Kamil Galuscak

... of Greece (email: dnikolitsa@bankofgreece.gr); Frank Smets, European Central Bank (e-mail: frank.smets@ecb.int); Pawel Strzelecki, National Bank of Poland (e-mail: pawel.strzelecki@mail. nbp.pl); Matija Vodopivec, Bank of Slovenia (email: Matija.Vodopivec@bsi ... 2 Foster et al ...

We develop a methodology for identifying financially distressed households and use it for testing the responses to shocks to the unemployment rate, the interest rate and prices of essential expenditure in the Czech Republic. We extend the approach of Johansson and Persson (2006) for Sweden and Albacete and Fessler (2010) for Austria to allow for full labour market transitions between employment and unemployment, and, due to data availability, to account for heads and spouses within households. This improvement may lead to a higher response of household distress incidence due to the unemployment rate shock than in both Sweden and Austria, while the effects due to the interest rate shock are of similar size as in Austria. We illustrate the use of our approach for stress testing households’ ability to pay their debts using macroeconomic scenarios from the CNB’s official forecast and from the CNB’s Financial Stability Report. The results highlight the importance of using micro-level dat...

We investigate to what extent high net replacement rates between non-work and work household income may distort work incentives. Using a microsimulation model, we find that net replacement rates are particularly high for households with a working partner and children. While net replacement rates decreased moderately between 1996 and 2006 as wages rose faster than social benefits, the incidence of unemployment traps remains high. In particular, about a third of all employed individuals have a low incentive to avoid short spells of unemployment with the unemployment benefits provided, while unemployment traps are also widespread among the unemployed. The incidence of unemployment traps increased further in 2007 despite a reform of benefits. In particular, housing benefit, which was overhauled to reflect housing costs, increases net replacement rates, distorting work incentives particularly among households with children. In addition, the rise in parental allowance may lock eligible in...

We investigate whether microfoundations might increase the predictive power of macroeconomic models of wage inflation. By comparing past predictions to observed values, we find that the Phillips curve with the average unemployment rate in districts with prevalently low unemployment rates delivers more accurate predictions of aggregated wage inflation than the Phillips curve with the overall unemployment rate. The identification of specific groups of districts is based on our estimates of the wage curve at the regional level, i.e. the relationship between the regional level of wages and regional unemployment. Real wages adjust to changes in local unemployment in districts with low unemployment rates, a low share of public sector employment, and for the short-term unemployed. On the other hand, the welfare system might represent a floor preventing downward wage adjustments in districts with high unemployment rates and for the long-term unemployed. In the public sector, wages are negot...

The paper reports how Czech firms reacted to changes in economic conditions in the aftermath of the global financial crisis of 2008–2009 until 2013 and identifies specific patterns of employment, wage and price adjustment by firms. The results are drawn from a survey of firms conducted within the third wave of the ESCB Wage Dynamics Network (WDN3). Overall, while changes in demand were both positive and negative over the period, aggregate wage growth remained low, although more firms experienced an increase in average productivity over labour costs than a decline. Labour cost reduction was achieved mainly by reduction of new hires and by individual layoffs. The main obstacles to hiring workers were uncertainty about economic conditions, high payroll taxes and a shortage of labour with the required skills. The frequency of wage changes was lower in 2010–2013 than before and was attributed by firms inter alia to stronger competition. Wage freezes and wage cuts were still in use, w...

We investigate the extensive and intensive margins of trade of Czech firms in periods before, during and after the crisis of 2008-2009. The intensive margin explains most of the aggregate export growth in 2006-2014, which corroborates previous findings for other countries. The contribution of the extensive margin is smaller, explaining on average 39% of the aggregate export growth in 2006-2007 and around 25% to 30% of that in the post-crisis period. The lower contribution of the extensive margin may signal a lower rate of convergence of the Czech economy. The results indicate that the crisis had a more severe impact on small exporting firms and that exports to countries outside the EU gained more prominence in the post-crisis years. Our results are similar to findings from previous studies on the impact of participation in global value chains on firms' trade. Specifically, a more negative impact of the crisis was observed for exports with higher import intensity. Overall, our re...

