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Why should the Czech Republic reform its current policy of financing higher education?
Kadlecová, Pavlína ; Pertold-Gebicka, Barbara (advisor) ; Břízová, Pavla (referee)
The Czech Republic has traditionally financed higher education out of general taxation and in the form of per capita funding. This system has led to inef- ficient allocation of funds, long-term underfunding and decreasing quality of education. We present three alternative financing schemes which rely on larger contribution from students: pure student loan, risk-sharing income-contingent loan and risk-pooling income-contingent loan. By using a theoretical model and calibrating it to the Czech reality, we show that financing schemes have significant impact on higher education participation and the quality of accepted students. While pure loan and risk-pooling induce optimal participation, in- ternational experience suggests that risk-sharing is the more feasible option. Keywords Financing schemes for higher education, tax-subsidy funding, income-contingent loans, higher education participation Author's e-mail kadlecova.paja@gmail.com Supervisor's e-mail gebicka@fsv.cuni.cz Abstrakt Česká republika financuje vysoké školství tradičně ze státního rozpočtu a ve formě dotací na studenta. Tento systém způsobil, že zdroje nejsou alokovány efektivně, vzdělání je dlouhodobě podfinancováno a jeho kvalita se snižuje. Práce se věnuje třem alternativním způsobům financování: prosté...
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Discrimination of Ethnic Minorities in the Czech Labour Market - Empirical Analysis
Novotná, Petra ; Pertold-Gebicka, Barbara (advisor) ; Glazar, Ondřej (referee)
This work is analysing discrimination of ethnic minorities in the Czech labour market between the years 2000 and 2009. Differences in employment rates between immigrants and natives are investigated using the EU LFS data. The empirical part is devoted to the verification of hypotheses and assumptions. By applying both, simple statistical methods and robust regressions, we obtain consistent results confirming the discrimination against foreigners in the labour market. The examination of employment rates of the immigrants by gender shows that men have in most cases better economic position than women. Furthermore, employment of foreigners in relation to the reached level of education is monitored, indicating the discrimination of immigrant workers with college degrees. Interesting is the outcome of the investigation of the change in the data after the breakthrough in 2004, when the Czech Republic along with other Eastern and Central European countries joined the European Union. Although the differences in employment rates of foreigners and natives are mainly obvious till 2004, since 2005 foreigners' employment rates have often increased. After a closer examination, this change can be ascribed rather to changes in the composition of immigrant or in migration trends influenced by the EU accession than...
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Economic Efficiency, Competition and Equilibrium in Heterogeneous Production
Průša, Jan ; Benáček, Vladimír (advisor) ; Pertold-Gebicka, Barbara (referee) ; Klein, Peter G. (referee) ; Daraio, Cinzia (referee)
This thesis provides a bridge between two strands of efficiency literature. As we describe in the first part, the theory of efficiency is generally focused on equilibrium and mild devia- tions from it. In contrast, empirical studies document large variations in efficiency that are persistent in real economies. We describe two theoretical concepts as driving forces behind fluctuating performance of companies. Firstly, efficiency is derived from competition and is dynamic by its nature. As production happens in time, changing supply and demand conditions induce the ne- cessity to continuously adjust production processes. These changes are implemented under conditions of uncertainty, which directly leads to regular inefficiencies, implying that out- of-equilibrium situations are normal rather than rare. Secondly, standard models typically rely on price exogeneity to separate technical and allocative components of overall economic efficiency. We point out that this assumption is likely to fail due to extreme heterogeneity of the units of analysis. We elaborate in detail on the significance of heterogeneity in efficiency models, especially the heterogeneity of capital. As a result we demonstrate how various combinations of heterogeneous assets imply further swings in efficiency. We show that integrating both...
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The estimation of country - level production function aimed at understanding the role of human capital
Mačorová, Simona ; Pertold-Gebicka, Barbara (advisor) ; Průša, Jan (referee)
Our goal is the estimation of country - level production function aimed at understanding the role of human capital. We analyze the effect of education, especially the effect of the share of college graduates in prime-age population (between 25 - 54 years) on the European Union (EU) countries' labor productivity. Here, an important issue is efficiency of tertiary education institutions. We split the ratio of human capital to observe it from different aspects. We compare an effect of lower and upper tertiary educated, by specializations and by gender. The relationship between human capital and labor productivity was found positive though not significant or significant only on 10 % confidence level. The influence of human capital on labor productivity was found very low, in some cases even negative. Assuming that one of the main reasons behind these contra-intuitive results is the problem of unobserved heterogeneity, we also run instrumental variable estimation. We found positive and significant on 5 % confidence level relationship between human capital and labor productivity. The influence of larger share of tertiary educated people on labor productivity is more evident after some period of time, in our example after two years. Keywords: human capital, labor productivity, European Union, production...
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Fertility and education: the case of Ghana
Timbilla, Rahinatu ; Pertold-Gebicka, Barbara (advisor) ; Chytilová, Julie (referee)
The study attempts to find the relationship between education and fertility in Ghana, as Ghana wants to reduce its fertility rates from 4.0 to 3.0 replacement levels which will help to move the country into middle income status. A country that has a stable population growth is able to plan and allocate resources to its populace more effectively. High fertility rates have consequences for food security, social & economic opportunities and overall economic wellbeing of the population. The study sets outs to investigate the linkages or factors that help in reducing fertility rates, education is one major factor that has been found be to be inversely related to fertility. Does this relationship exist in Ghana? Has education in any way contributed to the recent fertility declines in Ghana? And by how much did education contribute. Finally, are there other factors that have contributed to the recent fertility decline in Ghana? To answer the questions, the study takes advantage of an educational reform program in 1987/88 that saw mass construction of schools, training of teachers and provision of study materials to estimate the impact of education on fertility. Using difference-in-difference approach and 2SLS, the study finds that the National Education Reform program lead to reductions in early births...
