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Three essays in energy and environmental economics
Rečka, Lukáš ; Ščasný, Milan (advisor) ; Knápek, Jaroslav (referee) ; Van Koten, Silvester (referee) ; Muchapondwa, Edwin (referee)
Three Essays in Energy and Environmental Economics Author: Mgr. Lukáš Rečka Supervisor: Mgr. Milan Ščasný, Ph.D. Academic Year: 2018/2019 Abstract This thesis consists of three articles that share the main theme - energy and environment. The dissertation aims mainly at the Czech energy system and analyses it development after the Velvet Revolution and its possible future development. The first article applies Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index decomposition to analyses the main driving forces of significant reduction in air quality pollutants during the transition of the Czech economy towards market economy in the 1990s. It continues then to investigate how the driving forces affected the emissions volumes during succeeding the post-transition period up to 2016. The second article reacts on the 2015 governmental decision to lift brown coal mining limits in the North Bohemia coal basin. The paper analyses the impacts of maintaining the ban on mining coal reserves and compares them with three alternative options that would each weaken the environmental protections of the ban. The impacts of each of these alternative governmental propostions are analysed on the Czech energy system, the fuel- and the technology-mix, the costs of generating energy, related emissions and external costs associated with the emissions....
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Optimization of oil production by OPEC countries
Pilátová, Markéta ; Červinka, Michal (advisor) ; Rečka, Lukáš (referee)
Almost 4 years of low oil prices and excess supply call the relevance of OPEC for current oil market into question. Therefore to investigate its role, this thesis examines the optimum oil production of individual OPEC countries accenting the consequent profit. Firstly, Cournot's model is employed to find equilibrium price and output on the oligopolistic market. Secondly, model considering OPEC and Russia as the Stackelberg leader with competitors forming oligopolistic fringe helps to uncover the potential of the recent car- tel of OPEC and Russia. In both models, data from the year 2016 with different levels of elasticity ranging from -0.1 to -0.2 are utilized. Our re- search suggests that all OPEC members could have increased their profits by forming a non-cooperative oligopolistic market, where prices would reach up to 81.7 USD/bbl. Moreover, as a part of the cartel with Russia, OPEC could increase its joint profits by almost 27 % compared to the oligopolistic market, benefiting from coordinated output cuts followed by a steep growth in price. Thus we can conclude that either OPEC lost its power over the oil market or attempted to maintain its market share and drive higher-cost producers out of the market.
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Forecasting electricity prices in the Czech spot market
Černý, Kryštof ; Lebovič, Michal (advisor) ; Rečka, Lukáš (referee)
This master thesis is focused on analysis and forecasting of hourly and daily electricity price on the deregulated Czech daily electricity market. The methods used for estimating and forecasting hourly and daily prices are picked from the ARIMA-GARCH family of models and Neural Networks. For daily price data, the Redundant Haar Wavelet Transform decomposition of the time series is used in combination with ARIMA and Neural Networks models for forecasting. For hourly data, ARIMA and Neural Network models are considered. The forecasting results of daily data indicate that simpler models such as seasonal ARIMA outperform all other methods. Also the wavelet decomposi- tion of the daily series didn't prove useful in enhancing the forecast precision. For hourly data, the Multilayer Perceptron architecture of the neural network outperformed the ARIMA forecast. JEL Classification C20, C22, C45, C53, C65 Keywords Forecasting, Time Series, ARIMA, GARCH, Neural Net- works, Wavelet Transform Author's e-mail krystof.cerny@gmail.com Supervisor's e-mail lebovicm@gmail.com 1
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DSGE modeling of business cycle properties of Czech labor market
Sentivany, Daniel ; Maršál, Aleš (advisor) ; Rečka, Lukáš (referee)
The goal of this thesis is to develop a DSGE model that accounts for the key business cycle properties of the Czech labor market. We used standard New Keynesian framework for monetary policy analysis and incorporated an elaborated labor market setup with equi- librium wage derived via an alternating offer bargaining protocol originally proposed by Rubinstein (1982) and follow the work of Christiano, Eichenbaum and Trabandt (2013) in the following steps. Firstly, we calibrated the closed economy model according to values suited for the Czech economy and found that the model can not only account for higher volatility of the real wage and unemployment, but can also explain the contemporaneous rise of both wages and employment after an expansionary shock in the economy, so called Shimer puzzle (Shimer, 2005a). Secondly, we demonstrated that the alternating offer bar- gaining sharing rule outperforms the Nash sharing rule under assumption of using the hiring costs in our framework (more so while using search costs) and therefore is better suited for use in larger scale models. Thirdly, we concluded that after estimating the labor market parameters using the Czech data, our model disproved the relatively low values linked to the probabilities of unsuccessful bargaining and job destruction. JEL...
