In this paper, we examine the extent to which monetary policy might be constrained by the evolution of government indebtedness. We employ a threshold vector auto regression (TVAR) model to capture the possible asymmetries in the relationship between monetary policy and the real economy, corresponding to a switch between low and high growth rates of the government debt-to-GDP ratio. The analysis is performed on Czech data over the 2001 – 2016 periods. The results show that the reaction of a central bank to macroeconomic shocks can be regime-dependent. We find that a rising government debt could constrain monetary policy, which manifests through an altered monetary policy transmission to the real economy. Overall, our study demonstrates the advantages of using a non-linear approach to study the fiscal and monetary policy interactions.
Czech adults completed a self-assessed intelligence measure that yielded a score on domain-masculine intelligence (DMIQ), a composite of mathematical/logical and spatial intelligences. They also completed a sex role inventory. The sex of the participants but not their sex role was related to DMIQ. There was a positive relationship between masculinity and DMIQ, but only for males. Cultural issues in self-assessed intelligence and limitations of this study are considered.
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The main objective of this study is interested primarily in the inter-individual diversity in fertility according to the parity distribution of women reproduction in Czech Republic and Slovakia. The authors identify a sharp decline in the concentration of reproduction during the 20th century at very low levels. It was primarily the result of a very low childlessness with combination of significant domination of the two-child family model. This trend has reversed for the most recent cohorts. It appears that this development mainly triggered by pluralization of reproductive behaviour. The youngest cohort tends to increase childlessness as well as increase the proportion of women with only one child. The growing concentration of reproduction suggests that future society in Czech Republic and Slovakia should not simply focus on “average” women (or mother) but should take into an account a wide spectrum of orientations and life strategies.
The Czech society is considered, together with the society of the former East Germany, to be one of the most secularized in the world. The aim of the present paper is to sketch in a large outline not only the historical preconditions of this opinion, but also to resume the existing partial results of ethnological research focused on the contemporary changes of religiousness and manifestations of Marian devotion in the Czech Republic after the year 1989. The years 1989 a 1990 brought innumerable forms of religiousness. From the variants of classical Chriastianity through its rather deformed forms up to the spiritual schools of the Far East. At presents there are two Marian movements in Czec Republic: Marian Movements of Priests and Apostolate of Fatima (Blue Army).
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The article presents an analysis of the performance of regional governments - the institutions representing the self-governing regions in the Czech Republic. The authors try to answer the question of whether regional governments function similarly or whether they vary in terms of performance, and if they do vary, how structured and how large are these differences. After a review of the position occupied by the regions in the Czech public administration system, and after assessing the ways in which regional government performance can be understood and measured and the accessibility of necessary data, indicators are proposed and used to create an aggregate index of regional government performance. An analysis based on these indicators shows that there are considerable differences between regional governments in terms of the structure and the level of their performance. Based on the performance index it was possible to distinguish regions with above-average, average, and below-average regional government performance. The territorial distribution of these groups and some other factors confirm the validity of these measurements.
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New political parties can be important holders of change or representatives of poorly accented social or political problems. The success of such groups may lead to more or less fundamental transformation of the entire party system. The aim of this study is to focus on two successful new entities, which recorded a breakthrough in elections to the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic in 2013: a Movement ANO 2011 and the Dawn of Direct Democracy. The goal is to analyse these players through the agency of Sikks‘ concept of newness. The novelty shall therefore not be considered merely from a strictly chronological point of view, but from a broader perspective and incorporates more detailed analytical criteria targeting particular ideological profiles programmatically examined groupings and also the key role of leaders. Movements ANO and Dawn sharply delimited against current establishment. They posed as a clear alternative to the traditional political parties. Each of these analysed movements has chosen programmatically a different path for this purpose.
The public expenditure programs create an integral and very important part of public expenditure. Their efficiency is greatly influenced by the value of transaction costs. This issue is currently being widely discussed both on the theoretical and the practical level. The aim of presented paper is to define the position of the transaction costs in methodological framework of 3E and to summarize the results of their measurements in the Czech Republic. The article divides transaction costs into two groups: administrative (expended by the program administrators) and compliance (expended by recipients). Presented results of empirical research clearly show that size of transaction costs is certainly significant. The value of relative administrative costs is between 0.1 and 4%. Significantly higher are, however, relative compliance costs; in some cases even reach 28%.
