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Bitcoin: Pyramid-scheme Wildfire, New Online Payment Medium, or Future Alternative Currency?
Vozak, Hugo ; Dědek, Oldřich (advisor) ; Polák, Petr (referee)
This thesis explores the price determinants of Bitcoin using a macroeconomic model based on the economic equation of exchange presented by Joseph Wang (2014). The thesis provides a concise and structured introduction to Bitcoin and a comprehensive literature review on Bitcoin. The analysis begins with the application of the functions of money to Bitcoin, arguing that while Bitcoin does fulfill the three classical functions of money to a certain extent, its use remains mainly as a speculative instrument. Wang's model is criticized and amended to reflect the realities of empirically analyzing the Bitcoin market. Using the daily number of transactions and Bitcoin days destroyed as proxies for economic activity and inactivity - to measure Bitcoin's velocity on the block chain - vector autoregression modelling is used to determine if there is Granger causality between the price of bitcoin and the two proxies. The results demonstrate that there is a bidirectional Granger-causal relationship between Bitcoin days destroyed and the price of bitcoin and that there is none between the daily number of transactions and the price of bitcoin; proving Wang's two main assumptions. Impulse- response functions are provided to illustrate and discuss this bidirectional relationship. The results are in line with the...
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Virtual currencies in real economy: Bitcoin
Šafka, Jiří ; Vacek, Pavel (advisor) ; Polák, Petr (referee)
This paper examines the relationship between virtual currency, the Bitcoin, and the real economy. In the first part the description of the term virtual currency is provided with special focus on Bitcoin. Also the legal and taxation issues are discussed. In the main part the volatility of Bitcoin is inspected using various models from Autoregressive heteroskedasticity models family. We found that the volatility of Bitcoin differs significantly through time and that this relation is captured best by T-GARCH (1,1) model. Finally the relationship between Bitcoin and real economy indicators is observed to be inconsistent and mostly insignificant in time. Thus we conclude that the independency of Bitcoin cannot be rejected. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)
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Price Elasticity of Electricity Demand: A Meta-Analysis
Horáček, Přemysl ; Havránek, Tomáš (advisor) ; Polák, Petr (referee)
During the last decades, one of the most intensively examined statistical relationships in energy economics has been the price elasticity of electricity demand. In this thesis, a quantitative survey of the estimates of price elasticity reported for various countries is provided. The method I use, called meta-regression analysis, indicates that the literature suffers from serious publication selection bias: positive or insignificant estimates of this elasticity are seldom reported, even though questionably large negative estimates are reported commonly. As a result, the average published estimates of price elasticity are greatly exaggerated (more than threefold in the case of short-run elasticity). By utilising the mixed- effects multilevel meta-regression, which is able to correct for publication selection bias, it is shown that the true average elasticity reaches only -0.06 in the short-run, -0.21 in the intermediate-run and about -0.43 in the long-run.
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Transaction costs of public procurement related to software solutions
Májková, Tereza ; Soudek, Jan (advisor) ; Polák, Petr (referee)
Even though public procurement processes are strictly controlled and they have to follow the legal framework, there are still many decisions the contracting authority has to make. It has to choose the method of preparation (whether to use the external help or not), the type of procurement procedure, the method of evaluation of the bids and the evaluation criteria. Those partial decisions have a big impact on the transaction costs of the procurement process. The transaction costs also depend on the complexity and the time and labor consumption of the procurement process. In this thesis we chose companies inquiring software solutions from the public sector and we compared their preferences, transaction costs and time-consumption of their procurement. We divided the respondents in three different groups to ministries, cities and indirectly controlled institutions (including universities and medical units). According to our analysis the most difficult and the most time-consuming procurement processes take place at ministries, the least time-consuming ones at cities. Also the analysis suggests that the institutions are waiving the external administration and they use the help of the external consultants and the legal advisory more. We find that the price most frequently used evaluation criterion in the...
