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Business R&D spending has been showed to exert a positive direct as well as indirect, spillover effects on value added. Nevertheless, heterogeneity of the returns to R&D has been seldom examined. Using detailed sectoral data from Czechia over the period 1995-2015, this study finds that privately funded business R&D has both direct and spillover effects, but that the publicly funded part of business R&D only leads to spillovers. The results further suggest that both upstream and downstream spillovers matter, regardless of the source of funding, and that the R&D returns were heavily affected by the economic crisis. Lastly, private R&D offers significant returns only after reaching a critical mass, while the effects of public R&D spending do not profess such non-linearity. The heterogeneity of returns to business R&D needs to be reflected in the design of innovation policy.

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)

This thesis deals with the effectiveness of Czech electromobility support. First programs to incentivize electric vehicle purchases were introduced by two Czech ministries in 2016 with grants available until the end of 2021. To estimate the effect of Czech incentives on electric vehicle sales, generalized difference-in- differences design is used. The estimation employs two-way fixed effects model with annual and monthly data spanning over 2015-2021. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland were chosen to serve as a control group with electric vehicle market share and electric vehicle registrations as the dependent vari- ables. The results are ambiguous and do not suggest a clear link between the investigated variables and the subsidies. A more detailed dataset would be needed to conduct a definitive impact evaluation. JEL Classification O31, O38, R40, H25 Keywords Electromobility, Incentives, Subsidies, Rebates, Policy evaluation Title How effective are subsidies for electric vehicles? An evaluation of Czech policy

The main objective of the thesis was to investigate disparities in affordabili- ty of own housing across regions of the Czech Republic using three different approaches. Physical availability was monitored by indicators of Number of dwellings per 1000 citizens and Number of dwellings per 100 housekeeping households. Subsequently, the price-to-income ratio was applied to assess fi- nancial affordability for flats and for family houses, separately. The empirical part of the thesis applied first-difference model to uncover the determinants that could explain the disparities in housing affordability. Thus, only those variables that reported sufficient variability across regions were included in the model. As significant determinants of affordability of flats, volume of mortgage loans, number of finished dwellings, the volume of construction works both in the lagged and unlagged version of variable, the unemployment rate and the number of job vacancies were reported. JEL Classification F12, F21, F23, H25, H71, H87 Keywords housing affordability, price-to-income, panel data, regional analysis Title Affordability of own housing across regions of the Czech Republic Author's e-mail 88952997@fsv.cuni.cz Supervisor's e-mail ppleticha@gmail.com

This work focuses on the relationship between sovereign debt relief on one side and government expenditure on healthcare, education, and armed forces on the other side. Each effect is estimated separately using two dynamic panel data methods: Arellano-Bond Difference GMM and Arellano-Bover/Blundell-Bond System GMM. I use three subsets of a dataframe that contains 114 recipients of post-1991 debt relief. The health spending analysis was performed on 110 countries observed in the period of 1995 to 2017; the education expenditure equation was estimated using data on 104 countries from the period 1991 to 2018; and the military spending subset contains data on 103 countries also observed between 1991 and 2018. I found a statistically significant negative effect of debt relief on military expen- diture and a significant positive effect of debt relief on education spending. The latter was, however, sensitive to the choice of estimation method. The effect on health expenditure is unclear. 1

The goal of this thesis is to research the consumption of meat in the European Union and to look for trends and patterns regarding it's consumption. We will take advantage of the panel data structure and use our own balanced panel data set to properly verify and quantify the relationship of macroeconomic, microeconomic, and country specific variables with annual meat consumption per capita. We used data covering the consumption of meat in the European Union member countries in the year of 2018, with data ranging from 2000 to 2018. All data in our thesis are annual and aggregated at the level of single European Union member countries. We used standard panel data analysis tools to reach statistically significant results and concluded that individual propensity to consume meat varies between countries of the European Union and found evidence suggesting that urbanization and labour force participation impact meat consumption significantly.

Czech state government is often criticized because of slow implementation of new information technologies (IT). Furthermore, IT-related government contracts are frequently overpriced and the official analyses say only little about the projects' efficiency. The paper inquiries into relatively homogenous level of local government represented by municipalities of extended competence. These jurisdictions have to guarantee extensive portfolio of services, however they have relative freedom of investment decision making. We used Data Envelopment Analysis and assigned each municipality with efficiency score. We found out that higher investment in IT does not stand for improved efficiency and indicates inefficiencies in public spending. We also described an ambiguous effect of the size of the district and a significant negative effect of amount of clerks.

This thesis compares rent vs home ownership based on the net present value, within the periods of the Great Recession and current year. The analysis is focused on the Czech Republic real estate market as a whole. Rent and real estate price are forecasted, and factors determining the price of rent and real estate are identified. The ARIMA model used for forecasting performs accurate short-term predictions. The results expect 3,2 percent annual growth of rent in the following year and 7,2 percent increase for the real estate prices. The results of net present value analysis indicate, that for years 2008 and 2009 renting was superior choice, while for years 2011, 2013 and 2019 home ownership was to be preferred from financial aspect.

