The Czech Labour Market: From “Success Story” to Painful Reality (in English)

(Guest editor's summary)

The Labor Market in the Czech Republic: Trends, Policies, and Attitudes (in English)

The Czech Republic is no longer an employment haven, the site of what had been declared as an “unemployment miracle.” What happened? In this paper, the authors gather various statistical and sociological data on employment and unemployment trends, wage development, and workers’ opinions and their labor market strategies, taken from various surveys. In such manner, not only is the history of the Czech labor market over the past decade written, but also the reasons for the deteriorating labor market performance are addressed, and an appropriate policy agenda is outlined. In particular, the authors identify existing labor market rigidities and show that high unemployment here proceeds in an ever-widening gyre, resulting in the emergence of the unemployment trap and benefit dependency. Active labor market policy measures alone appear to be insufficient to deal with this problem.employment and unemployment structures, labor market policy, labor mobility, minimum wage, social and unemployment benefits, wage inflation and differentiation

Sectoral Productivity and Real Exchange Rate Appreciation: Much Ado about Nothing?

Using panel data for selected national economies, we estimate relative price changes stemming from fluctuations in sectoral productivity. Subsequently, we calculate the cross-country CPIinflation differentials implied by sectorally unbalanced productivity growth, taking into account country-specific weights of non-tradables in consumption (value added) and assuming there are no adjustments in nominal exchange rates. We find that sectoral productivity developments have a statistically significant impact on relative prices in the EU countries and also in the Czech Republic, but the magnitude of the impact is not as strong as the Balassa-Samuelson Effect (BSEF) would predict. The final impact of relative productivity on inflation (on the real exchange rate) is even weaker, and moreover, in the case of the Czech Republic the impact is negligible. Thus, contrary to the prevailing view, we question the meaning of the BSEF as a plausible explanatory variable of (equilibrium) real exchange rate determination in the Czech Republic. The same situation we simulate for the future, should productivity growth in the traded sector not accelerate dramatically.Balassa-Samuelson Effect, cross-country inflation differentials, nominal and real convergence, real exchange rates.

On the Dynamics of Quasi-Self-Matings of Generalized Starlike Complex Quadratics and the Structure of the Mated Julia Sets

It has been shown that, in many cases, Julia sets of complex polynomials can be glued together to obtain a new Julia set homeomorphic to a Julia set of a rational map; the dynamics of the two polynomials are reflected in the dynamics of the mated rational map. Here, I investigate the Julia sets of self-matings of generalized starlike quadratic polynomials, which enjoy relatively simple combinatorics. The points in the Julia sets of the mated rational maps are completely classified according to their topology. The presence and location of buried points in these Julia sets are addressed. The interconnections between complex dynamics, combinatorics, symbolic dynamics and Thurston\u27s lamination theory are explored and utilized. The results are then extended to quasi-self-matings

The focus control unit for the optical microscope

Cílem bakalářské práce bylo zaměřit se na problematiku vytváření fotografií s velkou hloubkou ostrosti, které jsou vytvářeny na elektronicky řízeném optickém mikroskopu s fotografickým přístrojem. Modul Arduino s mikrokontrolérem řady ATMega (Atmel Corporation), který byl vybrán pro řízení ovládacího zařízení, byl podrobněji popsán v další části práce. Práce zahrnuje návrh a realizaci řídicí jednotky, která automatizuje proces pořizování digitálních fotografií z mikroskopu. Řídicí jednotka obsahuje modul Arduino s procesorem ATMega328, který ovládá krokový motor připojený na ostření mikroskopu JENAVERT (Carl Zeiss). Zařízení komunikuje s uživatelem pomocí tlačítek a LCD displeje.The aim of bachelor thesis was to focus on the issue of creating photos with great depth of field, which are developed on an electronically controlled optical microscope with photographic equipment. Arduino module with a series ATMega (Atmel Corporation) microcontroller, that was selected for management control device has been described in detail in the next section. Work includes the design and implementation of the control unit, which automates the process of capturing digital images from the microscope. The control unit contains a module Arduino with ATmega328 processor, which controls the stepper motor connected to focus of the JENAVERT microscope (Carl Zeiss). Device communicates with the user by buttons and LCD display.

Sectoral Productivity and Real Exchange Rate Appreciation: Much Ado about Nothing?

Using panel data for selected national economies, we estimate relative price changes stemming from fluctuations in sectoral productivity. Subsequently, we calculate the cross-country CPI-inflation differentials implied by sectorally unbalanced productivity growth, taking into account country-specific weights of nontradables in consumption (value added) and assuming there are no adjustments in nominal exchange rates. We find that sectoral productivity developments have a statistically significant impact on relative prices in the EU countries and also in the Czech Republic, but the magnitude of the impact is not as strong as the Balassa-Samuelson Effect (BSEF) would predict. The final impact of relative productivity on inflation (on the real exchange rate) is even weaker and, moreover, in the case of the Czech Republic the impact is negligible. Thus, contrary to the prevailing view, we question the meaning of the BSEF as a plausible explanatory variable of (equilibrium) real exchange rate determination in the Czech Republic. The same situation we simulate for the future, provided productivity growth in the traded sector does not accelerate dramatically.Balassa-Samuelson effect; cross-country inflation differentials; nominal and real convergence; real exchange rates

Supply-Side Performance and Structure in the Czech Republic (1995-2005)

In this paper, we apply the aggregate production function to approximate the path of potential output. We use a time-varying NAIRU to derive the amount of potential labour and a newly developed measure of capital services to account for the productive impact of capital. In addition, trend total factor productivity is estimated. Production functions for the key sectors (Agriculture, Industry, etc.) are also calculated, exploring the growth accounting approach and decomposition of total factor productivity growth. During 1995--2005, the growth in potential output was constrained by a gradual increase in the NAIRU, a temporary drop in investment activity and, most importantly, by only a modest rise in total factor productivity. In this period, the Czech economy also suffered from a structural burden, i.e. all growth in total factor productivity was exclusively due to better utilisation of resources, given their initial allocation, with an even negative contribution of resource reallocation. Just from 2001 onwards, we observe substantial improvements in supply-side performance, except for the functioning of the labour market.. Capital services, factor allocation and utilisation, growth accounting, NAIRU, potential output, production function, structural changes, total factor productivity.

Youth Labour Flows and Unemployment in Great Recession: Comparing Spain and the Czech Republic

Using Spain and the Czech Republic as examples of two EU countries with different labour market performance, we apply a gross flow analysis based on EU-SILC longitudinal data. We find that while in Spain the increases in youth unemployment are driven mostly by young people who lose their jobs, in the Czech Republic, this is mainly due to new labour market entrants who failed to find a job. The analysis of flow transition rates suggests that youth labour markets with enormously high unemployment rates have not failed in all relevant respects. Their development seems to be hindered predominantly by high risk of job losses and diminishing employment prospects of the unemployed, rather than by impeded transitions from inactivity to employment. In countries with lower youth unemployment rates, unemployment policy agenda appears to be challenged by quite the opposite tendency

CAISA at SemEval-2023 Task 8: Counterfactual Data Augmentation for Mitigating Class Imbalance in Causal Claim Identification

The class imbalance problem can cause machine learning models to produce an undesirable performance on the minority class as well as the whole dataset. Using data augmentation techniques to increase the number of samples is one way to tackle this problem. We introduce a novel counterfactual data augmentation by verb replacement for the identification of medical claims. In addition, we investigate the impact of this method and compare it with 3 other data augmentation techniques, showing that the proposed method can result in a significant (relative) improvement in the minority class