Economic data and common economic data sources, general methodological problems

Introduction to databases and data sources: CZSO, Eurostat, OECD, WB, Bloomberg, Reuters, commercial databases Bisnode, Magnus. Basic typology, usability, harmonization and differences, availability and relevance of data.

Basic macroeconomic variables and their statistical indicators, methods of collection, measurement, aggregation and interpretation

GDP, price indices, PPP / PPS, unemployment, balance of payments.

Social statistics and population statistics

Population statistics, housing statistics, social security and social care, educational activities and health care.

Environmental statistics and R&D statistics, composite indices

Industry data and indicators

Basic indicators by NACE industry and their specificity, customer-supplier relations (I-O tables SIOT).

Economic growth

Models of economic growth: Theory - Harrod-Domar model, Solow model, human capital and models of endogenous growth. Critique of Cobb-Douglas PF. Applications - estimation of production function and production gap. Growth accounting and estimation of Solow residue. Convergence (conditional vs unconditional). Estimates of models with human capital (Makiw-Romer-Weil). CD Function Malfunction Experiment (McCombie 2011).

Consumption and investment

Theory - Keynesian consumption function for uncertainties, theory of permanent income, interim consumption, CRRA function, consumption for uncertainties. Investments, investment decisions, Tobin's q. Applications - estimation of Keynesian consumption function, explanation of differences in consumption functions from the point of view of permanent vs transitory income theory. Consumption model as random walks. Modeling the relationship between interest rates and consumption and investment. Calculation of Tobin’s q.

Inflation and monetary policy

Theory - money demand function, Fisher's identity and Fisher's effect, liquidity effect. Theory of expectations and the inflation target, the question of CB independence. Phillips curve and its modifications. Monetary policy inflation tax and the demand for money, the inflation-tax Laffer curve. Applications - verification of Fisher's equation, estimation of the expected inflation model, estimation of the Phillips curve and its modifications. The relationship between central bank independence and inflation. Estimate monetary seignorage.

Fiscal policy and debt

Theory - construction of the state budget, deficit and its types. Ricardo (Ricardo-Barro) equivalence. Ponzi game, sustainability vs debt unsustainability, probability of default. Foreign and domestic debt. The effectiveness of fiscal policy in relation to the business cycle and potential. Debt and political environment (weak vs strong government). Debt costs, debt crisis and debt trap. Applications - debt analysis and its development (structural deficit, external debt, ratio to GDP), empirical verification of the Barro-Ricard hypothesis, debt and cycle, probabilistic model of default.

Consumer behavior

Theory - Preferences, axioms of consumer behavior, utility and utility functions, consumer optimization.

Marshall demand, duality (indirect utility function, expenditure function, Roy's identity and Sheppard's Lemma), substitution and income effect, Slutsky's equation

Applications - modeling of individual demand function on experimental data, estimation of demand elasticities on experimental data, solution of model examples and situations.

Consumer surplus, compensating and equivalent variations, risk decision-making (expected benefits, insurance).

Technology and production functions, optimization and duality

Application - estimation of production functions according to individual companies and sectors (data from the Bisnode database).

Cost function, supply function, profit maximization, demand for factors

Applications - estimation of cost functions on microdata (Bisnode). Modeling the turning point and the closure point of the company, modeling the demand for factors (work). Analysis of productivity, profit and performance indicators (ROE, ROA).

Customer-supplier relations

Theory: Input-output analysis, matrix of technical coefficients, multiplication estimation. Application of I-O analysis, estimation of multiplication on experimental data.