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How should the government’s crisis measures be communicated? Through frequent repetition
Korbel, Václav ; Novák, Vladimír ; Šoltés, Michal ; Tóth, L.
About three weeks after the first case of Covid-19 infection in the Czech Republic was confirmed, i.e. on 20th - 21st March, we carried out a survey to find out how the way government measures are communicated affects residents’ willingness to abide by them. Our main findings were published in IDEA anti COVID-19 study # 7. We supplemented our questionnaire with an experiment in which we provided five different pieces of information\nabout the government measures to five randomly selected groups of people. This study focuses on presenting the results of that experiment.
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Sorting of candidates: evidence from 20,000 electoral ballots
Svitáková, Klára ; Šoltés, Michal
Using over 20,000 electoral ballots from proportional representation elections, we document that political parties systematically sort candidates on the ballots according to their valence and intra party value. Valence, measured by education level, captures the public value of the candidates, while intra party value, measured by political donations and membership, represents the value of the candidate to the party. The patterns we observe are consistent with market mechanisms between candidates and party leaders where the party leaders benefit from the valence and intra party value of candidates and offer ballot positions (i.e. the probability of winning a seat) in exchange. We show that candidates with high valence and those who possess more intra party value are placed in higher level positions, despite the fact that candidates with more intra party value tend to receive relatively fewer votes than their counterparts with the same characteristics in the same position on the ballot. We also show that as a party expects to hold more council seats and thus has more bargaining power over candidates, the share of their candidates with higher intra party value increases. Overall, we provide strong evidence that political parties skew political representation based on a quid pro quo relationship with the candidates.
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Households’ attitudes to infection and to the government measures: the latest survey data
Korbel, Václav ; Novák, Vladimír ; Šoltés, Michal ; Tóth, L.
This study presents Czech people’s real views about the Covid-19 pandemic from a survey carried out on a representative sample of internet users around the 20th March 2020. It thus presents very up-to-date information about people’s attitudes to the ongoing infection and, moreover, to the measures imposed by the government. The findings provide new and important information to be taken into account when planning further measures. For example, if people had not considered the restrictions on free movement or the requirement to wear face masks as appropriate and had not begun implementing them voluntarily, the relevant authorities would have had to enforce these measures. More than half the population is concerned that they will catch the coronavirus. People have substantial confidence in the ability of the government measures to successfully overcome the current situation. The majority of people, around 75 %, declare themselves willing to limit their outdoor movements to essential activities and otherwise stay at home. Even so, almost 53 % of respondents go out every day. If it were to be necessary, many people are prepared to refrain from outdoor and social activities even for months. People believe that there is a moderately high chance of meeting an infected person on the street. Wearing face masks became a matter of course very quickly. 92 % of people only leave their homes with a face mask on, the majority agree that people without face masks should not be allowed into public areas, if they meet someone without a face mask, 42 % of respondents are prepared to tell the person concerned that they should wear a mask and a quarter would express their disapproval by frowning at that person.5 Another study will follow soon after this one, which reveals how reminders about government orders and recommendations (to wear face masks and practice social distancing) affect people’s willingness to abide by them and how the way the measures are communicated affects that willingness. Keep an eye out for more IDEA studies.
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The consumption tax as a dichotomy: source of public budgets and instrument of harm reduction\n(discussion paper)
Novák, Vladimír ; Šoltés, Michal
The tax system is an essential economic policy instrument used to finance public budgets and influence the economic behavior of individuals, households, and companies. Different tax liabilities on certain forms of consumption (e.g., more ecological forms of transport, less harmful tobacco products) is in the public interest, if they incentivize consumers to replace more harmful forms of consumption with less harmful options. Such tax liability differentiation can result in harm reduction without reducing overall consumption levels. Tax differentiation based on the potential harm of the consumption needs to take into account the extent to which it will discourage existing consumers from the more harmful forms of consumption and the extent to which it will attract new consumers, who would otherwise not consume the product at all. Attempts to use excise taxation to finance public budgets and as an instrument to encourage consumers to adopt less harmful behaviors have been observed in many countries over the past decade.
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The consequences of the postponed abolishment of super gross wages
Kalíšková, Klára ; Šoltés, Michal
There have already been a number of attempts to abolish the concept of super gross wages\nused for personal income tax purposes since 2008. The most recent proposal to abolish super\ngross wages and introduce a progressive tax system was put forward in February 2018 as part\nof a tax package suggested by the Czech Ministry of Finance and subsequently appeared in the\ncurrent government’s policy statement. By August 2018 this intention had disappeared from\nthe government’s legislative package, but we can expect this amendment to be brought back\nto the table in the future.
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Endogenous Growth Model, Distance to Frontier, and Labour Market Institutions
Šoltés, Michal ; Baxa, Jaromír (advisor) ; Kopečná, Vědunka (referee)
This thesis studies the effect of generosity of unemployment insurance on economic growth. More generous unemployment insurance is argued to cause an increase in unemployment on the one hand and better job match quality on the other. Our model shows that in the developed countries, there may be some level of unemployment insurance which ensures that the productivity gain offsets the loss due to higher unemployment. On the contrary, in the developing countries, any level of unemployment insurance was revealed to harm economic growth. Moreover, we present strong evidence in favour of a positive effect of unemployment insurance on the aggregate productivity growth. Key words: Unemployment Insurance, Distance to Frontier, Endogenous Growth Model, Technology Growth, Economic Growth
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Regional Unemployment Analysis: Case of the Czech Republic
Šoltés, Michal ; Matějů, Jakub (advisor) ; Šopov, Daniel (referee)
In this thesis, I examine the development of regional unemployment in the Czech Republic in the past 2 decades. The statistics show that there are differentials among the regional unemployment rates. The differentials in the Czech Republic seem to be one of the highest in Europe. More importantly, the differentials appear to be persistent as the disparity is stationary and there are cointegrating vectors among the regional unemployment rates. One of the possible explanation could be the different processes of setting long-run equilibrium in regional unemployment rates. In some regions, the behaviour of unemployment is consistent with the NAIRU hypothesis, thus the long-run equilibrium is not affected by economic shocks. On the other hand, I also find regions in which the data support unemployment Hysteresis and path dependent equilibrium of unemployment rate. Moreover, most of the time, the distribution of unemployment over the regions appears to be symmetrical around its mean i.e. there is a comparable amount of regions with higher and lower unemployment rates. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)
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