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Social and Medical Costs of Dupuytren's Disease
Losenický, Jakub ; Votápková, Jana (advisor) ; Paulus, Michal (referee)
The thesis investigates the relative cost-effectiveness of two treatment methods of Dupuytren's disease (DD) - surgical fasciectomy and injectable collagenase - and assesses the impact of the two health technologies on the budget of the Czech Republic. For this purpose, cost-minimization analysis (CMA) and budget impact analysis (BIA) are employed and, importantly, both social and medical costs are taken into consideration. Concerning the CMA, different patients are modelled with respect to personal characteristics such as occupation, type of work (manual, non-manual) and income. In the BIA, data on DD occurrence in the Czech Republic from the National Register of Hospitalised Patients (NRHOSP) are analysed. We found that collagenase is a cost-minimizing treatment for a big majority of employees and manually working SMEs. On the other hand, collagenase turned out to be more expensive than fasciectomy for most of the non-manual SMEs. All things considered, collagenase appeared to be cheaper for most of the model patients. We also discovered that if all the patients in the dataset were treated with collagenase, the Czech state budget would annually save 1,685,452 CZK. The average annual costs of fasciectomy and collagenase were 41,334,049 CZK and 39,648,597 CZK, respectively. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)
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Global Imbalances Reflected in the Eurozone's Accounting
Pleticha, Petr ; Janský, Petr (advisor) ; Paulus, Michal (referee)
In this study I investigate the discrepancies between net investment income and development of net international investment position of the Eurozone. To examine these discrepancies, I use the concept of dark matter which enables quantification of such discrepancies. This study has two goals: to present an alternative view on the development of net international investment position in the Eurozone, and to test validity of the dark matter concept by inspecting its interaction with main economic driving forces such as exchange rate or energy prices. Previous research was mainly focused on the United States and did not study dark matter in broader economic context. To date, no systematic analysis has considered the origins of dark matter behavior. The results indeed present the stocks of dark matter behaving in predictable manner, although, contrary to my expectations, they seem not to be connected with exchange rate. The Eurozone's international investment position adjusted for the stocks of dark matter looks also more optimistically, pushing the concerns about global imbalances aside. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)
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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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Credit Growth in CEE Countries: Empirical Analysis of Early Warning Indicators
Stříbný, Jan ; Geršl, Adam (advisor) ; Paulus, Michal (referee)
Excessive credit growth is often considered to be an indicator of future problems in financial sector. Basel III regulatory package has introduced countercyclical capital buffer to improve stability of the banking sector and proposed using credit-to-GDP gap as an indicator for calibrating the buffer. In BCBS methodology, Credit-to-GDP gap is counted as a difference between current value and a long term trend obtained from data series using Hodrick-Prescott filter. In this work we used out of sample estimation method to create models for a determination of equilibrium credit to households' assets ratio and applied the results to compute the deviation from the long term equilibrium. We found that these alternative indicators can give signals different to credit to GDP gap, computed by using HP filter or OOS method, and sometimes they could even identify accumulation of risk in cases, where credit to GDP fails. The indicators were especially superior to using HP filter on CEE countries. The weakness is, however, the determination of a clear threshold for the indicator, when the credit growth should be classified as excessive.
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Firms and Tax Havens: Evidence from the Czech Republic
Burianová, Markéta ; Janský, Petr (advisor) ; Paulus, Michal (referee)
The aim of this thesis is to provide a description of the phenomenon of tax havens in relation to the Czech Republic. The thesis begins with description of theoretical background of the problem. It provides definition, characteristics, and an overview of main uses of tax havens by Czech firms. This part is followed by analysis of Czech firms controlled from tax havens in order to determine what type of firms is most often leaving the Czech Republic. The analysis showed the largest interest from limited liability companies and companies operating in real estate. The next part of the thesis presents an estimate of tax loss arising from tax haven activities of Czech subjects. It is the first estimate of this kind for the Czech Republic. The resulting tax loss is estimated to be 21 billion CZK per year, which equals to approximately 10% of annual tax revenue from corporate and personal income tax. The thesis is concluded with an overview of counter-measures that are taken worldwide and in the Czech Republic as means of combating the rising phenomenon of tax havens.
