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On the predictability of Central European stock returns : "Do neural networks outperform modern econometric techniques?"
Baruník, Jozef ; Schneider, Ondřej (advisor)
In this thesis we apply neural networks as nonparametric and nonlinear methods to the Central European stock markets returns (Czech, Polish, Hungarian and German) modelling. In the first two chapters we define prediction task and link the classical econometric analysis to neural networks. We also present optimization methods which will be used in the tests, conjugate gradient, Levenberg-Marquardt, and evolutionary search method. Further on, we present statistical methods for comparing the predictive accuracy of the non-nested models, as well as economic significance measures. In the empirical tests we first show the power of neural networks on Mackey-Glass chaotic time series followed by real-world data of the daily and weekly returns of mentioned stock exchanges for the 2000:2006 period. We find neural networks to have significantly lower prediction error than classical models for daily DAX series, weekly PX50 and BUX series. The lags of time-series were used, and also cross-country predictability has been tested, but the results were not significantly different. We also achieved economic significance of predictions with both daily and weekly PX-50, BUX and DAX with 60% accuracy of prediction. Finally we use neural network to learn Black-Scholes model and compared the pricing errors of Black-Scholes and...
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Annuity: Regulation, costs and fees in the pay-out phase of the pension fund pillar
Hochmeister, Tomáš ; Bezděk, Vladimír (advisor) ; Schneider, Ondřej (referee)
The growing importance of defined contribution pension arrangements has drawn increased attention to the means by which retired people draw down their assets. Most of countries require annuitisation of at least a fraction of defined contribution plan accumulations. Annuity markets have recently attracted some criticism with respect to pricing and its costs. Requiring individuals to participate in the annuity market can reduce selection effects. Right incentives and conditions created by the government can enhance the effectiveness of annuity market. But excessive requirements and inappropriate regulation can have substantial cost for the individual. We compare the value of life annuity products in an international context emphasizing the case of Chile and Sweden and the role annuities are to play in the new mandatory defined contribution pension plans of Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)
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ECB's Oral Communication and Future Monetary Policy
Fanta, Nicolas ; Horváth, Roman (advisor) ; Schneider, Ondřej (referee)
i A bstr a ct T he t hesis ai ms t o s he d li g ht o n t he E ur o p e a n Ce ntr al B a n k s c o m m u nic ati o n i n or der t o i de ntif y its m ai n c o m p o ne nts b e ari n g i nf or m ati o n a b o ut f ut ure c h a n ges i n t he p olic y r ate. For t he a n al ysis, t he st u d y i ntr o d uces a m o di fic ati o n of a wi del y use d a p pr o ac h b ase d o n t he disse nt e x presse d i n pre vi o us m o net ar y p olic y v ote. Si nce t he E ur o p e a n Ce ntr al B a n k d o es n ot p u blis h t he v ote's det ails t he c o m m u nic ati o n of t he ce ntr al b a n k is use d as a pr o x y. Res ults n ot o nl y c o n fir m t he pre dicti ve p o wer of t he c o m m u nic ati o n b ut f urt her m ore i n dic ate t h at t he fi n a nci al m ar kets d o n ot f ull y i nc or p or ate t he i nf or m ati o n c o nt ai ne d. A det aile d a n al ysis s h o ws t he rele va nce of t he ti mi n g, deli ver y a n d c o nte nt of t he c o m m u nic ati o n. T he st u d y t heref ore pr o vi des a s u m m ar y of t he i m p ort a nt f act ors of t he E ur o p e a n Ce ntr al B a n k b o ar d me m b ers st ate me nts f or pre dicti n g f ut ure m o net ar y p olic y.
