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- Economic Behaviour of the General Government and Sustainability of Public Finances – Comparative Analysis of the Czech Republic and Selected EU CountriesStanislava Hronová, Richard Hindls, Luboš MarekThe economic behaviour of the general government sector is manifested in the indices such as the government revenue, government expenditure, government deficit and government debt. It is an important tool for evaluating the sustainability of public finances and the orientation of the economic policy. All developed countries were hit by the crisis in 2009 and its continuation in the years 2011 through 2013; it was reflected, in particular, in high values of the government deficit and debt. The European economies have gotten out of this crisis by now, but a question remains: what means did the government institutions use in the respective countries to cope with the unfavourable values of the deficit (and debt)? In this paper, we will make use of the data on the national accounts to show the economic evolution of the general government in the Czech Republic after 2009 and compare it with certain other EU countries.KeywordsNational accounts, general government, government deficit, government debt, sustainability of public finances
- Innovation is considered to be the driving force of competitiveness and growth of firms as well as countries. However, despite these benefits of innovation, not all firms undertake innovation projects. There are several barriers and factors determining the involvement of firms in innovation activities. The aim of the paper is to examine determinants affecting involvement of firms in innovation activities in V4 countries. The emphasis is put on issues that present the most pronounced barriers to commercialization of innovation. The analysis is based on data obtained from the Innobarometer 2016 survey. The paper is focused on examination of several determining factors that are studied for a variety of firms. These factors are represented mainly by type of innovation or innovation barriers and their impact on involvement of firms in innovation activities. The analysis is based on several probit models of micro-level data. It seems that R&D, turnover and innovation investments are among the main determinants of innovation activities of firms in V4 countries. We have also found that in V4 countries, product innovation was introduced mostly by smaller firms while larger firms tend to focus on process innovation. The main major barriers of innovation encountered by firms seem to be the lack of human resources and the fact that the market is dominated by competition.KeywordsInnovation activities, determinants, innovation barriers, Innobarometer 2016
- On the Measurement of the Income Poverty Rate: the Equivalence Scale across EuropeMartina Mysíková, Tomáš ŽelinskýThe methodology used to determine the at-risk-of-poverty rate commonly applied in the European context is often criticised for arbitrary steps in its construction. This study questions the first step – the equivalence scale applied to transform the disposable income of households of different sizes into comparable units. First, we hypothesise that economies of scale are lower in Central-Eastern European countries than in their Western counterparts. We assess the hypothesis using a simple descriptive analysis of the structure of household consumption expenditures based on Household Budget Survey data. Second, we demonstrate the sensitivity of the at-risk-of-poverty rate to an equivalence scale based on the Statistics on Income and Living Conditions data. We identify three different groups of countries according to the sensitivity of the income poverty rate to the relative adult and child household member weights assigned by the equivalence scale. The study contributes to the discussion on defining accurate, country-specific equivalence scales.KeywordsCentral-Eastern Europe, equivalence scale, income poverty rate, sensitivity, Western Europe
- Housing affordability represents a challenge everyone faces when covering the costs of their current or potential housing on the one hand and costs unrelated to their housing within the limits of their own income on the other hand. At the international level, two approaches are used to measuring the housing affordability: the ratio approach and the residual approach. According to Eurostat’s definition, a household is considered “overburdened” when the total housing costs (“net” of housing allowances) represent more than 40% of disposable income.The primary objective of this paper was to define the relevant factors affecting the household cost burden in the Slovak Republic and quantifying the intensity of their influence. For this purpose, a logistic regression model and a classification tree model were created, using the sample of the cross-component of the data of the statistical survey EU SILC 2016. The analysis was completed by using SAS Enterprise Guide (SAS EG) and SAS Enterprise Miner (SAS EM).KeywordsHousing affordability, housing cost overburden rate, EU SILC, logistic regression model, decision tree model
