Overview of Courses:
Monetary Policy and Business Cycle (5HP857)
Course contents:
1. Nature of money, functions and definitions of money, money creation, demand and supply of money, history of money.
2. Evolution of views on the nature of money, theories of money according to different schools of economics; the relationship between money, prices and GDP – stylized facts and current economic research; the nature of cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin.
3. Banking system; central banks – objectives, functions, tasks, balance sheets; origin and development of central banking in general, development of monetary systems – from the gold standard to the present (lectured by my colleague A. Čečrdlová).
4. Regulation and supervision of banks – the role of the banking sector, reasons for regulation, entry conditions into banking, basic obligations of banks, compulsory deposit insurance, the role of lender of last resort, international supervision (lectured by my colleague A. Čečrdlová).
5. Nature of monetary policy, price level changes and the concept of price stability, main concepts of monetary policy, monetary policy instruments.
6.-7. Monetary transmission mechanism and its most important channels, operating targets, intermediate targets, and ultimate objectives of monetary policy, main monetary policy regimes and strategies, monetary policy transmission and the business cycle.
8. The issue of central bank and monetary policy independence, rules and discretion in monetary policy, main monetary policy rules, targeting of stocks and flows, determinants of monetary policy effectiveness or efficiency.
9. Monetary policy responses to the business cycle using the example of inflation targeting regime, main types of unconventional monetary policies, the policy of quantitative easing – main characteristics, exit strategy, and implications for the real economy.
10. Monetary policy of the Czech National Bank (CNB) – decision-making asymmetry and foreign exchange interventions (lectured by my colleague A. Čečrdlová).
11. Central banks in individual countries and monetary policy of the European Central Bank, the Federal Reserve System, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, and the Bank of China.
12. Financial markets and monetary policy; business and financial cycles and their relationship, price bubbles, macroprudential policy – basic characteristics, objectives, origins, development, current status – example of the CNB, relationship between monetary policy and macroprudential policy, monetary policy response to financial cycles.
13. Monetary policy response of the CNB and the ECB to the impact of the global financial crisis – comparison and policy implications, empirical experience, the concept of moral hazard, implications for the future (lectured by my colleague A. Čečrdlová).
Macroeconomic Analysis (5HP851)
Course contents:
1. Basic theoretical concepts of macroeconomic analysis and forecasting – basic theoretical concepts and definitions, characteristics and phases of macroeconomic analysis and forecasting, users and creators of macroeconomic analysis and forecasting. The essence of empirical macroeconomics and mathematical modelling, the interest process, practice with indices, basic approximations.
2. National Accounting – basic characteristics, history, utilization, classifications, specifics and limitations, analytical indicators, valuations, types of assets, frequency of reporting.
3. System of National Accounts - main principles, main accounts, relationships, activities and transactions – application on the data of the Czech Republic.
4. Sectoral and Structural Analysis, Input-Output Tables - basic definitions and differences, basic indicators, significant classifications, sector accounts, structural changes and their measurement – applications on the data of the Czech Republic, evaluation of industry competitiveness characteristics of I-O tables, symmetric I-O tables and their applications on the data of the Czech Republic.
5. Economic Growth and Aggregate Supply - theory and empirics of economic growth, approaches to economic growth analysis, basic indicators, potential product - methods and problems of its estimation – application on the data of the Czech Republic, growth accounting and estimates of its individual components - application on the data of the Czech Republic.
6. Aggregate Demand and Macroeconomic Stability - basic definitions, detailed analysis of aggregate demand components – application on the data of the Czech Republic, non-additivity of GDP components, contribution of aggregate demand components to GDP (decomposition of GDP from the demand side), the importance of macroeconomic stability and basic analytical indicators.
7. Economic Convergence and International Comparisons - basic types and definitions, assumptions of the convergence process, concepts, causes of real and nominal convergence and their mutual relationships, Harrod-Balassa-Samuelson effect, other concepts of economic convergence, purchasing power parities – their types and analytical uses, ERDI and CPL coefficients – application on the data of the Czech Republic.
8. Labour Market and Labour Productivity – basic characteristics and relationships, main indicators and classifications, factors influencing the development of labour markets, Beveridge curve, flexibility in labour markets, analytical decomposition of labour productivity – application on the data of the Czech Republic, labour costs.