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Life expectancy and its determining elements:A study for the Czech Republic at the beginning of the 21th century
Korbelius, Vojtěch ; Paulus, Michal (advisor) ; Polák, Petr (referee)
Life expectancy and its determining elements: A study for the Czech Republic at the beginning of the 21th century. In our thesis we are modelling a life expectancy function for the Czech Republic at the beginning of the 21th century. Our model is using three types of explanatory variables - environmental (socio- economic), health care and environmental pollution. Our study is the first study not only for the Czech Republic but it is a first study to include environmental pollution variables into a complex life expectancy model. As a result, we found two different life expectancy functions where one is applicable for male ta the age of 45 and 65 and female at the age of 45 and the second which is the best model for female ta the age of 65. General outcome points out three things - only one health care factor is significant at a time, environmental pollution is category that has to be considered and the percentage of people over the age of 65 is significant variable determining the life expectancy the most.
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Transition Periods and Long Memory Property
März, Jan ; Vácha, Lukáš (advisor) ; Polák, Petr (referee)
This thesis examines the relationship between the distribution of structural breaks within a data sample and the estimated parameter of long memory. We use Monte Carlo simulations to generate data from processes with specific values of parameters. Subsequently we join the data with various shifts to mean and examine how the estimates of the parameters vary from their true values. We have discovered that the overestimate of the long memory parameter is higher when the breaks are clustered together. It further increases when the signs of the shifts are positively correlated within the clusters while negative correlation reduces the bias. Our findings enable the improvement of robustness of estimators against the presence structural breaks. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)
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Meta-Analysis in Economics: Application to Measuring the Euro's Trade Effect
Polák, Petr ; Havránek, Tomáš (advisor) ; Havránková, Zuzana (referee)
Meta-analysis is a very strong and effective tool designed for the synthesis of results of empirical research. It provides a possibility to make reliable conclusions and offers more systematic and unbiased view at empirical studies than do narrative reviews. This thesis begins with description of meta-analysis from the theoretical point of view and, therefore, is the first Czech-written methodology of modern meta-analysis suitable for economics. This part is followed by an applied meta-analysis that investigates the euro effect on common trade exchange, and the analysis is focused on publication bias and the use of the multilevel random effects model. The empirical part is based on 2580 estimates gathered from 33 studies that investigate the relationship between euro and trade volume. The meta-analysis reveals the presence of publication bias, confirms the economic research cycle hypothesis and estimates, according to the available literature, that the true Rose effect lies probably between 2 and 6 percent.
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Corporate Tax Competition: A Meta-Analysis
Labíková, Nikol ; Polák, Petr (advisor) ; Schneider, Ondřej (referee)
This thesis provides the first meta-analysis investigating the effect of corporate tax competition among states, with special focus on the effect of the corporate tax rate change in competing country on the corporate tax rate in the home country. It examines 523 estimates from 20 published studies and working papers. Results of the meta-analysis show an evidence of substantial publication selectivity: researchers tend to discard negative and insignificant estimates, which overvalues the estimated effect size. Conducted precision effect test failed to find the evidence for the existence of a genuine effect of corporate tax competition. Empirical analysis shows that differences in the measurement of statutory and effective tax rate matter, thus the analysis was conducted on two separate sub-samples. Meta-regression analysis have found significant impact of variables related to publication bias for both sub-samples. Next to it, the results provide an evidence of significant influence of politically orientated controls, especially of the variable controlling whether or not there were elections in the particular year and state in case when the corporate tax rate changed. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)
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Portfolio diversification on P2P loan markets
Polák, Petr ; Skuhrovec, Jiří (advisor) ; Džmuráňová, Hana (referee)
This thesis presents ways how investors can construct optimal portfolios on on-line peer-to-peer lending platforms. Thesis uses standard portfolio theory and unique dataset from Lending Club platform of over 886 thousand loans issued since 2008 till the end of 2015. Firstly, this thesis shows that there is a non- zero covariance between loans from different credit grades and it is necessary to include it in portfolio management optimization. Secondly, the thesis with the help of a logistic regression identifies loan default determinants. Using the default predictions, the portfolio performance can be improved significantly. Thirdly, the thesis simulates diversification benefits stemming from investing into multiple loans. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)
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