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Fair bets in sports betting
Jansa, Jiří ; Pertold-Gebicka, Barbara (advisor) ; Havránek, Tomáš (referee)
Market efficiency and existence of profitable strategy are the most frequent analysis in the research concerning betting on sport events. This thesis covers both these topics on the dataset (20 betting offices) of Czech ice-hockey league from 2004 to 2010. The theoretical part presents development of models of individual decision-making under risk and uncertainty, models of equilibrium on the betting market and several definitions of market efficiency (Fama and Sauer as authors of these concepts) on these markets. The statistical part is testing difference in margins of betting companies for 3 possible outcomes of game, convergence in quoted odds across betting offices, arbitrage opportunity and correspondence of quoted odds to the real probabilities (linear and non- linear). Simple model of perfect market might be by all these tests rejected, since there is no constant return from betting on all outcomes, betting offices differ in margins, quoted odds do not correspond to the real probabilities and arbitrage opportunity is not disappearing. Second empirical part is devoted to the search for profitable strategy. Using 14 explanatory variables and various statistical methods (linear probability model, logit model, multinomial logit model), author is trying to beat bias in odds and find long-term profitable bet- ting...
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Position of Minorities in the U.S. Labor Market
Svoboda, Jan ; Pertold-Gebicka, Barbara (advisor) ; Avdulaj, Krenar (referee)
This thesis deals with the phenomenon of racial discrimination in the U.S. labor market. The first part outlines the existing theories of discrimination and history of immigrants' residence in the U.S. It also brings some statistics from the U.S. labor market and finally reviews some literature in the field of labor market discrimination. The second part of the thesis is devoted to the empirical analysis of wage discrimination in the U.S. using the American Community Survey 1980 and 2007. With the help of Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition we break down the log-wage differential between whites and other racial groups into two parts. The first, explained, part is the part of the differential that can be explained by differences in average race characteristics. The other, unexplained, part is the part of the differential that remained unexplained. That part is then assigned as a result of discrimination. We find that while in 1980 Asians earned on average 5% more than whites, by 2007 this difference reached 15%. 15% - 21% of this difference remained unexplained. The opposite situation is observed in the case of Hispanics and Blacks. While in 1980 both, Hispanics and Afro-Americans, had on average 10% lower wage than whites, by 2007 this difference reached as much as 30%. In case of Afro-Americans, 50% -...
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The Determinants of Innovation: Empirical analysis based on European country-level data
Stacho, Miroslav ; Pertold-Gebicka, Barbara (advisor) ; Netuka, Martin (referee)
The thesis summarizes current state of art for the most recent research capabilities of innovation activities analysis. Its main goal is to assess the factors influencing pace and volume of technological innovativeness throughout the European industry and services sectors considering time span 2002-2008 using country-level Community Innovation Surveys and R&D data. It also attempts to evaluate trends in innovation policy instruments targeted to close the gap between Europe and world innovation leaders such as USA. Complex literature overview, basic empirical and extended instruments' analyses lead to recommendations of optimal governments' policy approaches towards different groups of countries divided by level of innovative performance.
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Agent-Based Modeling of the Financial Markets
Klejchová, Martina ; Teplý, Petr (advisor) ; Pertold-Gebicka, Barbara (referee)
The thesis deals with the Agent-based modeling of the financial markets which represent so called "bottom-up" approach in economics. In the first part of the thesis, the brief summary of the development of Agent-based approach and its application in the modeling of financial markets is provided. The main part of the thesis concerns the implementation of an existing asset pricing model of He, Hamill and Li (2008) and also the implementation of an extension to this model. The presented extension lies in the connecting of two sub-markets by a mutual correlation. The considered correlation is represented either by correlated dividends or by the common market maker who adjusts the prices on both markets. The influence of these two types of correlation on the overall performance of both sub-markets is then studied by analyzing the outcomes of performed simulations.
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Skill-Intensity of Occupations, Labor Market Polarization, and Occupational Allocation of College Graduates
Pertold-Gebicka, Barbara ; Jurajda, Štěpán (advisor) ; Cardoso, Ana Rute (referee) ; Weber, Andrea (referee)
Skill-intensity of occupations, labor market polarization, and occupational allocation of college graduates. Barbara Pertold-Gebicka Abstract The first chapter is motivated by a rapid expansion of higher education systems in Central European countries, where universities are largely state-funded and provision of higher education is a public policy decision. In this paper, I investigate an indicator of college skills usage - the fraction of college graduates employed in "college" occupations. Gottschalk and Hansen (2003) propose to identify "college" occupations based on within-occupation college wage premia; I build on their strategy to study the local-labor-market relationship between the share of college graduates in the population and the use of college skills. Empirical results based on worker-level data from Czech NUTS-4 districts suggest a positive relationship, thus supporting the presence of an endogenous influence of the number of skilled workers on the demand for them. Thus, the findings of this paper suggest that, in the long run, districts should be able to positively stimulate their labor markets by providing higher education to a larger fraction of their population. In the second chapter, I propose a model-based measure of occupational skill-intensity -- a measure allowing to consistently...
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