9. Prices – Concepts, Measurements and Price Level Changes – basic characteristics and relationships in the short and long term, problems with measuring price level changes, indicators – CPI, HICP, PPI, PCE, GDP deflator, external trade prices, aggregate price indices, contributions to price level changes, consumer basket decomposition - net, core and monetary-policy relevant inflation – application on the data of the Czech Republic.
10. Public Finance – basic categories and their characteristics, fiscal policy and related concepts, government finance statistics, typology of budget balances, sustainability of government finance, debt decomposition, deficit-debt relationship (stock-flow adjustment), calculation of basic indicators of public finance and fiscal policy and their limitations, cyclical adjustment of budget balances and long-term fiscal projections – application on the data of the Czech Republic.
11. Monetary Development, Exchange Rate and Monetary Policy – basic categories and their characteristics, measurement and evaluation of monetary development – application on the data of the Czech Republic, Taylor rule and its application, Index of monetary conditions, typology and determinants of exchange rate, forward rates and yield curve, macro-prudential policy, monetary and financial crises.
12. External Economic Relations – analysis of international trade and its structure – application on the data of the Czech Republic, basic classification, terms of trade, detailed balance of payments analysis – application on the data of the Czech Republic, external macroeconomic balance – basic indicators and benchmarks.
13. Analysis of Macroeconomic Risks and Fragilities – reasons of macroeconomic instability, frameworks for evaluation of macroeconomic risks and fragilities, typology of macroeconomic shocks, sectoral links (monetary, fiscal, external), basic steps in macroeconomic analysis of risks and fragilities, examples.
The seminars are held in a computer lab – students will work with MS Excel.
Introduction to Economic and Social Policy (5HP750)
Course contents:
1. Introduction, General Theoretical Concepts, Objectives and Instruments of Economic Policy, Efficiency of Economic Policy.
2. Economic Policy and Social Decision-Making System, Bureaucracy, Interest Groups, and Corruption.
3. Economic Policymakers, Process of Economic Policy, Main Conceptual Approaches to Economic Policy.
4. Limits of Economic Policy, Market and Government Failures, Political Cycles.
5. History of Economic Policy (Part I) – Theoretical and Practical Approaches.
6. History of Economic Policy (Part II) – Economic Policies of Selected Countries.
7. Capitalism, Poverty, Social Policy, Redistribution Policy.
8. Fiscal Policy and Public Finance.
9. Central Banks, Monetary Policy, and Macroprudential Policy.
10. External Economic Policy, International Economic Integration, Balance of Payments, Trade Policy.
11. Exchange Rate Systems and Exchange Rate Policy, Problematics of Foreign Direct Investment.
12. Other Types of Economic Policies (Part I).
13. Other Types of Economic Policies (Part II), Economic Transformation of Czech Economy After 1989, Recent Economic Crises, Current Economic Policy Mainstream and Effects of Long-Term Expansionary Economic Policies.
European Union and Its Policies (5HP700)
Course contents:
1.-3. European economic integration. Enlargement of the EU.
Specification of the term, motives and benefits of the economic integration, economic integration stages, and principal milestones of the European economic integration development: European Coal and Steel Community, 1960s, Eurosclerosis, internal market formation, transition to the monetary union, Lisbon Strategy, the EU of the 21st century. Process of expanding of the EU. Embedding of the European integration in various treaties.
4. Institutional organization and legal framework of the EU
Institutions of the EU and their functions: European Commission, Council of the European Union, European Parliament, European Council, European Court of Auditors, European Ombudsman, advisory bodies, legal system of the EU, role of the Court of Justice of the EU.
5.-6. The Single Market and Main ”Internal“ Policies of the EU
Free movements of goods, services, people, and capital. Social policy, common agricultural policy, environmental policy, regional policy, competition and industrial policy,
7.-8. Fiscal Policy and Common Budget of the EU
Fiscal Compact. Specificities of the European budget. Key revenues / expenditures of the European budget. Reallocation directions. Net contributors and net recipients. Czech Republic and the European budget. Reform proposals of the European budget.
