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Essays on Exporting Behavior of Firms and on Inflation Persistence
Saxa, Branislav ; Hanousek, Jan (advisor) ; Kmenta, Jan (referee) ; Švejnar, Jan (referee)
Research Journal Articles Working Papers Research in Brief Series Dissertations Other Publications Featured Article Dissertations Date: Tuesday, June 02, 2009 - 10:30 Branislav Saxa: "Essays on Exporting Behavior of Firms and on Inflation Persistence" Dissertation Committee: Jan Hanousek (chair) Evžen Kočenda Lubomír Lízal Krešimir Žigić Abstract: In the first two essays, I examine the behavior of exporters and non-exporters using a rich firmlevel panel data source from the Czech Republic. The first essay reacts to recent literature on learning-by exporting and explores whether exporting firms are more productive because initially more productive firms self-select themselves into exporting or because exporting firms are becoming more productive. To provide convincing estimates, one must be able to disentangle learning-by-exporting from changes in company management that induce the company to both start exporting and introduce productivity increasing measures. Therefore, I compare estimates based on matching on propensity score, which do not control for potential management changes, to estimates based on an instrumental variables strategy. Specifically, I focus on firms that start exporting due to changes in the industry-specific ratio of producer prices on domestic and foreign markets. The results suggest...
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The Road to Efficient Liberalization of EU Energy Markets: Obstacles and Consequences
Mravec, Michal ; Ortmann, Andreas (advisor) ; Kmenta, Jan (referee) ; Roland, Gérard (referee)
1 Understanding the Lack of Competition in Natural Gas Markets: The Impact of Limited Upstream Competition Motivated by the slow emergence of competition after the natural gas market in the Czech Republic was liberalized, I explore the impact of upstream competition on the downstream level. I extend standard Cournot models to understand current and likely future developments, paying particular attention to the impact of market liberalization on a country characterized by a lack of domestic production and limited foreign upstream competition. I show that the upstream producer might exercise his market power to capture some of the benefits of liberalization and increase the wholesale price, which hinders the desired decline of the end-user price in the long run. This pricing change in turn makes the entry of new players in the transition period more difficult. This problem might be mitigated or even completely reversed if upstream competition develops simultaneously with downstream liberalization. What Role Does Storage Play in the Liberalization of the Natural Gas Market? Focusing on the liberalization of the natural gas market in the Czech Republic, in this paper I explore the impact of the structure of natural gas storage on the development of competition and prices after market liberalization. I...
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Essays on the Effective Market Dynamics
Novotný, Jan ; Hanousek, Jan (advisor) ; Kmenta, Jan (referee) ; Fidrmuc, Jarko (referee)
Essays on the Effective Market Dynamics Jan Novotný Abstract In the first chapter, I employ high frequency data to study extreme price changes (i.e., price jumps) in the Prague, Warsaw, Budapest, and Frankfurt stock market indexes from June 2003 to December 2010. I use the price jump index and normalized returns to analyze the distribution of extreme returns. The comparison of jump distributions across different frequencies, periods, up and down moves, and markets suggests a possible relationship with market micro-structure. I also show that the recent financial crisis resulted in an overall increase in volatility; however, this was not translated into an increase in the absolute number of jumps. In the second paper, I empirically analyze the price jump behavior of heavily traded US stocks during the recent financial crisis. Namely, I test the hypothesis that the collapse of Lehman Brothers caused no change in the price jump behavior. To accomplish this, I employ data on realized trades for 16 stocks and one ETF from the NYSE database. These data are at a 1-minute frequency and span the period from January 2008 to the end of July 2009. I employ five model-independent and three model-dependent price jump indicators to robustly assess the price jump behavior. The results confirm an increase in overall...
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The Road to Efficient Liberalization of EU Energy Markets: Obstacles and Consequences
Mravec, Michal ; Ortmann, Andreas (advisor) ; Kmenta, Jan (referee) ; Roland, Gérard (referee)
1 Understanding the Lack of Competition in Natural Gas Markets: The Impact of Limited Upstream Competition Motivated by the slow emergence of competition after the natural gas market in the Czech Republic was liberalized, I explore the impact of upstream competition on the downstream level. I extend standard Cournot models to understand current and likely future developments, paying particular attention to the impact of market liberalization on a country characterized by a lack of domestic production and limited foreign upstream competition. I show that the upstream producer might exercise his market power to capture some of the benefits of liberalization and increase the wholesale price, which hinders the desired decline of the end-user price in the long run. This pricing change in turn makes the entry of new players in the transition period more difficult. This problem might be mitigated or even completely reversed if upstream competition develops simultaneously with downstream liberalization. What Role Does Storage Play in the Liberalization of the Natural Gas Market? Focusing on the liberalization of the natural gas market in the Czech Republic, in this paper I explore the impact of the structure of natural gas storage on the development of competition and prices after market liberalization. I...
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Essays on Exporting Behavior of Firms and on Inflation Persistence
Saxa, Branislav ; Hanousek, Jan (advisor) ; Kmenta, Jan (referee) ; Švejnar, Jan (referee)
Research Journal Articles Working Papers Research in Brief Series Dissertations Other Publications Featured Article Dissertations Date: Tuesday, June 02, 2009 - 10:30 Branislav Saxa: "Essays on Exporting Behavior of Firms and on Inflation Persistence" Dissertation Committee: Jan Hanousek (chair) Evžen Kočenda Lubomír Lízal Krešimir Žigić Abstract: In the first two essays, I examine the behavior of exporters and non-exporters using a rich firmlevel panel data source from the Czech Republic. The first essay reacts to recent literature on learning-by exporting and explores whether exporting firms are more productive because initially more productive firms self-select themselves into exporting or because exporting firms are becoming more productive. To provide convincing estimates, one must be able to disentangle learning-by-exporting from changes in company management that induce the company to both start exporting and introduce productivity increasing measures. Therefore, I compare estimates based on matching on propensity score, which do not control for potential management changes, to estimates based on an instrumental variables strategy. Specifically, I focus on firms that start exporting due to changes in the industry-specific ratio of producer prices on domestic and foreign markets. The results suggest...
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Essays on the Unbundling of Electricity Networks in the Eu an the USA: Theory and Empirics
Van Koten, Silvester ; Ortmann, Andreas (advisor) ; Leautier, Thomas-Olivier (referee) ; Kmenta, Jan (referee)
This Ph.D. dissertation focuses on a central question about regulation in the EU and US electricity markets: the effects of vertical integration of generation and transmission and distribution networks. I focus on the forms of vertical integration where the generation and network firms are partly separated, such as in a legal or organizational form. Such form of separation is called unbundling. In the first two papers, I develop theoretical models to analyze the economic effects of vertical integration under legal unbundling (firms are legally separated entities and have the same owner) relative to ownership unbundling (firms are legally separated entities and have different owners). Both papers have policy implications for the regulation of the EU and US electricity markets, and make new contributions to auction theory, especially toehold auctions. In the first paper I consider the legal unbundling of the network activities; in the second paper I consider the legal unbundling of both the network activities and the generation activity. In both papers I find theoretical evidence that, in terms of efficiency, legal unbundling gives results inferior to ownership unbundling. Furthermore, I find solutions for several cases of toehold auctions that have not been solved before and that I believe to be interesting....
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