In this volume we investigate the macroeconomic aspects of labour market behaviour and its microfoundations. In the first part we deal with aggregate labour market trends and issues relevant to macroeconomic policy. The second part analyses in more detail labour flexibility, namely labour market flows, long-term unemployment and labour force deprivation. The third part addresses wage flexibility and relative wages, with special attention paid to regional unemployment elasticity of wages and returns to education. Worsening labour market performance can be seen especially in a rising NAIRU, declining labour mobility, labour deprivation due to long-term unemployment, skill mismatch and emerging signs of inflexibility in wage structures. Our conclusions are of use for both macroeconomic and labour market policies, signalling, among other messages, limitations on potential output growth stemming from deteriorated labour market performance and a need for institutional and structural chang...

We present a set of practical applications of the household sector stress testing approach used at the Czech National Bank. The CNB has been conducting stress tests of households once a year since 2011. The test results are published in its Financial Stability Reports. The aim is to test households’ ability to repay their loans in the event of extremely adverse economic developments. Besides this, the household stress test has so far been used for two other purposes: (i) to construct a simple reverse stress test and explore the sensitivity of Czech households to a rise in loan interest rates and a decline in income, and (ii) to provide some supportive evidence for the calibration of debt service-to-income limits.

We explain movements in the UV space, i.e. the relationship between stocks of unemployment and vacancies known as the Beveridge curve, in the Czech Republic during 1995-2004. While the Beveridge curve is described by labour market stocks, we explain shifts in the Beveridge curve using gross labour market flows by estimating the matching function. We interpret parameter changes in the matching function during the business cycle, distinguishing cyclical and structural changes in the unemployment rate. We find that labour market flows are very good coincidence predictors of turning points in the business cycle. We show that the Czech economy already suffers from the labour market hysteresis common in many other developed market economies in the EU.

Using net replacement rates between net household income while out of work and in work, the authors investigate to what extent taxes and benefits may affect work incentives. They find that in 2006, net replacement rates are higher for low-income households and for households with children and a partner, attenuating work incentives. Work incentives are significantly affected by eligibility rules and the amounts of benefits, particularly unemployment benefit and social assistance. Next, the authors examine how the reform of social benefits introduced in 2007 affects work incentives. While social assistance is less generous, diminishing the incidence of high net replacement rates, the reform gives preferential treatment to households with some work income. Net replacement rates are also higher for households with children, who receive a substantially higher housing benefit, but some less well-off households consequently receive less social assistance. The authors also see that increase...

We develop a methodology for identifying financially distressed households and use it for testing the responses to shocks to the unemployment rate, the interest rate and prices of essential expenditure in the Czech Republic. We extend the approach of Johansson and Persson (2006) for Sweden and Albacete and Fessler (2010) for Austria to allow for full labour market transitions between employment and unemployment, and, due to data availability, to account for heads and spouses within households. This improvement may lead to a higher response of household distress incidence due to the unemployment rate shock than in both Sweden and Austria, while the effects due to the interest rate shock are of similar size as in Austria. We illustrate the use of our approach for stress testing households’ ability to pay their debts using macroeconomic scenarios from the CNB’s official forecast and from the CNB’s Financial Stability Report. The results highlight the importance of using micro-lev...

This article sets out to describe an expanded and refined framework for stress testing the household sector. In contrast to the original tests conducted by the Czech National Bank since 2011, the new framework incorporates modelling of transitions between employment and unemployment at the level of individual household members. Another advance is the incorporation of interest rates into the stress tests, with growth in rates affecting monthly loan instalments. As well as discussing the approaches to this issue used in other countries, the article presents empirical results from the expanded framework expressing the percentage of distressed households in each income group following the application of the macroeconomic scenarios considered.

Using the Albrecht et al. (2003) version of the Machado and Mata (2005) decomposition technique along the wage distribution, we find that immigrant workers do not affect changes in the Czech wage structure between 2002 and 2006 despite their substantial inflows. Instead, changes in the wage structure are explained solely by increasing returns of native workers, while changes in the observed characteristics of native workers, particularly a rising level of education, are responsible for increasing wage dispersion. The sizeable inflows of foreign workers in the sample years are concentrated among young workers with primary and tertiary education and are primarily due to rising labour demand. The negative immigrant-native wage gaps are persistent along the wage distribution and are explained mainly by differences in observed characteristics. We provide evidence on increasing returns to education of native workers along the wage distribution. The returns are higher in 2006 than in 2002,...