9.-10. Monetary policy and euro/eurozone
Why do countries integrate within a common monetary area, expectations. Three stages of the European monetary integration. Principles of transition to the monetary union embedded in the Maastricht Treaty. Irrevocable fixation of exchange rates (1998). Terms and conditions for adopting a single currency. Monetary and fiscal criteria of convergence, benefits and costs of a monetary union – microeconomic / macroeconomic level. Theory of the optimal currency area and the Eurozone formation. 2008: the first decade of the single currency, evaluation. Euro as a reserve currency. Euro as a global currency. Problems of the new currency.
Monetary union enlargement / expansion. Euro and new member countries, ERM2.
11. Crisis of the EU during and after the economic crisis of 2008-2009
History, causes, context, consequences, analysis of the situation. Proposed measures at European level. Role and interventions of the European Central Bank and other institutions.
12.-13. Main “external” EU policies. Position of the European Union within the global world
Common foreign and security policy, energy, trade and aid policy, competitiveness. EU as the world trade superpower.
Europe and new technologies. Position of Europe in the area of research and innovations. Energy dependency of the EU. Population aging. Forecasts of changes in the global world. SWOT analysis of the EU.
Applied Econometrics (5HP504)
Course contents:
1. Introduction to econometrics, the issue of mathematisation in economics and critique of econometrics, overview of data sources and econometric software.
2. The problem of correlation and causality, the structure of empirical analysis, descriptive statistics and types of data structures, introduction to R.
3. Ordinary Least Squares Method, simple linear regression model, testing of statistical hypotheses, various model specifications and their implications.
4.-5. Multiple regression analysis and related topics, assumptions of credible estimates and inferences for cross-sectional data (Gauss-Markov assumptions and the Classical Linear Regression Model), relevant statistical tests.
6.-7. Additional problems in multiple regression analysis – their practical solutions and examples (logarithmic approximation, choice between multiple models, proxy variables, missing observations, outliers and influential observations, interaction of variables).
8. Dummy variables and the Instrumental Variables (IV) method.
9. Introduction to time series (basic time series components, the basics of work with indices, the issue of current and constant prices), introduction to time series analysis, time series decomposition.
10.-11. Incorporation of time lags, assumptions of credible estimates and inferences for time series, relaxation of selected assumptions, relevant statistical tests.
12. Highly persistent time series, issues and testing of (non)stationarity, structural breaks, spurious regression, integration of nonstationary time series, cointegration analysis, ARIMA models, other time series models.
13. Panel data and introduction to its analysis – pooled OLS model, the basics of work with panel data, models with fixed and random effects, relevant statistical tests.
The students will work with the R software (RStudio) during the seminars.
Master Thesis Project (5HP500)
Course contents:
The course consists of elaboration of the 10 page long Master thesis project which will assume a form of a standard scholarly paper. It will contain:
1. Goal of the thesis (clearly specifying what the student seeks to research, what question is to be answered).
2. State of knowledge (Summarizing by whom and how similar problems have been tackled, analyzing outcomes of existing research and complications of approaches that have been applied).
3. Methods applied and timeline (describing the way the problem will be looked upon, partial goals to be achieved and successive steps to be completed in order to answer the main question; the nature of empirical material that will be used, and the ways of its collection and analysis).
4. Assignment of the diploma thesis according to the requirements specified in the "Methodical instructions for writing bachelor's and master's theses at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Economics in Prague", in the range of 20-30 lines.
Week no. 1-4: selection of a topic and a supervisor.
Week no. 5-8: elaboration of the project.
Week no. 9-13: revision of the project.
Bachelor Seminar (5HP310)
Course contents:
Week no. 1-2: topic selection and processing of the bachelor work in accordance with the binding Methodology for writing dissertations and theses on the Faculty of Economics (hereinafter the "Methodology"), which must contain:
– the aim of the work,
– importance, timeliness or expected benefit of the chosen topic,
– characteristics of the theoretical part of the thesis,
– characteristics of the practical part of the work.
Week no. 3-4: work structure
The elaboration of the logical architecture of the work is the first most challenging task which the student must process in accordance with the "Methodology" in the system chronology, when the following segments of work must be compatible:
Theme - assignment - structure of work - introduction - goal - conclusion.
At the same time, a suitable methodological apparatus, which will be used for the processing of both the theoretical and the practical part, must be established during this period.
Week no. 5-6: elaboration of the theoretical part of the bachelor thesis.
Week no. 7-12: practical part and final chapter of bachelor thesis.
Week no. 13: submission of work leading to approval of insertion of work into INSIS.