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Website Development as a Credence Good: A Field Experiment
Appelt, Šimon ; Chytilová, Julie (advisor) ; Špolcová, Dominika (referee)
There are many markets for credence goods which have been assessed in recent economic research, including taxi services, car mechanics, health care or electronics repairs. How- ever, as no previous research inspects solely an Internet-based environment, the thesis examines the web development market as the representative of a new potential segment of markets for credence goods. In particular, the discrimination in overcharging based on gender or technical experience of a customer is assessed. For this reason, a natural field experiment was designed and subsequently, 341 Czech web developers and IT firms were approached via email to collect the proposed prices for a fictitious E-shop development contract. After the analysis of the outcome variables, the multiple linear regression model with the ordinary least squares (OLS) method was employed. The results suggest that male customers tend to get higher price proposals than women. The second implication is that customers who signalled technical experience in the email inquiry appear to get higher prices than the non-technical customers. However, the outcomes and the differ- ences in proposed prices were not significant among the treatment groups. Other factors, including the number of employees, the region where the company resides and proposed...
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Beer Consumption Patterns in Europe
Zobal, Vladimír ; Janda, Karel (advisor) ; Špolcová, Dominika (referee)
This thesis intends to verify and quantify relationship between microeconomics, macroe- conomics and social variables with annual beer consumption per capita. To assess dif- ferences in tastes in groups of countries, the concept of beer, wine and spirit drinking countries is used to separate the influences. Firstly, the general model for all European countries is estimated with the use of panel data techniques on data from 2000 to 2013. The results and findings from the first model are subsequently used as a building blocks for specific model for The Czech Republic. The Czech Republic has over a long period the highest annual consumption per capita. Still the share consumed in hospitality expe- riences persistent downward trend. All data are collected on annual basis and with only country-aggregated level of detail. Keywords Beer, Wine, Spirits, Consumption Patterns, Beer Demand, Beer Drinking Countries, Be- havioral Economics Author's e-mail Vladimir.Zobal@gmail.com Supervisor's e-mail Karel-Janda@seznam.cz 1
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Ex-prisoners and the Labour Market in the Czech Republic
Kantová, Klára ; Špolcová, Dominika (advisor) ; Mysíková, Martina (referee)
Unemployment rate is a key macroeconomic indicator of a state's prosperity. This study aims to investigate the effect of ex-prisoners on unemployment rate at times of low rate of unemployment. The subjects of interest are those released from prison upon serving their sentence and their integration into the labour market. Currently, formerly incarcerated individuals are often socially rejected and discriminated by the public, which usually results in their return to prison. Thus, as a means to prevent recidivism, it is important to reintegrate them back into the society. In this vein, this study also examines the effect of unemployment rates and ex-prisoners on the recidivism rate in the Czech Republic in 1992 to 2018. For the 2014 to 2018 period, it further investigates this effect (i.e. of unemployment rates and ex-prisoners on recidivism rates) by month across 13 regions (there is no prison in the Zlín region). It uses the data provided by the Prison Services Yearbooks, as well as data from the Czech Statistical Office and the Integrated Portal of the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs for information specifically regarding the main macroeconomic indicators of the Czech Republic. The results of the various models run indicate no significant effect of released prisoners on unemployment rate....
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Assessment of a Potential Reform of Parental Allowance System in the Czech Republic
Martínková, Veronika ; Pertold-Gebicka, Barbara (advisor) ; Špolcová, Dominika (referee)
Parental allowance system in the Czech Republic offers a very long scheme of paid leave for parents of small children compared to other countries. Most parents choose to receive it up until sometime between their child's second and third birthday, the limit being the fourth birthday. Absolute majority of those receiving parental allowance in the Czech Republic are women. This thesis is assessing costs and benefits of reforming the parental leave system, as was recommended by the OECD. This reform would shorten the length of allowance collection and would reserve some of it to fathers. We found that such a reform could bring up to 5.98 billion CZK to the state budget in the most optimistic scenario compared to current situation. We have included direct expenditure on parental allowance, but also the increased revenues due to higher maternal employment, lost revenues from the time fathers would spend on leave and costs of childcare provision. Despite the possible financial gains and other benefits, such as overall improved situation of mothers in the labour market, we concluded that neither Czech politicians, nor Czech society would be prepared for such a radical change and only a milder reform would be viable. Keywords parental allowance, parental leave, parental leave reform, costs of parental...
