Statistika: Statistics and Economy Journal - No. 3/2013

The empirical study concerning wide area of security of the Czech population deals with both its aspects – crime and prison population. First, we have the picture of macro-economic view on the issues through the international comparison of government expenditures on individual areas of public order and security. More comprehensive part of the paper maps out the development of registered and cleared-up crime in the Czech Republic by main types, it pays attention to selected groups of perpetrators (children, juveniles, criminal repeaters) and also its signifi cant regional dimensions, including attempts to explain it. Overwhelming quantitative view on crime is extended also by subjective evaluation of security of population near their residence. Signifi cance of qualitative view increases mainly in attempt to make international comparison where traditional “hard“ data on crime hit different legal environment also in geographically close countries within the EU. Social pathology and criminal legislation infl uence also the composition of prison population which is assessed from the aspect of sex, age, citizenship, education, the level of imposed sentence and criminal history. Increasing number of prisoners has recently negatively infl uenced the occupancy rate of prisons, which raises questions concerning sustainability of fi nancing of penitentiary system especially in the period of total economic depression. Presidential amnesty in January 2013 released more than a quarter of all prisoners which resulted in one-shot signifi cant decrease in occupancy rate. This event modifi ed also the structure of prison population. Th e position of the Czech Republic within EU improved signifi cantly in terms of occupancy rate, but still remained unfavourable as regards total rate of imprisonment of population.

Keywords
Public order and security, crime, prison issues, penitentiary system, public expenditure, regional difference, Czech Republic, European countries

The paper off ers answers to one of the typical problems of economic theory – how it is practically possible to measure and interpret the quality of economic time series at all economic levels. At the macroeconomic level, the task is solved by weighted geometric aggregation of input factors (labor and capital) into a summary input factor (SIF) – the method is similar to the Cobb-Douglas production function. Th e paper shows differences between our approach and the approach of growth accounting – our approach is based on more general conditions and covers not only situations of growth of economic indicators but also situations of their decline or stagnation. The approach also allows for distinguishing the compensation of input factors. Th erefore, the methodology presented in the paper can be used in many practical applications; for instance, it enables us to clearly calculate intensive and extensive parameters of economic growth.

Keywords
Aggregate production function, summary input factor, dynamic indicators, economic growth, intensive and extensive factors of change of indicators

The goal of this paper is to analyze profi tability of the Slovak enterprises by means of quantile regression. The analysis is based on individual data from the 2001, 2006 and 2011 financial statements of the Slovak companies. Profitability is proxied by ratio of profit/loss to total assets, and twelve covariates are used in the study, including two nominal variables: region and sector. According to the findings size, short- and long-term indebtedness, ratio of long-term assets to total assets, ratio of sales revenue to cost of sales, region and sector are the possible determinants of profitability of the companies in Slovakia. The results further suggest that the changes over time have influenced the magnitude of the effects of given variables.

Keywords
Profitability, quantile regression, Slovakia

Analogies with mechanisms ruling the natural world have often been sought in the course of economic phenomena. This paper is also an attempt to combine the physical phenomenon of a harmonious oscillator with the theory of economic growth by J. H. Dunning (1981). In his theory, Dunning distinguished stages of economic growth of countries that imply the dependency between the investment position of countries and thein GDP per capita, while the graph presenting this dependency reminds a trajectory of oscillating motion of a damped harmonic oscillator. This analogy has given inspiration to reinterpret the theory of economy on the grounds of the mechanism of a physical model. In this paper, the harmonious oscillator motion equation was adapted to the description of dependencies shown in the theory of economic growth by J. H. Dunning. The mathematical solution of this equation is properly parameterised and parameters are estimated with the use of the Gauss-Newton algorithm. The main objective of this paper is to allocate a specific stage in the economic growth to each country on the basis of the values of parameter estimations of the proposed cyclical models of changes in the net investment indicator.

Keywords
Dunning’s theory, convergence, Gauss-Newton algorithm

In this article, we focus on the potential development of the German labour market. For this purpose, we developed a forecasting system that considers both supply and demand by occupational fields and qualifications and that relies on consistent datasets, exogenous assumptions and systematic correlations. We present the key impacts for our forecasting system and highlight the effects of different assumptions (scenarios) exemplified on our demand model. On the supply side, we point out how different behaviours on the individual level influence the structure of development of the supply of skilled labour. Keeping the possibility of those various potential futures in mind, we conclude with an outlook on potential skilled labour shortages in the future.

Keywords
Employment, qualification, forecast, scenario building, occupational mobility, demography, labour market

Data on doctoral students in Germany are required for national and international educational reports. However, due to the provisions in the enrolment and doctoral degree regulations at institutions of higher education, undercoverage of the data on doctoral students is observed in the statistics of students. Doctoral students who are not enrolled at institutions of higher education are not covered there. Hence, the Federal Statistical Office had been asked by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research to conduct a survey on doctoral students in Germany. The purpose was to develop a concept which provides reliable information on doctoral students in Germany. The survey provides comprehensive results on doctoral students in Germany in winter semester 2010/2011. It shows that about 200 400 doctoral students were supervised by professors at German institutions of higher education in winter semester 2010/2011.

Keywords
Doctoral students, institutions of higher education, professors, students, Federal Statistical Office of Germany

A wide range of applicability of spatial statistical data for managing and planning various human activities in the environment or monitoring the trends of different phenomena in space and time requires an adequate response from data providers. The Statistical Offi ce of the Republic of Slovenia (SURS) has a long tradition of processing geo-referenced statistical data that can be point located or aggregated to an optional (administrative) spatial unit and in line with the increasing need for geo-referenced statistical data of high resolution, SURS followed the users’ needs by developing various services that are a part of an integrated system for the dissemination of geo-statistical data. The article discusses the production of geo-statistical data in Slovenia with the focus on the grid data, related confidentiality issues and the system for the dissemination of geo-statistical data, i.e. the Geostatistics portal.

Keywords
Grid data, statistical confidentiality, data visualisation