an immediate effect. However, long term membership might positively affect the FDI inflow. According to our analysis the recent financial crisis has changed the main determinants of the FDI inflows. It has warned the investors it is important not to consider only immediate profits but also future prospects. Generally the investment nowadays is below its potential level and the governments should take action to change it, if the FDI is their priority.
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Inflation and the Steeplechase Between Economic Activity Variables
Baxa, Jaromír ; Plašil, M. ; Vašíček, B.
A sharp increase in unemployment accompanied by a relatively muted response of inflation during the Great Recession added further doubts to the validity of the Phillips curve and the existence of a systemic relationship between economic activity and inflation. This paper aims to show to what extent the uncertainty about the choice of proper forcing variable contributes to the ambiguity of the evidence on the Phillips curve in the United States and other G7 countries. We use dynamic model averaging (Raftery et al., 2010), which marries the flexibility of the time-varying parameter framework with the possibility of model switching in each period. Our results show that inflation seems to respond to different measures of economic activity across time and space to a varying extent and no measure of economic activity clearly dominates in all countries or over the whole sample.
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Inflation and the Steeplechase Between Economic Activity Variables
Baxa, Jaromír ; Plašil, Miroslav ; Vašíček, Bořek
A sharp increase in unemployment accompanied by a relatively muted response of inflation during the Great Recession cast further doubts on the validity of the Phillips curve. With the aid of dynamic model averaging (Raftery et al., 2010), this paper aims to highlight that the existence of a systemic relation between real activity and inflation is blurred due to (i) the failure to capture inflationary pressures by means of a single measure of economic activity, and (ii) the existence of a non-linear response of inflation to the driving variable. Based on data for the U.S. and other G7 countries, our results show that the relation between economic activity and inflation is quite sturdy when one allows for more complex assessment of the former. We find that inflation responds to different measures of economic activity across time and space, and no measure of economic activity clearly dominates. The output gap is often outperformed by unemployment-related variables such as the short-term unemployment rate, the unemployment expansion gap, and the unemployment recession gap. Finally, our results confirm a weakening of the inflation–activity relationship (i.e., a flattening of the Phillips curve) in the last decades, which might be attributed to structural changes in the economy and monetary policy, that is robust both across activity measures and across countries.
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Changes in Inflation Dynamics under Inflation Targeting? Evidence from Central European Countries
Baxa, Jaromír ; Plašil, M. ; Vašíček, B.
The purpose of this paper is to provide a novel look at the evolution of inflation dynamics in selected Central European (CE) countries. We use the lens of the New Keynesian Phillips Curve (NKPC) nested within a time-varying framework. Exploiting a time-varying regression model with stochastic volatility estimated using Bayesian techniques, we analyze both the closed and open-economy version of the NKPC. The results point to significant differences between the inflation processes in three CE countries. While inflation persistence has almost disappeared in the Czech Republic, it remains rather high in Hungary and Poland. In addition, the volatility of inflation shocks decreased quickly a few years after the adoption of inflation targeting in the Czech Republic and Poland, whereas it remains quite stable in Hungary even after ten years’ experience of inflation targeting. Our results thus suggest that the degree of anchoring of inflation expectations varies across CE coutries.
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What the Data Say about the Effects of Fiscal Policy in the Czech Republic?
Baxa, Jaromír
In this paper, we provide the estimates of the fiscal multiplier in the Czech economy, based on the methodology of the fiscal VAR. The basic idea, adding fiscal variables into the macroeconomic VAR model, follows Blanchard and Perotti (2002). For estimation of our model, we utilize the dataset with quarterly data on a sample from the first quarter of 1998 to the second quarter of 2009. Our main results are as follows. Firstly, government expenditures have a positive and significant impact on the GDP. By contrast, a response of GDP on a shock to government revenues is slightly negative and in most specifications not significant. Secondly, these results are robust to various sensitivity checks. Consequently, the restoration of sustainable fiscal policy should focus rather on the revenues side than in the government expenditures, since a significant cut in government spending would probably have slowed down economic growth. Finally, we should note, that uncertainty connected with our results is large, namely in comparison with existing studies on the effects of monetary policy.
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Fiscal developments and financial stress: a threshold VAR analysis
Baxa, Jaromír ; Afonso, Antonio ; Slavík, M.
We use a threshold VAR analysis to study whether the effects of fiscal policy on economic activity differ depending on financial market conditions. In particular, we investigate the possibility of a non-linear propagation of fiscal developments according to different financial market stress regimes. More specifically we employ a quarterly dataset, for the U.S., the U.K., Germany and Italy, for the period 1980:4-2009:4, encompassing macro, fiscal and financial variables. The results show that (i) the use of a nonlinear framework with regime switches is corroborated by nonlinearity tests; (ii) the responses of economic growth to a fiscal shock are mostly positive in both financial stress regimes; (iii) financial stress has a negative effect on output growth and worsens the fiscal position; (iv) the nonlinearity in the response of output growth to a fiscal shock is mainly associated with different behaviour across regimes; (v) the size of the fiscal multipliers is higher than average in the last crisis.
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