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Base erosion and profit shifting in eastern European countries
Král, Michal ; Janský, Petr (advisor) ; Schneider, Ondřej (referee)
1 Abstract Corporate tax base erosion and profit shifting has become widely debated topic by academics and world leaders alike. The need to reform international tax system resulted into G20-OECD initiative addressing Base Erosion and Profit Shifting and recently thanks to the leak of so called Panama papers this issue is recognised by the general public as well. The goal of this thesis is to provide new evidence of profit shifting activities in eastern Europe and to provide better understanding of these practises. Our main focus is on tax havens that are often at heart of profit shifting activities. We analyse financial and ownership data for 661,841 companies from 18 countries for the period of 8 years 2006 - 2013. In our dataset there are 65,002 multinational companies out of which 17,359 have affiliates in tax havens. The evidence suggests that multinational companies in eastern Europe with ties to tax havens report lower pre-tax profits, pay lower taxes and hold higher debt ratio compare to other companies which is consistent with corporate tax avoidance using profit shifting. By examining tax havens in more detail we found that the most commonly used tax havens in this region are predominantly Cyprus followed by British Virgin Islands and Luxembourg with the strongest signs of profit shifting...
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Impacts of European Bailout Programs on SMEs Distress rate
Tóthová, Simona ; Parrák, Radovan (advisor) ; Schneider, Ondřej (referee)
Master Thesis - Simona Tothova Abstract This thesis empirically investigates impact of countries' bailouts on probability of SME segment distress. The impact is examined by multi-period logit model where dependent variable is distress rate and explanatory variables includes self-constructed bailout variable, several binary predictors and firm-specific and macroeconomic control variables. The hypotheses are tested on dataset for period from 2005 to 2013 including observations from seven European countries which received financial assistance program (bailout) from Troika. Every bailout from Troika comes with the requirement for austerity measures and our results suggest that impact of bailouts on SMEs probability of distress are depended on the success of application in individual countries and the impacts are more positive in non euro-zone countries. Keywords Bailout, Financial crisis, Credit risk, SME segment, Distress rate Author's e-mail tothova.simona@gmail.com Supervisor's e-mail rado.parrak@gmail.com
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The Efficiency of Public Expenditure, Evidence from the Czech Republic
Vraná, Veronika ; Zápal, Jan (advisor) ; Schneider, Ondřej (referee)
1 Abstract Efficiency is an important concept for performance evaluation of decision- making units. This thesis studies efficiency of public spending and methods of its estimation. Firstly, a wide range of efficiency estimators are defined and compared. For the public spending efficiency analysis the most convenient es- timator is found to be the cost frontier approach of the Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA). The second part of the thesis contains efficiency analysis of public spending in the 14 regions of the Czech Republic in the years 2003-2014. For the analysis current expenditure of regional offices is used as the input. Based on the investigation of regional services output index is formed and employed in the analysis. The estimation is performed using the cost frontier approach of the SFA as the main method. Various other efficiency estimators are then applied to the data in order to study robustness of the results. The thesis further discusses relative ranking of the regions and time evolution of efficiency scores using different assumptions and variety of methods. Lastly, several potential effects on the estimated efficiency are considered and analysed. JEL Classification D24, H41, H72 Keywords efficiency, regions, public expenditure, Czech Republic Author's e-mail verca25.vrana@seznam.cz Supervisor's e-mail...