Abstract This paper investigates the extent to which cross-country differences in aggregate participation rates can be explained by differences in tax-benefit systems. We take the example of two countries, the Czech Republic and Hungary, which – despite a lot of similarities – differ markedly in labour force participation rates. Using comparable individual-level labour supply estimates, we simulate how the aggregate participation rate would change in one country if the other country’s tax and social welfare system were adopted. The estimation results for the two countries are quite similar, suggesting that individual preferences are essentially identical in the two countries. The simulation results show that about one-third of the difference in the participation rates of the 15–74 year-old population and more than two-thirds of the participation of the prime-age population can be explained by differences in the tax-benefit systems.

We present a set of practical applications of the household sector stress testing approach used at the Czech National Bank. The aim is to test households’ ability to repay their loans in the event of extremely adverse economic developments. Besides this, the household sector stress test methodology has so far been used for two other purposes: (i) to construct a simple reverse stress test and explore the sensitivity of Czech households to a rise in loan interest rates and a decline in income, and (ii) to provide some supportive evidence for the calibration of debt service-to-income limits.

Abstract We develop a methodology for identifying financially distressed households and use it for testing the responses to shocks to the unemployment rate, the interest rate and prices of essential expenditure in the Czech Republic. We extend the approach of Johansson and Persson (2006) for Sweden and Albacete and Fessler (2010) for Austria in the literature to allow for full labour market transitions between employment and unemployment, and, due to data availability, to account for heads and spouses within households. This improvement may lead to a higher response of household distress incidence, due to the unemployment rate shock, than in both Sweden and Austria, while the effects due to the interest rate shock are of similar size as in Austria. We illustrate the use of our approach for stress testing households’ ability to pay their debts using macroeconomic scenarios from the CNB’s official forecast and from the CNB’s Financial Stability Report. The results highlight the importance of using micro-level datasets in the analysis of household distress incidence, as the impact of shocks is more pronounced among lower-income households.

Drawing on firms’ reactions to the changing macroeconomic conditions prior to and after the global financial crisis of 2008–09, this article presents evidence for the state dependence of wage setting. Further, the article investigates the underlying mechanisms of state dependence by distinguishing between firms’ general characteristics and financial performance and the environment in which firms operate. The results, based on a survey of Czech firms, show that the frequency of wage adjustment is higher for large firms, foreign-owned firms, firms covered by collective agreements, firms in good financial condition, and firms facing positive shocks, while negative demand shocks and strong competition reduce the frequency of wage adjustment.

Related works: Book: Analyses of the Czech Republic's Current Economic Alignment with the Euro Area 2005 (2005) Book: Analyses of the Czech Republic's Current Economic Alignment with the Euro Area 2007 (2007) Book: Analyses of the Czech Republic's Current ...

... This document is available on the Banque de France Website “www.banque-france.fr”. Page 3. The Exchange Rate Pass-Through in the New EU Member States ∗ Ramona Jimborean† ∗I am grateful to Balász Égert, Pavel Diev and Matthieu Bussi`ere, as well as participants at ...

ABSTRACT Drawing from confidential firm-level balance sheets in 11 European countries, the paper presents a novel sectoral database of comparable productivity indicators built by members of the Competitiveness Research Network (CompNet) using a newly developed research infrastructure. Beyond aggregate information available from industry statistics of Eurostat or EU KLEMS, the paper provides information on the distribution of firms across several dimensions related to competitiveness, e.g. productivity and size. The database comprises so far 11 countries, with information for 58 sectors over the period 1995-2011. The paper documents the development of the new research infrastructure, describes the database, and shows some preliminary results. Among them, it shows that there is large heterogeneity in terms of firm productivity or size within narrowly defined industries in all countries. Productivity, and above all, size distribution are very skewed across countries, with a thick left-tail of low productive firms. Moreover, firms at both ends of the distribution show very different dynamics in terms of productivity and unit labour costs. Within-sector heterogeneity and productivity dispersion are positively correlated to aggregate productivity given the possibility of reallocating resources from less to more productive firms. To this extent, we show how allocative efficiency varies across countries, and more interestingly, over different periods of time. Finally, we apply the new database to illustrate the importance of productivity dispersion to explain aggregate trade results.