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Economic Development and Pension Privatisation: Evidence from Central and Eastern European Countries and Visions for the Future
Zhang, Yunyang ; Jeřábek, Petr (advisor) ; Merrino, Serena (referee) ; Čech, František (referee)
Since the mid-1990s, to boost the macroeconomy, many countries in the Central and Eastern European region have implemented pension privatisation policies. They followed the recommendations of the World Bank and established a multi-pillar pension model, including a mandatory second pillar with the most privatised features. This paper reviews the literature on pension privatisation policy, summarising its history and development in Central and Eastern Europe, and providing a comparative analysis of privatisation reforms in individual countries. The promotion of economic development, as the most important driver of pension privatisation reforms, has not yet received a definitive conclusion. This paper aims to extend existing empirical research on the impact of pension privatisation on economic development by employing a time-varying difference-in-difference model with data from 1996 to 2022 for a sample of 11 EU countries in the Central and Eastern European region. The results of the study show that the pension privatisation policy significantly contributes to economic development and increases domestic savings, and that the contribution to economic development is greater in the long run than in the short run. As a result, the pension privatisation policy should continue to be promoted in the future.
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The Impacts of Economic Globalization on Poverty and Income Inequality: Evidence from CEECs
Hu, Yi ; Jeřábek, Petr (advisor) ; Amini, Chiara (referee) ; Semerák, Vilém (referee)
This paper aims to explore the relationship between economic globalization and poverty and income inequality in Central and Eastern Europe Countries (CEECs). Despite the considerable research on the effects of globalization on poverty and income inequality, there is a lack of consistent conclusions and a specific emphasis on CEECs. To address these research gaps, we employ two-way fixed-effects regression model, country fixed- effects regression model, and random effects-regression model to examine the impacts of the KOF economic globalization index as well as its sub-indices on World Bank absolute poverty estimates and World Bank Gini index estimates using panel data of nine high-income CEECs from 2004 to 2020. Overall, the study suggest that economic globalization reduces both poverty and income inequality in CEECs, which contradicts the expectation that globalization may exacerbate income inequality. By disaggregating the impacts of economic globalization, the results show that trade and financial globalization can significantly reduce poverty yet only financial globalization can substantially decrease income inequality. Additionally, positive effects of restrictions are more robust than those of actual flows. These findings support policies that promote economic openness in CEECs to mitigate...
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Danish journalists in Central and Eastern Europe: Work, motivation and role perception
Varming, Johanna Maj ; Němcová Tejkalová, Alice (advisor) ; Géla, František (referee)
Foreign correspondents act as gatekeepers to our world and their output can be influential. This study examines the motivations, work and role perceptions of Danish journalists who report on Central and Eastern Europe. For this study 10 semi-structured interviews with different types of correspondents were conducted in March 2023. Bourdieu's field theory was applied to understand the practice of journalism: how these journalists interact in the field and what they perceive as the "rules" of the game. This study shows that personal and idealistic motives drive the journalists. The journalists experience a high degree of autonomy, which according to Bourdieu equals power and is considered the ultimate endgame for journalists. This study finds that the journalists see their role as "curators" or "observers" that report as objectively as possible events in Central and Eastern Europe. Thus, they ascribe to very traditional values of journalism and role perceptions. In a prestigious field like foreign correspondence, one could assume that the struggle for power is intense. However, this study finds that even though the journalists possess very different positions in the field, they ascribe to similar ideals of journalism and do not challenge the field.
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Labour mobility: an emerging trend of intra-EU workforce migration to Central and Eastern European countries from the Western member states
Medal, Ondřej ; Šlosarčík, Ivo (advisor) ; Weiss, Tomáš (referee)
1 Abstract Intra-EU labour mobility is perceived as one of the key advantages of the European common market. Most research thus far has focused on East-West flows of the workforce, whilst the reverse course remained almost unseen. Thus, this thesis aimed to evaluate the migrating workforce from EU-15 to CEE, which was demonstrated in the example of the Czech Republic. With the testing of Wallerstein's world-system theory and the push and pull migration factors, the thesis examined employment features of the EU-15 nationals, their labour mobility drivers, and the concept of Prague as a global city. The empirical data were gathered from EU databases of intra-EU mobility, Czech national statistics, and a structured survey of EU-15 nationals residing in the Czech Republic. The survey gathered 177 answers with results of a confidence level of 95% that the actual value is within 10% of the measured value. The research outcomes were then used for elaborating on the core-periphery dynamics and the West-East dichotomy. Overall, the findings suggest that this trend is emerging as the number of EU-15 nationals in the Czech Republic has risen by 212,13% since 1994. Moreover, it consists largely of knowledge workers, as almost three out of every four people have completed tertiary education. The most determining labour...
