The thesis deals with a monetary phenomenon of price deflation. In modern monetary theories, causes are sometimes confused with consequences. As to price deflation, consequences of causes of this phenomenon are often attributed to it while it is not a cause but a mere consequence. That's why we have identified causes of price deflation and their true consequences in the thesis. According to quantity theory of money, there are three main sources of price deflation as follows: decline in money supply, decline in velocity of circulation of money, and productivity growth. These causes are analyzed in detail, each of them in a single chapter. Price deflation is often associated with depressions while in some cases it might be a mere consequence of depression, not a cause. On the other hand, price deflation might also be a consequence of productivity growth (unless accommodated by increase in money supply) which makes it perfectly compatible with a healthy and growing economy.

The aim of the thesis is to find possible connections between the financial results of public budgets and the course of the political cycle in the Czech Republic. The analysis for the period of 1993 - 2010 focuses initially on the development of the overall deficit; subsequently the development of selected items of public revenues and expenditures is investigated. A fundamental part of the work is the separation of the cyclical deficit, arising from fluctuations in economic activity and the structural deficit, which is produced through specific measures of government fiscal policy. The results of the analysis indicate that with the approaching elections, there was a greater release of the fiscal policy. During the second half of the electoral cycles have also been reported higher structural deficits. However, the differences are not high enough to be considered as statistically significant.

The thesis consists of three empirical essays on the topics of self-employment, happiness and international trade. Essay 1 studies how immigrant self-employment entry is affected by the local business cycle in Sweden. Using the unemployment rate at the local labour market level as a proxy for the local business cycle, our study shows that the self-employment entry behaviour for native men and immigrant men is negatively affected by the unemployment rate, except for immigrants from Middle East. However, such a negative effect is quantitatively weaker among the non-European immigrants. Further, the result shows that immigrants from the Middle East are positively affected by the unemployment rate, meaning they are more likely to be pushed into self-employment in recessions. For women, we also find the unemployment rate has a negative impact on the self-employment decision of native women and immigrant women, except for the Middle East group. However, compared with men, the quantitative size of the unemployment rate effect on self-employment is smaller among women, implying the less important role of business cycle in determining females’ entry into self-employment. Essay 2 investigates the non-pecuniary return of self-employment in China. The results show that the life satisfaction of self-employed men is significantly higher than that of wage-employed men; the life satisfaction of self-employed women is not statistically significant different from that of wage-employed women. Moreover, we show that the life satisfaction of self-employed men in the informal sector is significantly higher than that of wage-employed men in the formal sector. The life satisfaction of wage-employed men in the informal sector is not significantly different from that of wage-employed men in the formal sector. For women, we find that there is no significant life satisfaction disparity between workers in the formal and informal sector. Finally, our job satisfaction data also concludes that self-employment in China is not inferior to wage employment. Essay 3 evaluates how Swedish manufacturing employment is affected by the increasing import competition from China. The results show that the growth of manufacturing employment is not statistically significant affected by the increasing import competition from China. Moreover, in general, the increasing import exposure from China does not significantly affect the employment growth of non-manufacturing sector either. Regarding the earnings, the analysis shows that the low wage earners in the manufacturing sector is not significantly affected by the increasing import penetration from China while median and high wage earners are positively affected.

The theme of this thesis is to analyze the development of the investment cycle in the Czech Republic in the years 2000-2012 and clarify the impact of defined development determinants of the investment. In the thesis, the investment environment in, which investors make decisions, is described and which the economic policy of the state affects. After the contribution analysis of individual growth components of GDP, the following statistically oriented section examines the level of investment, investment determinants and their mutual connection with GFCF. The work also contains an alternative view on the investment in the production sector, with the help of G. Reisman's GDR indicator. Finally, there are introduced others, not so well quantifiable factors that may also influence the formation and development of the investment cycle.