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Fuel Demand Elasticity on Car Fuel Taxes
Vágner, Dalibor ; Rečka, Lukáš (advisor) ; Khymych, Olha (referee)
The main focus of this thesis is to estimate the fuel demand elasticity on excise tax levied on gasoline and diesel. This work utilizes and subsequently develops the model and data set already published in the literature devoted to fuel taxation. The main contribution is the close analysis of the data from the Czech Republic and following comparison with the results from other countries. Furthermore, this paper extends the model by allowing it to filter out interstate shifts in purchases induced by different fuel price levels in neighboring countries. The relationship between interstate price differences and domestic fuel demand is consequently analyzed. JEL Classificiation C23, H23, L91, Q31 Keywords fuel, demand elasticity, car fuel tax, Europe, price Author's email dalibor.vagner@gmail.com Supervisor's email lukasrecka@gmail.com
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Economic Rationale for Damage Functions Entering the Social Cost of Carbon
Hochmann, Lukáš ; Havránek, Tomáš (advisor) ; Rečka, Lukáš (referee)
Climate change studies repeatedly report the present value damage from global warming in the realms of trillion USD. To adopt an efficient climate policy, precise estimates of the costs and damages are essential. This thesis aims to review the most influential social cost of carbon models and to propose for the first time a best practice approach to constructing the damage function. Based on the reliability of the key estimates, two alternative approaches are proposed. The first consists of deriving a highly universal damage function and conse- quent calibration by multiple point estimates. The latter is based on damage disaggregation to different sectors and subsequent single-point calibration of each contribution separately. Both approaches address the current challenges for the damage function - a flexible functional form and treatment of intangible damages. JEL Classification D62, D90, Q51, Q54 Keywords Social cost of carbon, SCC, damage function 1
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Analysis of the renewable energy support schemes in the EU: Can be an ECOlogical also an ECOnomical?
Andoková, Senta ; Cahlík, Tomáš (advisor) ; Rečka, Lukáš (referee)
The study compares FIT (Feed-in tariff) and RPS (Renewable Portfolio Standard) as the two most commonly used support schemes for renewable energy sources (RES) in the EU. It examines a relationship of an Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) and by a practical experiment for public lighting in Prague the study proposes an ecological functioning of electricity grids in the EU with CO2 emissions reduction effect. The main contribution lies in the recency and originality of the econometric analysis and practical experiment. FIT and RPS analysis demonstrates that both schemes affect demand for electricity and increase its price. The econometric model was tested for 28 EU countries for 1990-2013. The results say that the EU is currently located on the downslope of the inverted U-shaped EKC with a turning point, after which the dependence begins to grow. Nevertheless, for the most of observations the turning point is too far to be a source of concern. Practical experiment has shown that installation of energy saving devices for electricity grids in the EU can bring satisfactory results in reducing CO2 emissions independently of state aid. More efficient use of existing energy sources, however, should rather serve as a complement to conventional support, phasing out with the development of RES technologies....
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Family economics in Sweden
Wdowyczynová, Lucie ; Mlčoch, Lubomír (advisor) ; Rečka, Lukáš (referee)
The Swedish form of the welfare state has a long history and is known especially for its generous social policy financed mainly from exceptionally high tax levies. At the beginning the Bachelor Thesis Family economics in Sweden shows the general relation between family and economics, and then it focuses on family policy in Sweden and puts it into the context of the development and the present form of the welfare state. It also explores the important sub-components of the Swedish system, which affect family policy and other family trends. The work among other things illustrates how high fertility combined with high rates of labour market participation and knowledge-based economy can be supported in Europe. At the same time, however, it stresses that the differences in social policy in various European countries are caused by many cultural, social and economic factors, and therefore their mutual comparison and unification is limited. Yet, while considering new reforms, we can at least learn from experience of other countries or take them as an example. This thesis also highlights the disadvantages of the Swedish model.
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Daily targeting versus intertemporal substitution - estimating elasticities of labour supply on the example of small and medium enterprises (SME) in the Czech Republic
Hrdý, Rostislav ; Strielkowski, Wadim (advisor) ; Rečka, Lukáš (referee)
This bachelor thesis explores labour supply on the example of small and medium enterprises in the Czech Republic. It contrasts two basic hypoteses - the hypothesis of daily targeting and the intertemporal substitution hypothesis. The hypothesis of daily targeting is based on determination of income which workers try to achieve. On the other hand, the intertemporal substitution hypotesis assumes that hours worked depend on wage rate. I have used the survey to obtain monthly data of work hours and earned wage by Czech entrepreneurs. Based on the obtained data I have tested two hypotheses. Wage elasticities have positive values which lead to rejection the hypothesis of daily targeting. I have offered several possible explanations of obtained conclusions. One of them is the focus of entrepreneurs on accumulation of capital and wealth as the main motivation for business. This is related to recent economic transition in the Czech Republic.
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