Vladimír Tomšík

External Balance in a Transition Economy: The Role of Foreign Direct Investments

This paper analyzes the development of the external balance in five Central and East European countries: Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia. The paper applies, expands, and empirically verifies the ideas of life-cycle theory in the area of the effects of foreign direct investment on the balance of payments in transition countries. The article defines and explores the basic general stages in the external balance of a transition country. The definition of the stages draws from a model of consumer behavior within the life-cycle theory. The external balance stages are defined as follows: young transition economy, mature transition economy, posttransition economy, and expanding economy. The paper develops a model that provides criteria that not only classify the current stage of each transition country, but also evaluate the success in the catching-up process of the country examined.

Reinvested Earnings Bias, the 'Five Percent' Rule and the Interpretation of the Balance of Payments - With an Application to Transition Economies

We show that the imputation of reinvested profits of the subsidiaries of foreign firms as a debit item on a host countrys balance of payments account tends to overstate the current account deficit. We also show that, because of the workings of the FDI financial life cycle, this phenomenon is most evident for countries that have recently received large inflows of capital. The transition economies of East Europe certainly fall among such countries, and we show that, for the Czech Republic and Hungary, this imputation has a large effect on their reported current account balance. We verify the working of the FDI financial life cycle using two different panels of developed, developing and transition economies.

Relativní verze teorie parity kupní síly: problémy empirické verifikace

The article discusses problems of the empirical verification of the relative version of the theory of purchasing power parity based on aggregated price indexes (especially using the consumer price index). The goal of the articles is to compare empirical results obtained from cross-country time series analysis using cointegration analysis, Error Correction Model, as well as VAR analysis. The authors tested 21 currency pairs of the U.S.A., Canada, Japan, Switzerland, the Great Britain, Norway, and Sweden in the period between 1975 and 2007. All tested time series were cointegrated of the first order with the exception of the consumer price index of Switzerland, which was cointegrated of the second order. The results of cointegration analysis are not very robust. This is explained by the authors as follows: existence of high transaction costs in an arbitrage, existence of complementary goods and oligopoly structure of exports, and expected back reaction between exchange rate and inflation.The article discusses problems of the empirical verification of the relative version of the theory of purchasing power parity based on aggregated price indexes (especially using the consumer price index). The goal of the articles is to compare empirical results obtained from cross-country time series analysis using cointegration analysis, Error Correction Model, as well as VAR analysis. The authors tested 21 currency pairs of the U.S.A., Canada, Japan, Switzerland, the Great Britain, Norway, and Sweden in the period between 1975 and 2007. All tested time series were cointegrated of the first order with the exception of the consumer price index of Switzerland, which was cointegrated of the second order. The results of cointegration analysis are not very robust. This is explained by the authors as follows: existence of high transaction costs in an arbitrage, existence of complementary goods and oligopoly structure of exports, and expected back reaction between exchange rate and inflation.

Dynamický model nekryté úrokové parity (teorie a empirická verifikace v tranzitivních ekonomikách)

The paper presents a dynamic approach to the theory of uncovered interest rate parity. It is examined the dynamic relation between the actual change in spot exchange rate and interest rate differential. Authors show the hypothesis of uncovered interest rate parity is based on an ex ante view and that is the reason that the expected change in spot exchange rate cannot be replaced by an ex post approach. The dynamic approach developed in the paper is empirically tested for five transitive countries of Central and Eastern Europe. The model is estimated using both VAR and cointegration analyses. The model of error correction is also included in the empirical verification of the model.