Statistika: Statistics and Economy Journal - No. 3/2014

Comparative study deals with the development of important aspects of performance of the government sector in the EU countries since 2000. Using standard outputs of national accounts shows shifts in position of individual countries in terms of government deficit and debt. These key Maastricht criteria are examined also in different phases of economic cycle. This relationship is complex as seen the example of new EU countries, which created notable deficits also in period of economic upturn. Significant long-term differences in structure of revenues and expenditures between CR and whole EU are depicted. In boom period (2000–2008) share of the government debts repayments dropped in favour of growth of investment expenditures, notably in new EU members. In 2009 in two thirds of member countries pecuniary social benefits were relatively most dynamic expenditure item, especially in the Baltics. In a subsequent period of consolidation both the weight of expenditures on the operation of the government sector and investment expenditures were reduced. Finally the attention is paid to structure of government debt from the aspect of different types of creditors or financial instruments covering the debt. The role of local government in growth of whole government debt is outlined.

Keywords
Government deficit and debt, structure of revenues and expenditures of government sector, economic development, government bonds yields, EU countries, local government

Economic situation of the government described by the indicators of the national accounts is currently under the spotlight of the professional public. The indicators have its relevance to considerations of the fiscal sustainability and the European Monetary Union enlargement. However, awareness of the methodology is ether weak; the indicators are in many cases confused with other indicators related to public finance. The main aim of the text is to provide a detailed explanation of nature of key indicators used for the purpose of the Excessive Deficit Procedure. At the same time, main differences between indicators related to the state budget, public sector and EDP procedure are outlined.

Keywords
National accounts, government deficit, government debt, state budget, EDP, public sector

The literature analysing efficiency of financial institutions has enveloped rapidly over the last years. Most studies have focused on the input side analysing input technical and cost efficiency. Only few studies have examined the output side evaluating output technical and revenue efficiency. We know that both sides are relevant when evaluating efficiency of financial institutions. Therefore the primary purpose of this paper is to review a number of approaches for efficiency measurement. In particular, the concepts of cost, revenue and profit functions are discussed. We apply Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to a sample of Slovak and Czech commercial banks during years 2009–2013 comparing the efficiencies by either minimizing cost or maximizing revenue and profit. The results showed that the level of average revenue efficiency was the highest and the average profit efficiency was the lowest one. As can be seen the Czech banks were more cost, revenue and profit efficient than Slovak ones during the whole analysed period.

Keywords
Commercial banks, Cost efficiency, Revenue efficiency, Profit efficiency, DEA models

This paper aims to explain both related and different concepts of educational and skill mismatches. In the first part a clear distinction between skill and educational mismatch is made and advantages and disadvantages of using each approach are listed. An overview of meanings and characteristics of different types of mismatch is provided as well. This part of the paper deals also with potential causes of mismatches in the labour market as well as consequences of mismatches. Next section offers the information on measures of educational and skill mismatches and a new approach for measuring skill mismatch is introduced. Due to recently Publisher results from PIAAC survey containing measures of skills and also information about qualifications, educational as well as skill mismatches can be investigated and several methods of their measurement can be compared. The comparison is drawn in relation to the distribution of mismatches among different demographic groups.

Keywords
Education, skills, mismatch, labour market, PIAAC

Data users and stakeholders judge the success of a survey by its response rate. According to the measures of the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR, 2011) and following the Eurostat’s standard (EUROSTAT, 2005), the Italian Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) applied a number of best practices to increase the households response rate – and, consequently, confidence in data quality – such as: planning a wellstructured and a possibly short questionnaire, sending advance letters to sample households to inform them of the pending survey, giving standard survey introductions to well-trained interviewers, and monitoring data collection at all stages of the fieldwork. The focus on high response rates has many consequences. One is a high burden placed on respondents when a survey repeatedly contacts sample households, as ISTAT Labour Force Survey, and the other is the pressure on interviewing staff to spend time and resources to increase their response rates and not to accept a non-interview.

Keywords
Response rate, interview burden on respondents, panel surveys

Book Review
MALÁ, I. Statistické úsudky (Statistical Judgments). 1^st edition, Prague: Professional Publishing, 2013. ISBN 978-80-7431-127-7.

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