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Estimating the Extent of Inefficiencies in the Czech Health Care System
Pachovský, Tomáš ; Janský, Petr (advisor) ; Paulus, Michal (referee)
In this thesis, we tried to find possible methods of estimation the extent of inefficiencies in healthcare and apply them on Czech data. We reviewed recent literature on this subject and from the literature we selected 3 methods that were used in this thesis. We estimated that costs of error and fraud concerning payments and provision of care in 2010 is roughly between 9,5 to 25,8 billion CZK, extra treatment for people abusing prescription opioids cost approximately 247,8 million CZK in 2011 and that costs of unnecessary use of C-Section in 2011 amounted to 184,4 million CZK. We also broke down the 2010 Czech healthcare expenditures and compared indicators across countries to uncover other possible problems.
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What Drives the Sovereign Bond Spreads in Central and Eastern Europe?
Růžička, Josef ; Baxa, Jaromír (advisor) ; Paulus, Michal (referee)
This thesis is devoted to spreads of sovereign bonds in central and eastern Europe relative to German government bonds. In the first part, a widely used government bond spread model is presented. It turns out that its assumption may be relaxed. Next, we show how spreads, inflation and exchange rates interact. Subsequently, we investigate the relationship between spreads and other macroeconomic variables by econometric methods. The most important factors affecting bond spreads in the region are public debt, GDP growth, openness of the economy, current account balance, and inflation. Bond markets in CEE put more weight on total level of public debt than on budget deficits. The effects of these variables differed before and after the year 2008. Two subgroups of central and eastern European countries with similar spread determinants were identified: the first group is formed by Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia, while to the second one belong Bulgaria, Hungary, Latvia, and Romania. Uncertainty on global financial markets increases bond spreads in CEE as well as in western Europe. Bond spread determinants of the two groups differ from those of western European countries.
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Public Procurements as a Corrupting Sector in RBC Model
Paulus, Michal ; Baxa, Jaromír (advisor) ; Gregor, Martin (referee)
The aim of the thesis is to create a RBC model incorporating corrupting sector. The thesis contributes to the few existing DSGE models with corruption by introducing the corrupting sector into the sector of firms and political parties which is regarded as a sector of public procurements where firms bribe politicians for gaining public tenders. This setting is new and is supposed to catch better the phenomenon of political corruption. The model predicts that all shocks that positively affect the economy motivate firms to invest more into the bribes and vice versa. The increase of the overall level of corruption stimulates economy but is leading an economy to the instability. The model also examines the effect of various forms of fiscal spending in the households ' utility function. The model exhibits several non-intuitive results (too high portion of stolen money by firms, stimulation of the economic performance caused by higher corruption and negative holding of government bonds) that should be solved in next research.
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The financial instability hypothesis of Hyman P. Minsky and its apllication to the current financial crisis
Paulus, Michal ; Skuhrovec, Jiří (referee) ; Mertlík, Pavel (advisor)
This bachelor thesis deals with the financial instability hypothesis of Hyman P. Minsky and its application to the current financial crisis. The first part of the thesis summarizes the hypothesis, and it mentions works elaborating the hypothesis. The second part of the bachelor thesis applies the hypothesis to the current financial crisis. The whole thesis refers to the general discussion about relations of the Minsky's hypothesis to the current financial crisis and to the fall of the insurance company AIG Corporation. The second part concludes that many relevant parts of Minsky's hypothesis can be applied to the recent financial crisis but important differences of the current financial system to the system in Minsky's times should be awared of. There are two most important differences: changes in risk management and new financial instruments. At the end, the thesis discusses the implications of these differences for applicability of the hypothesis on the current financial crisis. The thesis regards the fact that the recent financial crisis is caused by rational behaviour of economic agents and not by exogenous forces as the most important lesson to learn from the financial instability hypothesis of Hyman P. Minsky.
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Sin Tax on Soft Drinks: Possible Impacts in the Czech Republic
Štefanová, Hana ; Votápková, Jana (advisor) ; Paulus, Michal (referee)
Overweight and obesity are a global problem, especially in the developed coun- tries such as the Czech Republic. A sin food tax on products contributing to the creation and expansion of this problem, is a measure which many states have chosen. In the Czech Republic, any sin food tax has never been imple- mented. The aim of the thesis is to evaluate possible impact of such tax on soft drinks. The key indicator which must be estimated is the own-price elas- ticity of demand for soft drinks. The data used for the thesis are provided by Czech Statistical Office and contains Household Budget Survey Data from years 2002-2007. Almost Ideal Demand System with the implementation of Shonkwiller and Yen's estimator is evaluated as the most suitable model. The final own-price elasticity is -1.3580, which suggests that the possible increase in Value Added Tax for soft drinks may be efficient. Moreover, it was simulated that there would be a stronger effect in case of lower-income households, where higher prevalence of overweight and obesity is proven.
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