- Spatial Autocorrelation of a Demographic Phenomenon: a Case of One-Family Households and One-Person HouseholdsJaroslav KrausThe paper aims to examine spatial distribution and to subsequently analyse a demographic phenomenon; share of one-family households and one-person households of all households by municipality in the Czech Republic (CR), because these two types of households are in a way contradictory. Although the Czech Republic is rather small and homogeneous with respect to demographic processes, it is questionable whether this also applies to the spatial distribution of households. Methods of local and global spatial autocorrelation represented by Moran’s index were used; however, the challenge of normalisation of both variables using Box-Cox transformation had to be addressed before. For comparison classical measures of association on NUTS3 level were used with respect to the type of data being examined – e.g. the Pearson chi-square, the uncertainty coefficient, the lambda coefficient, as well as the Gini index (Gini ratio), which is a measure of statistical dispersion and the most commonly used measurement of inequality.From the results a small statistically significant global autocorrelation was ascertained. Local results show that shares of both types of households are not a complementary phenomenon in terms of space. From the relationship of local and global Moran’s index, it can be concluded that the global rate does not sufficiently depict detected local differences.KeywordsPopulation and housing census, households, spatial autocorrelation, Czech Republic
- Determinants Affecting Health of Slovak Population and their QualificationMária Vojtková, Eva Kotlebová, Daniela SivašováThe state of health of the population is the result of various determinants, but also a barometer of the conditions that affect the formation of the individual's health. In a healthy society, a healthy individual can develop, and healthy individuals can develop from a healthy society. This article deals with the analysis of the impact of selected factors on the health status of the Slovak population. This is based on data from the latest EHIS (The European Health Interview Survey). We worked with the respondent's answer to the question whether he / she suffers from a long-term health problem (variable with variations yes-no). From the variables surveyed, we chose the ones we thought they could have effect on the selected indicator. With respect to the binary dependent variable, we used logistic regression for the analysis, where all calculations have been carried out in the SAS Enterprise Guide statistical program. The results are findings that have to some extent confirmed our assumptions about the impact of selected factors on health, although some of them have not been shown to the extent we expected.KeywordsHealth, health determinants, EHIS, logistic regression
- Risk Premium Prediction of Motor Hull Insurance Using Generalized Linear ModelsMarek Strežo, Vladimír Mucha, Erik Šoltés, Michal PálešPricing is a quite complex endeavour, understood as a process with beginning and end where several different tasks have to be executed in a certain order. Set the price for some individual policy can be considered an art, taking into consideration various features of policyholder or the insured object. Actually, approach performed by insurance companies, is necessary to apply different premiums depending on the degree of risk because of presence of heterogeneity within insurance portfolio, which could lead to the appearance of asymmetric information.The aim of this paper is to present the methodology of segmented pricing model with generalized linear models, known as GLMs, for setting the risk premium. Nowadays, the GLMs are widely recognized as the industry standard method for pricing motor, the other personal lines and the retail insurance in the European Union.KeywordsGLMs, Poisson regression, Gamma regression, risk premium, motor hull insurance
- Energy statistics in the Czech Republic are responding to national and EU policy-makers’ growing needs and requests for more detailed and more recent data, going beyond energy balances, as a way to support decision-making processes. While energy balances remain the most important and most used output of energy statistics, increasing emphasis in the field of energy statistics is now also being placed on energy efficiency indicators, physical energy flows and on the development of new common IT tools. This trend is being implemented within the existing European, international and national organizational set-up of institutions involved in energy statistics, in which various stakeholders at various levels have interconnected roles. This includes several institutions at the national level, and this, in turn, has necessitated increased communication and coordination between stakeholders. After presenting a synopsis of the current functioning of energy statistics, this article aims to provide an overview of the main recent developments and challenges in this field, including information about ongoing discussions regarding further developments and expected challenges in the near future, from both an international as well as domestic point of view.KeywordsEnergy statistics, energy balance, energy efficiency, Sankey diagrams, energy statistical surveys
In January 2019, the Czech Statistical Office representing its predecessors celebrated 100 years of existence. In the middle of 1990’s, the modern legal framework anchored independence of the State Statistical Service as a basic condition for its professional and impartial work. Although statistics is in principle a very conservative discipline, it needs to reflect changes in the economy and the society. We can now observe a change in the basic paradigm of the official statistics consisting in movement from a stovepipe model of statistical surveys to a modern data hub linking all kinds of data sources and using sophisticated statistical models. Targeted and understandable communication is an integral part of the statistical production process and a necessary condition for a statistical office to compete on the information market. The Czech Statistical Office started 15 years ago to redesign its statistical information system and the basic principles are still valid. In the future, we are going to further reduce statistical surveys, intensify usage of administrative and private held databases, and modernise dissemination tools.
Keywords
Official statistics, consistency, statistical information system, communication
