|
|
Supporting families with children through the tax and welfare system
Šatava, Jiří
The state may provide financial assistance to families with dependent children either by reducing their tax burden or by increasing their welfare benefits. Both means of support increase their net wage, thus providing financial support. This paper provides an overview of financial support amounts provided to families with dependent children or families with the youngest child aged 1 to 3, and of measures limiting such support. The lower tax burden of families with children ensues from lower income tax, not from the social and health care security systems. Within this system, tax support provided to families with children is comparable to that provided to low-income families without children. Additional support provided to families with children includes tax benefits tied directly to children in the family, and tax credit for a dependent spouse. Should the tax system not provide such benefits, families with children, or rather families with a youngest child aged 1 to 3 would have a higher effective tax rate than childless families with comparable income.
|
|
|
What does (a lack of) transparency in public procurement lead to?
Palguta, Ján ; Pertold, Filip
In 2006 a simplified regime for awarding public contracts was introduced, by means of a special procedure for "below threshold" contracts. Its aim was to enable smaller contracts to be awarded in a simpler and more flexible way. However, this change began to reduce competition and transparency, and gave contract awarders freedoms they could easily abuse. For this reason, the original maximum threshold for contracts that could be awarded via the simplified procedure (20 million CZK) was reduced to half that amount in 2012. Introducing these thresholds led, among other things, to contracts' estimated values being manipulated, and to prices being artificially "inflated" towards the threshold. These behaviours were most frequently observed in the building sector. As the number of public tenders rises and their estimated values cluster more and more closely to the legal threshold for the simplified procedure, inefficiency increases, i.e. the difference between the estimated and actual price of the tenders increases. This difference is up to 15 percentage points greater than in open competitions.
|
|
|
Public financing for pre-school places pays off: a cost and benefit analysis
Kalíšková, Klára ; Münich, Daniel ; Pertold, Filip
Countrywide statistics suggest that the long-term shortage of places in state preschool institutions (kindergartens) has become gradually less severe over the past few years thanks to population decline, and that in future there will be sufficient places available at pre-schools. Nevertheless at a local level demand is still far outstripping supply in many places, and this is unlikely to change as internal migration and other demographic changes continue. Our analysis of financial costs and benefits reveals that the shortage of places in preschools in the past decade has led to an undeniable net loss for the public budget. Our analysis demonstrates that the net gain to the public budget from every additional place in pre-school is on average 10,000 crowns per year. Public financial support for pre-schools would not result in a loss even under very conservative estimates. On the contrary, the net gains are in fact far higher if the indirect and long-term consequences of supporting further places in pre-schools are taken into account.
|
|
|
The effects of transition to secondary school, alcohol consumption and peer pressure on youth smoking
Pertold, Filip
This study provides further evidence for the debate on a possible smoking ban in restaurants and investigates the influence of peer pressure on smoking habits and alcohol consumption among young people. Teenagers often start smoking on a daily basis after moving from primary to secondary school. The results of the pan-European survey ESPAD indicate that more than 40% of\nyoung people in the Czech Republic smoke, which is one of the highest rates in the EU. This study looks at pupils' transition from primary to secondary school in order to identify the role peers play in young peoples' decisions to start smoking. The results of this study show that new classmates play a key role in influencing male secondary school students, but not their female counterparts. If half the students in a class smoke, a student entering that class is 10% more likely to become addicted to smoking. Classmates' influence is greatest among secondary school students who regularly visit bars and restaurants and drink alcohol. This means that youth smoking is to a certain extent encouraged by drinking alcohol in bars and restaurants. In other words, a ban on smoking in bars and restaurants, such as currently discussed, or stricter controls on the sale of alcohol to minors, could effectively reduce smoking among teenagers. The results also demonstrate that pupils' choice of secondary school has a significant knock-on effect not only on the skills and knowledge they gain, but also on smoking habits and their consumption of alcohol, which in turn affect their life expectancy and other health indicators.
|
|
|
An international comparison of the quality of academic publication output in the Czech Republic
Jurajda, Štěpán ; Kozubek, Stanislav ; Münich, Daniel ; Škoda, Samuel
In our recent study (IDEA No. 5/20154) we have compared the publication output of various Czech research institutions by individual disciplines. The comparison was based on the relative output of institutions working in specific science branches within the Czech Republic, and had no way of indicating which institutions in the Czech Republic were on par with international research and which were lagging behind. Even though an institution is not at the top in its field within the Czech Republic, the quality of its research may still be on par with international research, as the particular branch of science is highly advanced in the Czech Republic. Therefore, this study is a first step toward comparing the research output of Czech institutions on an international level. We have compared the publication output of entire scientific fields in the Czech Republic to the same fields in other countries, basing our comparison on articles published in the years 2010–2014 and included in the Web of Science (WoS) database. The comparison includes eleven small and medium-sized countries, only one of which has English as its official language: five European countries belonging to the so-called former Soviet bloc, four Western European countries, and two non-European countries.
