Long-Run Elasticity of the Substitution in the Slovak Economy

The value of the Slovak long-run elasticity substitution is relatively slow – about 0.10. It follows from the estimate of low-frequency econometric model. Econometric form is given by the capital demand derived from the first-order conditions of the firm maximizing its profit. Due to the robustness we use different measures of the economic variables. The basic data gathered from the National Bank of Slovakia data portal consists of the real and nominal output, nominal capital, output price and different interest rates. A challenge is to find real capital time series. One way is to use a net investment deflator computed from the real and nominal gross fixed investment and the consumption of the fixed capital. The low-pass filter of data series is used to measure the long-run value of variables. This work is licensed under a&nbsp;Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.</p

Analysis of Asymmetry in Slovak Gasoline and Diesel Retail Market

In this paper we examine if Slovak retail gasoline and diesel prices respond more quickly when crude oil price rises rather than when it decreases. The error correction model with irreversible behaviour of explanatory variables is considered to be basic tool for the analysis of asymmetric retail price reaction of gasoline and diesel. The explanatory variable is divided into two variables, the positive and the negative differences implying a price increase and a price decrease. Due to the link between the gasoline and diesel markets, we assume a common co-integration relationship. Therefore, we also estimate vector error correction model in our analysis. The both model approaches reject expected asymmetry in the retail price reactions on crude oil changes. This work is licensed under a&nbsp;Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.</p

Elasticity of Substitution in Post-Communist Economies

In our research we estimate the elasticity of substitution post-communist economies integrated in European Union. There are many approaches to estimate the production function coefficients as the elasticity of substitution. We argue that a frequency panel model is suitable econometric tool for our purposes. We derive the specification from the capital demand first-order condition of firm maximising its profit. Data are adapted from the World Penn Tables and World Development Indicators, World Bank. Data are modified with band-pass filter to abstract them from the business cycles and the short-term effects driven by different underlying processes. The filter creates overlapping observations, the stochastic term is serially correlated and therefore feasible generalized least squares estimator is used. Comparing the results with the relevant results in a world literature we estimate relatively low value of the elasticity of substitution in European post-communist countries. Possible explanations are discussed. This work is licensed under a&nbsp;Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.</p

Macroeconomic impacts of COVID-19 pandemic first wave in the world

The paper seeks to identify the essential global-economic macro-shocks resulting from efforts by consumers, firms, or government policies to reduce social distancing, which caused a sharp temporary change in the world economy during the pandemic outbreak in the second quarter of 2020. The purpose is fulfilled using a simple two-period real-business cycle model. The observed reaction of the global economy in the second period of 2020 is measured by the deviation of the time series of GDP and its components, labor, labor income, and average labor product in the USA and EU from the log-quadratic trend. The model can replicate the observed economic response by reducing the total factor productivity, labor demand, and labor supply—no need to assume sticky prices. As a sudden drop in performance is supposed, followed by a modest recovery already in the following period, it is not assumed that the government would be able to avert it in time with fiscal or monetary policy. Moreover, the assumption of variable prices and supply-side shocks does not support such a policy.

Asymmetric Reactions of Retail Gasoline Prices on the Changes in Crude Oil Prices in Chosen US Cities

Many empirical studies state that retail gasoline and diesel prices react more quickly when the crude oil price rises rather than decreases. In the paper, we confirm these asymmetric reactions of retail fuel prices in selected cities in the United States of America. We use the adjustment cost function in the linear-exponential form to derive nonlinear retail gasoline and diesel reaction functions. The correspondent model is estimated with the system\u27s generalised method of moments. The model allows us to compute average one-gallon gasoline and diesel price biases from the increase in oil by one dollar per barrel caused by the given asymmetric reactions. The average biases differ from city to city; their values are between 0.02 cents in Los Angeles and 0.44 cents in Cleveland