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The article analyses spatial differences in unemployment according to the demographic features and attained education of job-seekers at the municipal level in the Czech Republic between 2005 and 2010. The article attempts to examine whether significant spatial disparities can be identified in the socio-demographic features of job applicants in order to detect disadvantaged localities in terms of specific structural unemployment concentration. The article is based on a statistical analysis of the database of the structure of job applicants maintained by the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs. The research demonstrated that attained education and qualifications are the key factors behind the spatial differentiation of unemployment at the microlevel, while gender and age are only secondary factors.
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The Czech Republic is comprised of different regions at the sub-national level. These are the historical lands of Bohemia, Moravia, and (part of) Silesia, small ethnographic regions, and administrative units. Their objective hierarchy derives from their former historical role, from their administrative function today, and their regional importance. In this article the authors attempt to describe the subjective hierarchy of these regions in the minds of their inhabitants, drawing on a survey of 1203 respondents from throughout the Czech Republic conducted in 2003 by the Centre for Public Opinion Research. The historical lands of Bohemia and Moravia are two regions whose existence Czechs recognise without question, while Silesia is in a weaker position and garners only two-thirds of the level of recognition accorded the other two historical lands. The cultural or ethnographic regions and the administrative units are on an approximately equal level, which is distinctively lower than that of the three Czech historical lands. More of these small regions are located in Moravia than in Bohemia or Silesia. The best known Czech regions are: Wallachia, Moravian Slovakia, Hana (all of which are in Moravia) and the Region of Khods (Bohemia). The best known region that is neither ethnographical nor one of the administrative units is the former industrial region
In reaction to central control of schooling by the Soviet Union, the Czech Republic countered with what some say was the most decentralized system in Europe. While the political move to democracy was extraordinarily successful, there were numerous governments between 1989 and the present. The combination of the decentralized control of schooling and lack of continuity in the political realm in regard to education lengthened substantially the amount of time it has taken to mount national assessments. Those assessments, 5th and 9th grade and a high school leaving examination, are now on track but not without political and technical barriers.
This article examines the impact of selected factors of public contracts on the efficiency of public procurement with an emphasis on decentralization. We analysed the influence of these factors using an econometric model applied to data on public procurement, specifically on pubic construction contracts for 2013 – 2014. To achieve a higher degree of assurance we have verified these results by analysing public contracts for the purchase of gas for the years 2013 – 2014. In the context of the available data, this public contract procedure has a relatively homogeneous subject of performance. The research conclusions which have been reached are significant, partly for the considerations regarding the centralization vs. decentralization of purchases, but they also represent a valuable contribution to the empirical investigation of the decentralized production of public goods and services.
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The text has two parts. The first part attempts to give a broader overview of empirical sociological research in the Czech Republic on the basis of available data from project databases. The main producers of empirical research in the Czech Republic and the thematic focus of this research are then analyzed. In the second part of the article the access to the already available data sources is described, especially to those data files that are stored in the Sociological Data Archive. Important international surveys, which took place also in the Czech Republic and access to data files from this projects is then presented.
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Since 1989 there has been a revival of Albanian-Czech lexicography: at first in connection with humanitarian help in Kosovo and later for reasons of tourism in Albania. The article reports on dictionaries produced in this period and offers a detailed description of the latest and largest bilateral Albanian-Czech dictionary to date by Tomková and Monari (2007, Leda) and its importance for Albanian studies in the Czech Republic.
This article investigates the role of economic restructuring in the construction sectors in the Czech Republic and Ukraine. Our analysis is based on a unique dataset obtained via questionnaire surveys in Zakarpattia region of Ukraine and multivariate models linking prior work experience in the Ukrainian construction sector and the likelihood of working in the Czech construction sector, net of other theoretically important controls. The results of our research show that integration of the Czech and Ukrainian construction sectors has created international “structural channels”, that push migration from Ukraine to the Czech Republic along occupational lines. We draw implications of the analysis for the broader international economic restructuring and integration in the European Union.
