Journal of Economics - Obsahy ročníkov

We develop a tractable general equilibrium model to analyze the welfare implications of a biofuel blend mandate and consumption subsidy in the presence of pre-existing labor and fuel taxes. We find empirically that the tax interaction and revenue recycling effects are significant relative to the overall costs of the policies and previous partial equilibrium studies. We find that removing the tax credit used in combination with a binding mandate – which mirrors the expiration of the U.S. blender’s tax credit at the end of 2011 – yields a net welfare gain of only USD 9 million; this is significantly less than the welfare gain of USD 357 million attribu¬table to fiscal interaction effects. This interesting result is due to the binding nature of the mandate. We find that the welfare cost of the blend mandate alone is USD 8.3 billion, which includes a tax interaction effect of USD 1.54 billion. We also find empirically that the tax credit is welfare superior to the mandate for a given level of ethanol consumption because the fuel tax is above the external costs of greenhouse gas emissions. This result is robust to the presence or absence of the labor tax. Keywords: biofuel policies, blend mandate, blender’s tax credit, gasoline tax, greenhouse gas emissions, renewable fuel standard, second-best; JEL Classification: D58, D62, H21, H23, Q42, Q58

The paper develops a district-level gravity-type model of foreign direct investment (FDI) stock in Slovakia using Poisson Pseudo Maximum Likelihood estimation based on the most recent investment data compiled by the National Bank of Slovakia (NBS). Population and wages as well as distance from Bratislava, access to freeway and presence of universities are shown to be statistically significant determinants of FDI stock. The statistical significance of distance from regional capital and size of the largest city could not be established, which we believe is a result of the small size of Slovakia’s districts, dense network of public transportation and a low number of cities of the size required for agglomeration economies. The estimated single-core gravity-type model is robust to different specifica-tions of distance, use of different estimation methods and omission of outliers. Keywords: foreign direct investment, Slovakia, gravity model, PPML, freeways; JEL Classification: F21

The paper deals with the cross-border mergers of Czech enterprises within the Visegrad Group countries. It contains an analysis of the total number of cross-border mergers carried out in the years 2008 – 2016. This analysis has become the starting point for assessing the development of cross-border mergers in the years mentioned above, i.e. since the introduction of the Business Transformation Act into Czech law. An investigation was also made into whether there is an outflow of companies from the Czech Republic or whether the Czech Republic becomes the principal place of business for the successor company. The identified motives for mergers were verified through some indicators of the financial analysis of data about the merging companies. The issue of cross-border mergers is largely related to tax and accounting implications, which can be looked upon as motives for or barriers to merger implementation. In terms of taxes, the issue of transferring tax losses is examined as one of the motives for conducting mergers. In terms of accounting, some new items added to the final accounts are studied, and their impact on the balance sheet, profit and loss, and owner’s equity is evaluated. Keywords: cross-border mergers, Visegrad Group countries, tax loss, goodwill, valuation difference on assets acquired; JEL Classification: G34, K20, M21

The paper challenges the traditional assumption of stable factor shares introduced in the Cobb-Douglas production function. We analyse factor shares for 20 EU countries between 1995 – 2015 and find evidence for differences in labour shares across both countries and time. On the example of Slovakia, we demonstrate the impact of using different factor shares on output gap estimates quantified to reach up to 0.6 percentage points. Our research also confirms a positive correlation between the degree of economic development and relative labour shares. Keywords: Cobb-Douglas production function, factor shares, output gap, European Union, Slovakia; JEL Classification: E10, E20, E27, E32

The future success, vitality and viability of urban shopping areas in Slovakia have attracted considerable attention from academics and policymakers alike over the last few years. This paper reports the current state of the urban retail environment in Bratislava (Slovakia) as a result of various transition waves that reflect its changes over a forty-four year period (1967 – 2011). The outcome of this paper is the identification of concentric zones with the highest rates of changes based on analysis of old and new retail data from both temporal and spatial aspects. In addition to this, it also offers a variety of approaches to measuring the change of urban retail environment in a post-communist city. Keywords: retail transition, post-communist, Bratislava, spatial analysis; JEL Classification: L81, P25, R11, R12