|
|
|
Taxing top income earners in the Czech Republic: an IDEA for reform
Dušek, Libor ; Šatava, Jiří
The study brings new facts about the distribution of top incomes and the taxation of top income earners in the Czech Republic, derives optimal marginal tax rates on the top incomes, and proposes a specific systemic reform. The top one percent of the highest paid persons in the Czech Republic include those employees and business owners whose gross incomes exceed CZK 1,230 million per year. By international comparison, the Czech Republic exhibits low inequality of gross incomes. The top 10% of the income distribution accounts for 25.7% of total income, whereas in all developed countries for which comparable data is available this figure is significantly higher, between 28.2% and 46.3%. When it comes to the top one percent of the income distribution, the discrepancy compared with other developed countries is less pronounced. The top one percent accounts for 6.8% of total income, while for comparable countries it is between 5.4% and 19.7%.
|
|
|
From maternity to unemployment: women with young children returning to the labour market
Bičáková, Alena ; Kalíšková, Klára
The established tendency of Czech women to take long periods of parental leave represent a significant loss of human capital and an interruption of these women’s professional development; in addition, it contributes to a high risk of unemployment when they return to the labour market. In this study we look at the period during which women with young children return to the labour market following parental leave, documenting the development of their unemployment risk by the age of their child and the process through which mothers with young children end up unemployed. The unemployment rate is very high right after the end of parental leave, i.e. when the child is 3 years old; at this point, unemployment among women with high school diploma or more reaches 12% and for those with lower education is as high as 28%. Women often become unemployed immediately after returning to the labour market. Almost 30% of women with two-year-old children and 60% of women with three-year-old children become unemployed as soon as they return to the labor market. Among those with three-year-old children it is likely that this unemployment occurs as a result of the women losing their right to return to their previous employment. Among women with younger children, however, the high share of unemployed immediately when they end their parental leave calls into question the real functioning of the job protection period during which women have the right to return to their previous employment.
|
|
|
Does prison overcrowding loom again? Predicting the prison population in the Czech Republic
Dušek, Libor
The study presents a projection of the prison population in the Czech Republic based on a\nnewly developed simulation model. It also points out the main trends in the criminal justice\npolicy and quantifies their impact on the past growth in the prison population.\nCzech prisons currently house 18,609 sentenced inmates. Unless crime rates and criminal\njustice policy change, we estimate that by the end of 2016 this number will reach 20,000 and\nthen level off at 20,360 inmates. If the current trends in the crime rates and criminal justice\npolicy continue, the sentenced prison population will steadily grow and will surpass 21,740\nby 2024.
|
|
|
Wage differences related to motherhood and children in the family
Pytliková, Mariola
Statistical data show a persistent gender wage gap. Currently, women earn on average 78 per cent of men’s average monthly wages. Women’s median monthly wages amount to 85 per cent of men’s median wage. The largest gender wage differences can be found for employees in age categories most likely to be affected by motherhood and parenthood duties. Specifically, for the 35–39 age group, the gender wage gap is 32 and 27 per cent, if measured by median monthly and hourly wages, respectively. Gender wage gap in the Czech Republic is also related to the number of children. For childless employees, the difference in median monthly wages equals to 15 percent, and the gender wage gap increases with each additional child in the family. The difference in median monthly wages between men and women with one child is 20 per cent, 32 per cent between men and women with two children, and 36 percent between men and women with three or more children.
|
|
|
An international comparison of the quality of academic publication output in the Czech Republic
Jurajda, Štěpán ; Kozubek, Stanislav ; Münich, Daniel ; Škoda, Samuel
In the recent study Jurajda a Münich (2015) we presented a field-by-field comparison of Czech research publication output. This comparison of the relative strength of output by research institutes in each field within the Czech Republic (CR), could not comment on which Czech institutes are working at international level, and which lag behind their foreign counterparts. It is possible, for example, that an institute that is not at the forefront of its field in the CR may nevertheless be performing research at a standard comparable with international competitors, because it is working in a field in which the Czech Republic is performing very high level research. In this study we offer a first step towards comparing the research output of Czech institutes on an international scale: we compare the publication output of each research field, overall, in the Czech Republic with its international equivalent. Our comparison is based on articles published between 2010 and 2014 which are included in the Web of Science (WoS) database. The comparison includes eleven small and medium sized countries, only one of which has English as its native language. Five of the countries are European countries previously within the Soviet bloc, four are Western European countries and two are non-European countries.
|
guest ::
