In order to reform the monopoly structure of the railway sector in the Czech Republic the railway operation was separated from railway infrastructure. Despite the mentioned organization reform current intensity of rivalry of the competition in the passenger rail transport segment stays considerably limited and high subsidy demands are made to ensure the public rail transport operation. This thesis analyses funding of the passenger rail transport and tries to discover the causes of high subsidy demands. It also tries to quantify potential savings of the public funds that are provided to operate long-distance passenger rail transport.

Existing research in labor economics has rarely accounted for non-profit status in examining wage dispersion. Contrariwise, in non-profit sector research, little has been said so far about (intra-organizational) wage dispersion. Scattered findings from previous work indicate that wage dispersion is smaller in non-profit organizations (NPOs) as compared to for-profits (FPOs). Fairness perceptions and high moral ideals of workers within this sector are often cited as reasons for this assumption. Empirically, however, the reasons for inter-sectoral differences remain obscure. In our analysis, we concentrate on specific characteristics of NPOs as compared to FPOs. More specifically, this paper is to address the question if volunteer workers, donations and public subsidies influence the within-firm wage dispersion in NPOs. In order to answer this research question we use Austrian matched employer-employee data collected in 2006. We estimate an instrument variable regression and find that NPOs that employ volunteer workers and NPOs with a more even mix between paid and unpaid staff display smaller wage dispersion. Donations and public subsidies augment the wage dispersion. (author's abstract) / Series: Working Papers / Institut für Sozialpolitik

In the first part of the thesis, the present state of the Prague theatre network is introduced and the preconditions and possibilities of its further development are discussed. The introduction is followed by the analysis of the funding of the Prague theatres and cultural policy focusing on the system of subsidies and grants, transformation of the theatre network and other means of support. In the second part of the thesis, a thorough analysis of the six theatre venues that have emerged in the last six years, namely Studio Hrdinů, Company.cz in Divadlo Komedie, Venuše ve Švehlovce, Vila Štvanice, Jatka 78 and Panoptikon Barikáda, is provided. The analysis focuses on various factors influencing the venues: their location, relationship with the lawful owner of the property, legal form, their relationship with the audience, and last but not least the way they are funded. In the conclusion, the comparison of the situation of the six venues is provided.

La thèse s’intéresse à l’impact des subventions publiques sur les décisions de production des agriculteurs. Elle analyse d’abord le lien entre subventions et efficacité technique des exploitations, puis examine les effets des subventions découplées sur la fourniture de services écosystémiques par les agriculteurs. L'influence des subventions sur le comportement des agriculteurs est une question importante dans le contexte de réformes successives des politiques agricoles. Il existe une vaste littérature sur cette question, mais celle-là présente trois limites majeures. D’une part, la littérature sur le sujet spécifique du lien entre subventions et efficacité technique repose sur une pléthore de modèles empiriques qui traitent les subventions de façon ad hoc. De plus, cette littérature est presqu’exclusivement basée sur des modèles statiques, alors que les décisions de production sont essentiellement dynamiques.D’autre part, peu de travaux analysent le rôle des subventions découplées en considérant la nature multitâche de l’agriculture. C’est pourquoi la thèse réalise tout d’abord une méta-analyse des résultats empiriques existants sur le lien entre subventions et efficacité technique, afin de contrôler les effets qui seraient dus aux méthodes utilisées. Les résultats indiquent que la modélisation des subventions comme outputs, ou l’utilisation du ratio subventions/revenu comme proxy, pourraient générer des résultats trompeurs. Ensuite, la thèse développe et estime un modèle de frontière dynamique ainsi qu’un modèle similaire mais statique. Les résultats montrent que le cadre statique surestime l'effet (négatif) des subventions sur l'efficacité technique. Enfin la thèse développe et teste un modèle d'agence multitâche indiquant que les aides découplées peuvent inciter les agriculteurs à fournir des services écosystémiques / The thesis focuses on the impact of public subsidies on farmers’ production decisions. It first concentrates on the link between public subsidies and farm technical efficiency, and then investigates the potential effects of decoupled subsidies on farmers’ provision of ecosystem services. The influence of public subsidies on farmers’ behaviour is an important policy question in the context of the successive reforms of agricultural policies. There exists an extensive literature on this question, but this literature has three main shortcomings. First, the literature on the specific topic of the subsidy-efficiency nexus relies on a plethora of empirical models in which subsidies are often treated in an ad hoc way. Second, this literature is almost exclusively based on static modelling, while most agricultural production decisions are dynamic in nature. Finally, in the literature on the incentive effects of decoupled subsidies, the multitasking nature of farming activities has receivedlittle attention. The thesis addresses these issues, first, by undertaking a meta-analysis of the existing empirical findings on the subsidy-efficiency nexus, in order to control for effects arising from the various methodologies used. The results show that modelling subsidies as outputs, or using the ratio of subsidies to farm revenue as a subsidy proxy, could lead to misleading results. Then, the thesis develops and estimates a dynamic frontier model; for comparison purposes, the static counterpart of this model is also estimated. The results indicate that the static framework overestimates the (detrimental) effect of subsidies on farm technical efficiency. Finally, the thesis develops and tests a multitasking agency model, indicating that decoupled subsidies could raise farmer's incentives to provide environmental services and ecologically sound production

Dans un contexte d’internationalisation de l’enseignement supérieur et de la recherche, nous nous intéressons à deux problématiques relatives aux dynamiques récentes des systèmes universitaires nationaux. D’abord, à partir d’une approche microéconomique par l’offre, nous montrons que le degré d’intervention publique et les capacités d’accueil non-rigides des établissements expliquent les divergences de frais d’inscription entre les systèmes universitaires régulés et dérégulés. Ensuite, à partir d’une approche macroéconomique par la demande, nous cherchons à appréhender les facteurs d’inélasticité de la demande à travers des modèles de gravité incluant des déterminants hors-prix de la mobilité internationale des étudiants / In a context of internationalization of higher education and research, we focus on two issues related to the recent dynamics of national university systems. First, from a supply microeconomic approach, we show that the level of public intervention and the non-rigid capacities of institutions explain the divergence of tuition fees between regulated and deregulated university systems. Then, from a macroeconomic demand approach, we try to underline the inelasticity of the demand from gravity models with non-price determinants of international student mobility