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Cross-border effects of sovereign rating changes on bond yields before and during the Eurozone crisis
Zachar, Martin ; Schneider, Ondřej (advisor) ; Geršl, Adam (referee)
This paper looks into the contagion dynamics of sovereign credit rating changes with regards to bond yields in the period before and during the sovereign debt crisis in Europe. Our sample included European Union member countries, as well as a Eurozone subsample and a subsample excluding highly indebted countries. Events and outlooks from all three major rating agencies were considered. Our findings for the pre-crisis period are consistent with existing research, indicating an increase in borrowing costs by approximately five basis points in the case of a one-notch negative event, and insignificant effects in the case of positive events. During the crisis period, we observed a reversal of this effect, associating negative ratings with lower spreads on the entire sample. However, the effect was no longer significant when highly indebted countries were excluded from the sample, indicating that this effect may be tied to overly negative expectations. Lastly, we investigated the persistence of results, with only full-sample crisis period data displaying persistent effects. JEL Classification F01, F34, F42 Keywords credit rating, sovereign debt, default, debt crisis, European debt, sustainability Author's e-mail martin1703@gmail.com Supervisor's e-mail schneider.ondrej@gmail.com
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Impact of pension reform to implicit pension debt: Evidence of pension reforms in EU in 1993-2013
Obořil, Josef ; Schneider, Ondřej (advisor) ; Soudek, Jan (referee)
This thesis investigates impact of pension reforms implemented in the EU27 countries in time period 1993 - 2013 to implicit pension debt. We applied Holzmann's (2004) methodology to calculate implicit pension debt. Primary outcome is that in the investigated period, 21 countries have reduced its im- plicit pension debt in range of 57% to 700% of its GDP. On the other side, in Denmark, Germany and Portugal, implicit pension debt increased in range 10% - 194% of their GDP. Paper also investigated impact of individual components implemented in pension reforms. Largest impact was recorded by change of pension age. In- creasing pension age by 1 year reduced the IPD by 46% of GDP on EU27 level. This was also the most often used measure as it was implemented 42 times in the investigated period. Reforms of indexation have also significant impact on IPD, however, as indexation is linked to chosen variables to decrease IPD it is only possible to change indexation linkage. Possibilities of early retire- ment were also limited, as it was adjusted 13 times. The effect was smaller in comparison to increasing retirement age where increasing early retirement age decreased implicit pension debt by 21% of GDP on the EU27 level. This equals to impact of increasing contribution rate by 1 p.p. The smallest impact was...
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Economic Globalization and Tax Systems
Toman, Václav ; Schneider, Ondřej (advisor) ; Švarcová, Natálie (referee)
iv Abstract In this thesis on the effect of globalization on corporate income tax policies, we try to provide evidence that given the globalization-induced increased tax competition, countries are forced to lower their level of corporate income tax burden down to unsustainable levels or that they at least converge in their policies and levels of tax burden in order to attract international corporations through transparency. We find that no evidence to support such hypotheses is present in the OECD panel data of the last four decades with descriptive analysis, the general method of moments and the fixed effects estimation and we even find local evidence of an increase in the corporate income tax burden. Moreover, the OECD countries do not exhibit stronger convergence in their corporate income tax policies. Apart from the analysis of the general development of the corporate income tax burden, we find evidence that the level of tax burden is affected by the ratio of exports in the economy and correlated with the government indebtedness, outward FDI and the occurrence of the recent financial crisis. JEL Classification F23, F62, H25, H71, H87 Keywords globalization, corporate income tax, tax burden, tax competition, economic policy Author's e-mail vaclav.toman@gmail.com Supervisor's e-mail schneider@fsv.cuni.cz
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Microeconomic Analysis for Evidence-Based Policy
Janský, Petr ; Bauer, Michal (advisor) ; Blundell, Richard (referee) ; Galuščák, Kamil (referee) ; Schneider, Ondřej (referee)
This dissertation thesis is focused on the microeconomic analysis of public policy in the Czech Republic. It consists of three parts, the first two parts deal with the analysis of tax policy; the third part of this thesis is focused on inflation differentials. The first chapter deals with the analysis of value added tax. The rates of value added tax (VAT) have recently changed in the Czech Republic, and I simulate the impact of these reforms. They are an example of changes in indirect taxes that change the prices of goods and services, to which households can respond by adjusting their expenditures. I first estimate the behavioural response of consumers to price changes in the Czech Republic by applying a consumer demand model of the quadratic almost ideal system (QUAIDS) on the basis of the Czech Statistical Office household expenditure and price data for the period from 2001 to 2011. I derive estimates of own- and cross-price and income elasticities for individual households. I then use these elasticities to estimate the impact of the changes in VAT rates that were proposed or implemented between 2011 and 2013, on households' quantity demanded and government revenues. One of the main findings is that the estimated increases in government revenues that take the consumer responses into account are...
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