This work investigates the effect of team strategy in professional football on the value of players on the transfer market. The research is conducted on player- level data from the English Premier League, German Bundesliga, Spanish La Liga, Italian Serie A and French Ligue 1 in season 2018/2019. Price is explained by player-related attributes like age and height, performance data and by team- related statistics. We are specifically interested in the significance of team data and their relationship with playing strategy. Results of the work show strong evidence that different playing strategies influence players' value which makes optimization for maximal value of the team squad possible. JEL Classification C12, C01, Z20, C51 Keywords Football, Players' Value, Team Strategy, Foot- ball Transfer Market Title How team strategy in football influences players' market value Author's e-mail milan.knapp10@gmail.com Supervisor's e-mail petr.pleticha@cerge-ei.cz

The main objective of this thesis is to determine whether a relationship exists between transport infrastructure and economic growth. This topic has been discussed by many studies, however no relevant study has measured the dif- ference in impact between countries under the historic influence of the Soviet Union. A dataset of 27 EU member states for the period 1995 to 2007 for the length of roads, motorways and railways per capita was analyzed based on their historic membership in the Warsaw pact treaty. A production function approach was applied and the results show positive impact of motorways and railways on the growth of GDP per capita. Keywords transport infrastructure, economic growth, pro- duction function, Warsaw pact, railway, roads, capital Title Transport infrastructure and its impact on the economic growth in the EU

This bachelor thesis focuses on the price of coffee and the factors affecting it. The study aims to identify these factors to predict price movement. This thesis also answers the question whether the factors observed have the same impact on two coffee varieties: arabica and robusta. There were defined five groups of the factors: supply, demand, climate, commodity market and financial. The effect is observed for annual coffee price data that were obtained from the International Coffee Organization (ICO). The observed period is between 1965 and 2018. The impact of the factors was detected by the ARDL regression, both in the short run and the long run. Based on the results, the price is affected mostly by supply, demand, and financial factors. Moreover, robusta's price specifically is driven mainly by the factors explaining the power of the US dollar. Arabica's price, on the other hand, is affected by the supply and demand factors: exports, and the growth of GDP. This finding supports the claim that these two coffee varieties should be considered as two different commodities. The results suggest that the establishment of an association of the biggest coffee producers regulating coffee exports would help in control of coffee prices.

This thesis examines the impact of diverging productivity gains across indus- tries in the Czech Republic and identifies their effect on other economic indi- cators. Using methods standard in the literature about Baumol's model, we analyze yearly sectoral data in the Czech Republic for the period 1995-2015 and examine the presence of Baumol's diseases. Using the econometric concept of fixed effects model, our findings are in line with the predictions of Baumol (1967) as relative prices decline in progressive sectors; and sectoral growth of wages is rather independent of the productivity growth. Additionally, sectoral growth of labour productivity is accompanied by a diminishing share of working hours. Opposite to what Baumol's model suggests, we rejected the hypothesis of the 'constant real share' as productivity growth tend to raise real output. And because the volume of this effect is relatively stronger than the decline in the prices, technological advancement has resulted in nominal output growth. Finally, we have demonstrated that sectoral shifts towards stagnating indus- tries have tended to lower aggregate labour productivity growth. Although the results of our study show the presence of Baumol's cost and growth diseases in the Czech Republic, their magnitude differs considerably from the current...

It is essential to control for property price determinants since there could be created the price bubble, and its burst would have harmful effects on the economy. Thus, this bachelor thesis aims to show the best determinants and models for forecasting the apartment prices in Czechia and its regions with the use of panel data and time series from the Czech Statistical Office. After stating hypotheses of variable's expected impacts on apartment prices, the most important determinants appeared to be the average wage, unemployment rate, natural population growth, and the building plot price. The best results are found by using econometric regressions as the fixed effects, the first differences or the classical ordinary least squares method. I also use the heteroskedasticity and autocorrelation consistent standard errors for better robustness of coefficients. Moreover, the lasso method is applied for dealing with multicollinearity and over-fitting, which are fixed by the variable selection. In most cases, the lasso improved prediction accuracy. However, the first difference regressions worsen the forecasts after the lasso penalisation. 1

This bachelor thesis deals with the issue of collaborative purchasing in public procurement. We describe possible effects of centralized purchasing and define the objectives and strategies of the European Union regarding procurement centralization. Then, we examine the effects of centralized procurement based on a unique dataset of tenders from the whole European Union using Quasi-Maximum likelihood estimation. We find a positive effect of central procurement on competition in three procurement sectors. We also find that the effect is higher in countries with a higher degree of corruption. Centralized purchasing is criticized because of possible disadvantaging of small enterprises. We show that this strategy has a negative effect on the probability of awarding contracts to small or medium companies in two procurement sectors. One of the recommendations of the European Union to solve this problem is the usage of tenders with multiple selection criteria. However, our results do not confirm the validity of this recommendation.

