The Financial Impact of Government Policies on Families with Children in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia

In the presented paper we focus on the two ways in which family policy influences life of the society. Firstly, we discuss incentives that the family policy provides to families when they are deciding about having a child. Secondly, we describe the impact of family policies on standard of living and well-being of the families with children. European countries already acknowledged the fact that increase in the fertility rates would be natural solution of the ageing of the European population and family policy is seen as one of the tools available to achieve higher fertility rates. At the same time empirical evidence suggests that the families with children are overrepresented among the population at risk of poverty and family policy can be seen as an instrument for alleviating the financial burden of the families with children. Presented study compares the impact of the government policies on the net income of families with children in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. Comparative ana lysis of the birth grants, the maternity allowances, the child-rearing allowances and child allowances in the four examined countries is undertaken followed by the assessment of tax systems in these countries. Second part of the paper is devoted to the discussion of the income situation of the families with children in the four countries and tries to shed light on the impact of family benefit system on the households with dependent children. Our results indicate that family provisions in the Czech Republic and Hungary are relatively generous with the Czech system working simultaneously as a social assistance to poor families and the Hungarian system working on much less of a sliding scale of benefits. Poland provides only very modest financial support to families with children and the burden imposed by the parenthood is much heavier than in the three other countries. Czech and Slovak family support systems are similar in its structure but amounts paid to Slovak families are lower.Family policy, income taxation, subsidies, fertility, family benefits

The Impact of Social and Tax Policies on Families with Children: Comparative Study of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia

The paper compares the impact of government measures focused on families with children in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. The ageing of population and the decline in fertility rates will in future importantly influence economic as well as social environment in the European countries. One of the responses on declining fertility rates is the promotion of demographic renewal in Europe through various kinds of policy measures ranging from better availability of quality provisions for combining child care and work, child care facilities and family support. We focus on the overall financial impact of governmental policies on families with children in the four examined countries. The paper evaluates impact of government subsidies and tax systems in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia on the net income of families with children compared to the childless couples.family policy, income taxation, subsidies, fertility

Decision-making of the municipal council from the aspect of expression of citizens of the municipality and the content of the adopted decision

Municipalities represent the foundations of public administration in the Czech Republic, entrusted with an utterly irreplaceable role at the community level. They play this role thanks to charged competencies in wide-ranging areas of life by means of municipal bodies. The author focuses on certain problematic contemporary aspects of the decision-making process of a municipality - specifically the municipal council. Problematic aspects that the law has never efficiently regulated mainly include the requirement for professional knowledge of council members when making decisions on relevant questions, i.e. an erudite approach to decision-making, and the possibility of the citizen to engage into the decision-making process of a municipal council. The author believes that the impulse for analyzing the current legal regulation of this question is the permanently unsustainable approach of members of the municipal council, or the approach of the municipality itself, to this task entrusted by constitutional order and laws

Diffusion processes on complex networks

In this paper we apply agent-based methodology on an issue that is fundamental for economic prosperity and growth: the diffusion of innovations. The diffusion of innovations is one of the topics where agent-based simulation is an extremely fruitful method allowing not only the observation of stable states but also the process and development of the diffusion. Furthermore, empirical studies revealed that the topological structure of interactions among individuals importantly influences the diffusion's course and outcomes. We analyze diffusion outcomes for five different topologies, assuming markets where individuals are highly influenced by the adoption decision of their peers and innovations are introduced into the markets in two different ways: mass media campaigns and seeding procedures. Our results indicate that the topology of the relations among individuals importantly influences the speed and development of the diffusion process as well as final market penetration. Scale free topology seems to promote fast innovation diffusion, at the same time being characterized by the high uncertainty of the diffusion outcomes. Less heterogeneous networks (small worlds, two-dimensional lattice and ring) yield a much slower diffusion of the innovation, at the same time being much less unpredictable than scale free topology

The macroeconomic context of investments in the field of machine tools in the Czech Republic

The article focuses on the macroeconomic analysis of production, export, import and investment in machine tools in the Czech Republic in the context of the initiative of Industry 4.0. Machine tools (MT) are among traditional industries in the Czech Republic and the industry has an innovative and growth potential. However, the economic crisis may disrupt or modify this trend. The article focuses on the analysis of correlations between GDP growth and production of MT, MT exports and investments in MT in the Czech Republic after the accession to the European Union in 2004 during the economic crisis of 2009 and the post-crisis development until 2014. The results show that production and exports are directly related to fluctuations in GDP and the economic cycle, but domestic investment in machine tools did not show this dependence. It is necessary to capture new trends to increase the competitiveness of the MT industry. The course of recovery of Czech economy after the economic crisis of 2009 indicates signals of qualitative changes in the traditional field of machine tool production. Comparing the years 2013 and 2014, it shows that export MT (SITC 731) fell in 2014, although the total exports from the Czech Republic to Europe and to the world grew significantly

Technology adoption and herding behavior in complex social networks

Using a simple computational model, we study consequences of herding behavior in population of agents connected in networks with different topologies: random networks, small-world networks and scale-free networks. Agents sequentially choose between two technologies using very simple rules based on the previous choice of their immediate neighbors. We show that different seeding of technologies can lead to very different results in the choice of majority of agents. We mainly focus on the situation where one technology is seeded randomly while the other is directed to targeted (highly connected) agents. We show that even if the initial seeding is positively biased toward the first technology (more agents start with the choice of the first technology) the dynamic of the model can result in the majority choosing the second technology under the targeted hub approach. Even if the change to majority choice is highly improbable targeted seeding can lead to more favorable results. The explanation is that targeting hubs enhances the diffusion of the firm's own technology and halts or slows-down the adoption of the concurrent one. Comparison of the results for different network topologies also leads to the conclusion that the overall results are affected by the distribution of number of connections (degree) of individual agents, mainly by its variance

Comparison of Czech translations of drama Three Sisters by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

Tématem této bakalářské práce je srovnání českých překladů jedné z nejvýznamnějších her Antona Pavloviče Čechova - Tři sestry. Práce je uvedena interpretací celého dramatu, která je doplněná postřehy literárních vědců z českého, ruského i britského prostředí. V hlavní části práce jsou porovnávána rozličná překladatelská řešení, která aplikovali vybraní čeští překladatelé v našem i minulém století. Ke srovnání byly vybrány 3 překlady. Jedná se o překlad Leoše Suchařípy, který je v současné divadelní tvorbě nejvíce využíván, překlad Roberta Ibrahima, tedy nejnovější český překlad dramatu, a překlad Bořivoje Prusíka, který byl naopak vydán jako první. Jako odborná opora práce posloužilo především dílo významného českého translatologa Jiřího Levého. Cílem práce je zjistit, jak překladatelé zpřístupňují Čechovovo drama českému recipientovi.This bachelor thesis's theme is a comparison of Czech translations of one of the most significant play by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov - Three Sisters. This thesis is prefaced with an interpretation of the whole drama, which is supplemented with reflections by literary scientists from the Czech Republic, Russia and Great Britain. Different translation solutions which were applied by chosen Czech translators during the last and our century are analysed in the main part of the thesis. Three translations were chosen for the comparison. These are the translation by Leoš Suchařípa, which is the most often used translation in Czech theatres, the translation by Robert Ibrahim, which is the newest one, and the translation by Bořivoj Prusík, which was published first. The work of the important Czech translatologist Jiří Levý was used as an expert support for this thesis. The goal of this thesis is to find out, how translators introduce Chekhov's drama to Czech recipients.Institute of East European StudiesÚstav východoevropských studiíFilozofická fakultaFaculty of Art