This thesis deals with short-term relationship between fiscal policy and the real economy. Thesis is divided into three thematic units. In the first part through the analysis of studies examining the size of fiscal multipliers concludes, that depending on the assumptions and selected time period is the size of the multipliers greater in economic recessions, at zero interest rates of central banks or bigger taciturnity of the economy. The multipliers for the Czech Republic are low and did not exceed the value of one. The thesis also analyzes the development of public finances in the years 1997 - 2013 and identifies as their basic problem the structural nature of deficits. As a possible tool to improve the inclination of public finance to the budget deficits are identified fiscal rules limiting public spending. This rule is fully compatible with the Stability and Growth Pact and meets the basic requirements - the clarity and flexibility.

The aim of the thesis is to reveal the relation between business cycle and the number of transactions considering mergers and acquisitions. For this purpose the appropriate macroeconomics indicators have been chosen. The base hypothesis, which stands for the procyclical development of transactions, was examined by regression analysis of panel dataset containing quarterly based data from The Visegrad Group countries in the period from 2000 to 2014. The ordinary least square method together with robust estimation of standard deviation provided the confirmation about positive relation of the quarter change of GDP as the main explanatory variable and the number of transactions. Nevertheless, more robust findings appeared in case of significance of stock markets and public debt. The positive relation of the stock price was proven to be in accordance with the behavioral theory. The increase in transaction activity is capitalized through the profit from the sold of overprized stocks. Unexpected result about positive relation of public debt required the specification of assumption about the lower preference of smooth consumption of The Visegrad group households.

The thesis is focused on verifying the pro-cyclical relationship of sales of new passenger cars in the Czech Republic and Slovakia and the subsequent evaluation of the impact of macroeconomic variables in the period from the first quarter of 2005 to the third quarter of 2015. In total, there are four different models estimated of multiple linear regressions of car sales, where for the Czech R. the estimation of different sectors of households and firms is available as well. By comparing the Czech R. and Slovakia regarding aggregate sales, fuel prices and gross domestic products are especially crucial and the pro-cyclical relationship is successfully verified. The economic crisis at the turn of 2008-2009 hit especially Slovakia, while the effect in the Czech R. was offset by a positive shock to fuel prices. For the model of households the procyclical relationship is denied unlike from the model of firms, shock to GDP therefore only deviate sales to firms. For Czech R. is also confirmed a significant relationship of the sales with interest rate or population growth.

The thesis is dedicated to clarifying the origins and main causes of the economic crisis. In the first part I ilustrate the connection between the monetary policies of central banks and the changes in structure of the production and investments with the help of Austrian Business Cycle Theory. These theoretical assumptions are confronted with the empirical findings from USA throughout the 20th century. The second part discusses other factors leading to the crises, mainly focusing on the 2009 economic crises and various free market and state controlled factors. The thesis discusses these factors from the point of view of theoretical and empirical knowledge of economic science.

The main topic of my thesis is the problem of monitoring business cycles. Composite leading indicators are one of the options, how to make this monitoring. In my thesis I am going inside of the process of construction of composite leading indicator. I am comparing the methods of OECD, Eurostat and Conference Board. Special attention is dedicated to the methods of czech institutions as well. These methods are still being evolved and improved, which makes the analysis more difficult. Together with all the information about business cycle and economic policy in Czech republic between 1993-2015. I am judgeing the functionality of leading indicators for the monitoring of business cycle. Method of my analysis is SWOT analysis so the result of this thesis is mentioning of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threaths of the making and application of composite leading indicators.

The thesis tests whether the impact of immigration on native workers differs depending on the business cycle. Previous studies proved that labour mobility and the effect of immigration differs with respect to the business cycle. For the expansionary years was found a sizable relocation of native workers to occupations with more interactive rather than manual content as a response to immigration. This is no longer the case for economy in recession period. However, there is null impact on native employment that does not change with the business cycle. The results were found for Spanish labour market and the conclusions about the employment all were found also for American labour market. The European labour market has been studied just in the period before crisis. Following the study about Spanish task specialization we would like to see if there is any change of impact of immigration on native task specialization in European Union. We split the data on the time period of expansion and the time period of economic crisis using the European Labour Force Survey. We would like to examine the effect of immigration on task specialization of natives on three groups of countries, West Europe, Germany and Middle and East Europe.