The bachelor thesis deals with occupancy measurement in Paid Parking Zones (PPZ) in Prague with system of random monitoring by special vehicles equipped with cameras. It introduces distinction between immediate occupancy, i.e. the percentage use of parking spaces in a given area in a given time and effective occupancy, i.e. the percentage use of time parking capacity in a given time interval. Since the effective occupancy cannot be determined in real conditions of PPZ by random monitoring, the method of simulation of parking in the model area was chosen. The model was created based on parameters expected parking time of visitors and residents and parking interest. The model simulates the use of parking capacity and its output are simulated effective and immediate occupancy. The basic parameter values were obtained by analysing the real data for 2018 from PPZ. The goal of the thesis was to analyse under which conditions and number of measurements, the immediate occupancy is a good estimate of effective occupancy. In total, 10500 simulations were performed for 21 different parameter combinations resulting in an effective occupancy of about 45%-95%. The results of the simulation show, that five measurements in one working week are sufficient to estimate effective occupancy in the same time interval....

The purpose of this thesis is to evaluate the predictive power of personality traits, depicted by a commercial assessment Predictive Index, on sales employee performance. We utilize non-publicly available company level data from one of the leading firms operating in the consumer finance industry in China. The data set contains over 31 thousands observations on one particular position. Employee performance is measured by their ranking within the top or bottom 20% or 30% based on the sold volume during first month of employment. Using visual analysis and logistic regression, we were able to identify positive correlation between extraversion and sales performance and negative correlation between patience and employee performance. These findings are in line with previous literature. We have also identified that having a colleague at a given sales location has a positive impact on employee performance. Our findings also suggest that it is easier to predict bottom performers when compared to the top ones. Nevertheless, the explanatory variables are able to explain merely 4.7% of variation in employee performance. The added value of personality traits is thus limited in our setting. Such a low predictive power is likely caused by improper administration of the assessment and the fact that the results are...

Income inequality is an alarming issue affecting especially developing countries, yet very scarce attention is paid to how it is influenced by development aid. This study investigates the relationship, focusing on modern approaches to foreign assistance which have changed considerably since 1999. With a sample of 123 developing countries, the effect is estimated using both static and dynamic panel data techniques while controlling for the Kuznets curve. The results show that robust to method and functional form, development aid neither improves nor worsens inequality. Nonetheless, estimating the model for specific groups of countries in the sample yields different, statistically significant results, while also depending on political environment. JEL Classification D31, F35, C23 Keywords Inequality, Foreign Aid, Panel Data Title Does Foreign Aid Decrease Inequality? Evi- dence from the Most Recent Data Author's e-mail anna.umlaufova9@gmail.com Supervisor's e-mail jaromir.baxa@fsv.cuni.cz

According to the Convergence Analysis of Slovakia from 2017, the current subject of Slovak economic growth and convergence is the slow growth in productivity as relative productivity of Slovakia to the EU average was decreasing in the period from 2014 to 2017. Moreover, it shows that Slovakia is one of the countries with low efficiency of using labour and capital, which means that there is an occurrence of misallocation of resources. A significant role in this downturn according to recent literature might be the occurrence of zombie firms, which are old companies that do not have sufficient profitability to cover their interest expenses for a longer period. This thesis examines zombie firms and their significance in stifling productivity performance. Using a rich firm-level dataset for Slovakia, we research the determinants of zombie companies in Slovakia. Controlling for cyclical effects, this thesis reveals that zombie enterprises over the period from 2003 to 2013 were significantly less productive compared to their healthy competitors. In addition, we find out that occurrence of zombie companies curbs the growth of healthy companies and has a negative impact on the economic output overall. These results are raising several issues for public policy as it needs to mitigate this cause of...

The European Commission annually publishes a European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS) as a tool to measure the innovation performance of the EU Member States. This thesis extends the analysis published in the EIS 2018 in two different manners. The first part, a clustering analysis, examines the partition of the EU Member States to innovation performance groups. The thesis comes with a unique scheme of partition created by using hierarchical clustering. A comparison with the existing scheme shows that the general trends are similar in both schemes. The only main exception is the differentiation of the British Isles and Luxembourg apart from the other high performing countries. The proposed scheme provides insight about the within-cluster similarities, such as the similarity of Finland, Sweden and Denmark and their relative distinction from France, although they belong to one cluster. The second part, a regression analysis, attempts to examine the impact of innovations on real labour productivity. Contrary to existing literature, we do not find a statistically significant relationship between productivity and the components of the EIS. Additionally, the analysis is extended by the lasso estimation that provides a variable selection. The latter approach improves our findings and identifies four EIS...

Debt relief is a form of development aid that began to gain importance in the last decade of the 20th century. In 1996 the World Bank and the IMF jointly launched the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative, a comprehensive and structured program designed to provide debt relief for eligible low-income countries. The purpose of my thesis is to investigate, whether debt relief for developing countries over the period 1996-2015 affected economic growth in the recipient countries with particular attention being paid to the HIPC countries. I also investigate whether the impact of debt relief on growth varies conditional on institutional quality. I find that the low-income countries on average did not benefit from debt relief. However, I find that debt forgiveness has enhanced the growth rates in the countries in the HIPC initiative. Based on the results of my regression analysis I did not find evidence that the effectivity of debt relief in either group of countries depends on institutional quality.