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Efficiency analysis of cultural spending in Czech municipalities
Holušová, Lucie ; Šťastná, Lenka (advisor) ; Špolcová, Dominika (referee)
The aim of this study is to assess local expenditures on the culture of municipalities in the Czech Republic and the effect of the exogenous variables on its level. The thesis analyses the efficiency for 205 Czech municipalities of extended scope in the years 2014-2016. Based on the previously published works the expenditures of municipalities of extended scope on culture were used as the input. Output variables were chosen to match the input variable. The estimation is performed using the Data Envelopment Analysis under different returns to scale assumptions. Lastly, several potential effects on the estimated efficiency are considered and analysed. Our results suggest that 6 out of 9 exogenous variables used in the analysis are statistically significant and affect the level of efficiency (e.g.: number of inhabitants, rate of unemployment, the share of elderly people etc.). Keywords efficiency, municipalities, Czech Republic, public expenditure, DEA
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Stock Return Predictability and Model Uncertainty: A Frequentist Model Averaging Approach
Pacák, Vojtěch ; Havránek, Tomáš (advisor) ; Špolcová, Dominika (referee)
The model uncertainty is a phenomenon where general consensus about the form of specific model is unclear. Stock returns perfectly meet this condition, as extensive literature offers diverse methods and potential drivers without a clear winner among them. Relatively recently, averaging techniques emerged as a possible solution to such scenarios. The two major averaging branches, Bayesian (BMA) and Frequentist (FMA) averaging, naturally deal with uncertainty by averaging over all model candidates rather than choosing the "best" one of them. We focus on FMA and apply this method to our data from U.S. market about S&P 500 index, that I help to explain with the set of eleven explanatory variables chosen in accordance with related literature. To preserve a real-world applicability, I use rolling window scheme to regularly update data in the fitting model for quarterly based re- estimation. Consequently, predictions are obtained with the use of most recent data. Firstly, we find out that simple historical average model can be beaten with a standard model selection approach based on AIC value, with variables as Dividend Yield, Earnings ratio, and Book-to-Market value proving consistently as most significant across quarterly models. With FMA techniques, I was not able to consistently beat the benchmark...
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Measuring the Effect of the Timing of First Birth on Mothers' Wages in the Czech Republic
Hummelová, Magdalena ; Pertold-Gebicka, Barbara (advisor) ; Špolcová, Dominika (referee)
Measuring the Effect of the Timing of First Birth on Mothers' Wages in the Czech Republic Magdalena Hummelová December 31, 2018 Abstract This thesis investigates the effect of fertility timing on women's long- run wages. Following the work of Herr (2016), by considering fertility timing in terms of labour market experience at the first birth, we study the effect on wages observed in the window 15 to 20 years after the labour market entry. This allows us to build different models for two groups of mothers: those entering the labour force with and without a child. We come to the conclusion that there is no effect of fertility timing for women entering the labour force already having a child. For women entering the labour force childless, the estimated postponement effect differs depending on whether they have an earning partner or not. If they do, there is clear cost of fertility delay by one more year (contrary to expectations) associated with a decrease in wages by 1%. This finding is very likely connected to a trend of lengthy parental leaves in the Czech Republic. If a woman does not have a partner, we observe an insignificant effect of first birth delay, yet positive. Comparing the results for women living in versus out of Prague, we see no significant difference in the effects.
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Discrimination of Slovak people in the Prague rental housing market - A field experiment
Holková, Jana ; Korbel, Václav (advisor) ; Špolcová, Dominika (referee)
Discrimination is a broadly discussed issue. The housing market is no exception and we may observe many examples of discriminatory behaviour. Discrimina- tion in various subjects (e.g. race, gender) was a target of a large number of experiments. However, researches regarding discrimination between two nations are lacking. The thesis presents a field experiment on discrimination of Slovaks in the Prague rental housing market and further examines the effect of work- ing status on the discrimination rate. The experiment uses eight male fictitious identities which reveal their national affiliation through a language of the request (Slovak or Czech) and their names typical for Slovak and Czech nationalities. The request specifies working status of a potential tenant (student or full-time worker). Data indicates that applications in the Slovak language have about 10 percent lower chance of receiving a positive response than Czech applications, which is significant on 1 per cent level. Students compared to workers received about 6 per cent fewer invitations for a flat viewing. Even though students have slightly lower response rate than workers, the difference is insignificant. Keywords Discrimination, Housing market, Rental housing market, Field Ex- periment, Response Rate, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Internet 1
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