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The article characterizes the situation of Churches and religious associations in the Czech Republic and Slovakia after 1989. Along with the onset of transformations of the political system, previously marginalized and persecuted religious associations obtained the possibility of a free development and independence from state authorities, while their members were guaranteed religious liberties. Following the division of the Czechoslovak state into two independent republics - Czech and Slovak - Churches and religious associations have enjoyed freedom, conditions have also been created for development of their activity, religious as well as charitable, cultural, educational, etc. Appropriate legal regulations have also been introduced. However, many problems still remain unsolved, above all the problem of financing the Churches, and in the case of the Czech Republic also the restitution of Church property and the concordate. The situation of religious associations in those countries is also influenced by a change of attitudes toward religion. The highly secularized Czech society shows a well-advanced indifference to religious matters, whereas in Slovakia the Church enjoys social trust and believers make up a large section of the society.
The paper's main aim is an accuracy verification of dozens models predicting financial distress. The evaluated models were created in the past in developed countries and especially in transition economies. High probability of bankruptcy does not affect only an ailing enterprise itself but it also influences other business related entities or counterparties and therefore the results provided by models predicting financial distress have their serious usage as scoring models. Models predicting financial distress help the decision making process by predicting future development of selected business entities. Research hypotheses are based on the idea that already existing models predicting financial distress still have enough explanatory power and accuracy for decision making and there is no need for the creation of a new one. The research should answer the question which models should be recommended nowadays the most for practical use. The paper uses for the verification tools such as Type I Error, Type II Error, ROC Curves and related AuROC coefficients.
The president of the republic is not only the authority of executive power, whose competence is executive completely. As the head of the state he intervenes in the legislative power, where he has significant rights. The most important right is the right of veto, which is by the Constitution regulated as a suspensive, but toward the end of electoral term of the House of Deputies it usually becomes the absolute veto. There is a serious fault in the Contitution – the Constitution doesn’t solve the creation of acts, including constitutional acts, during serious threat to state, especially during the war. The example of president’s Beneš decrees proves that during the occupation of the state territory it is impossible to guarantee working Parlament as a great collective authority. The state continuity, including legislative and constitutional competence, is performed by the head of the state, although the Constitution doesn’t know such a competence.
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The aim of this study is to explain why turnout in Czech general elections exhibited considerable variation between 1996 and 2010. Using valence theory this article explores the differential turnout in terms of the expected benefits of voting for a party on the basis of valence and policy considerations. This individual-level analysis of electoral participation employs four post-election surveys and uses an alternative operationalisation of the expected benefi ts of voting, which makes it possible to conduct cross-national and cross-time comparisons. The results presented in the article demonstrate that change in voter turnout across general elections stems from the change in the expected benefits from voting aggregated at the level of the electorate. One key implication of this research is that attempts to facilitate increased electoral participation through institutional reform are unlikely to be successful. This is because turnout is primarily determined by voter motivation. Increased turnout depends critically on ensuring a level of party choice that gives voters an incentive to go the polls.
Public procurement is one of the forms of provision of public goods and services. Empirical studies analysing public procurement show, that one of the weaknesses of public procurement in the Czech Republic is its low transparency and resulting insufficient resistance to corruption. This study defines base for establishment of transparent and corruption free system of public procurement. It specifies conditions for creation of competitive environment, basis for demand driven system of public procurement and gives proposals for interconnection of transparent decision making procedures and the principles of economy, efficiency and effectiveness.
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The text focuses on the multiple forms of religiosity (based on different types of motivation) of inmates in Czech prisons from the perspective of three groups of respondents: prison inmates, prison guards and representatives of a number of churches. The study is based on an ethnographic study of prisons in the Czech Republic. The data corpus includes qualitative interviews with selected actors in the prison world, material gathered through observations inside prisons and an analysis of the documentation on the Czech penitentiary system. Through this research, we found that the key respondents feel that there is some ambivalence around the religiosity of inmates and that the pragmatic approach many inmates take to faith is becoming a controversial issue. Our research demonstrated that the presence of religiosity of inmates in prison is not really accepted in a clearly positive manner as it may seem at first glance. On the contrary, the presence of it in prisons has become the subject of controversy among its main actors.
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