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Mass Privatisation and Privatised Firms' Performance in the Post-Privatisation Era: Empirical Evidence from the Czech Republic, Poland, and the Slovak Republic
Wang, Yanyi ; Szobi, Pavel (advisor) ; Akdogan, Idil (referee) ; Čech, František (referee)
This study used panel data on 25 privatised firms from the Czech Republic, Poland, and Slovakia from 2000 to 2019 to explore the impact of different MPS on firm performance in the post-privatisation era. This paper then explored two main research questions: 1) The 2008 financial crisis presented problems for corporations with different governance models. How did firms built utilising various MPS models perform differently across the three countries in this context? 2) What factors would affect the performance of privatised firms in the post-privatisation era? Additionally, this study first used the Wilcoxon signed rank test to analyse six performance variables for the sample firms for eight years before and after 2008. The researcher then chose the corporate governance index (GOV) and shareholder return (ROSF) as the main explanatory variables and did a random effects regression analysis of privatised firm performance. Finally, the paper had two main findings: 1) The financial crisis had a more significant impact on the Czech Republic and Slovakia but had a more negligible influence on Poland. 2) During the post-privatisation era, GOV did not distinctly affect privatised company performance, while ROSF had a more substantial explanatory power for performance based on market development and policy...
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Application of Related Variety Concept in Selected Countries of Central and Eastern Europe
Meislová, Kristýna ; Blažek, Jiří (advisor) ; Skokan, Karel (referee)
The study deals with application of related variety concept and other evolutionary economic geography approaches in the economic landscape of postsocialist states of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). The goal was to define different types of variety and explore the relationship between these varieties and economic development in CEE countries between 1993 and 2009. The analysis is based on the theoretical and analytical framework presented in studies realized in the most developed countries of Western Europe. The important finding is that this kind of research allow to conclude that different types of variety influence the economic development, but some of the results are different from those in prior studies. The porfolio effect of unrelated variety was not confirmed. However, the results show strong evidence that related variety stimulates employment growth and usually contributes to GDP growth of CEE countries. The results also indicate, that high variety of related sectors could be crucial for future development of new industries (especially in Central Europe). Keywords: evolutionary economic geography, related and unrelated variety, economic development, Central and Eastern Europe
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Cross-Border Contagion: An Empirical Analysis of the Current Financial Crisis in Central and Eastern Europe
Žáková, Kristýna ; Geršl, Adam (advisor) ; Mertlík, Pavel (referee)
The objective of this thesis is to examine cross-border contagion effects during the 2007-09 crisis in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and from all the possible propagation channels, it chooses to focus on cross-border bank loans. It tries to discover which global and local factors had significant influence on the changes in bank loans from banks in source (lending) countries to banks, as well as households, corporations and government in host (borrowing) countries. The main research method is a panel data regression model. The empirical results suggest that both local and global factors had influence on the changes in cross-border loans, i.e. helped to spread the 2007-09 crisis to CEE. The significant local factors were macroeconomic and financial characteristics of both source and host countries, such as their GDP growth differential, interest rate differential, FDI, or profitability and health of the banking sector. The significant global factors were the expected market volatility and investors' risk appetite/aversion which was an indicator of "pure" contagion. The main contribution of this thesis lies in its focus on CEE and the analysis of investors' behavior based on their changing risk appetite.
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China's Outward FDI in Central and Eastern Europe
Li, Wenjie ; Svoboda, Karel (advisor) ; Sehnálková, Jana (referee) ; Korosteleva, Julia (referee)
China's emergence as one of the largest FDI source country has attracted global attention. There are many researches on the determinants and characteristics of China's outward FDI, but there are only few researches about China's outward FDI in CEE countries. Based on the dataset, which comprises data of 11 CEE EU member states over the period 2003-2014, this thesis investigates the determinants and patterns of China's outward FDI in CEE-11 countries by using a panel data technique. The regression results reveal that for the whole sample period, culture proximity and existing trade relation have significantly positive impacts and China's FDI in CEE-11 is negatively associated with the institution environment of host country. And the results also demonstrate that determinants of China's FDI in CEE-11 change over time. Besides, political relation is also an important influential factor and policy makers should put more effort to strengthen the bilateral cooperation.
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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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The impact of entrepreneurship on economic performance in Central and Eastern Europe
Chiselita, Doina ; Benáček, Vladimír (advisor) ; Svoboda, Karel (referee) ; Korosteleva, Julia (referee)
Entrepreneurship is viewed by scholars and policy makers as an important factor contributing to increased levels of economic performance. New businesses are conduits of innovation, connecting resources and ideas within the economy and fostering competition. Central and Eastern Europe is a special case regarding entrepreneurship, due to its communist legacy. The surge in entrepreneurial activities caused by the process of market liberalization ultimately affected economic development in the area. This thesis acknowledges the importance of studying entrepreneurship in Central and Eastern Europe, and aims to analyse the impact of new business formation on economic performance in the region. To do so, the thesis creates a comprehensive guide of theoretical frameworks linking entrepreneurship to measures of economic performance and applies them to the Central and Eastern European area. The thesis also develops an empirical study using regression analysis with regional Eurostat data, which shows that new business formation has a significant, positive impact on GDP levels in Central and Eastern Europe. The results also indicate that entrepreneurial activity should be regarded by policy makers as an important factor that leads to increased economic performance, in addition to measures of research and...
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