The aim of the thesis was to develop an effective hedge strategy for a Czech importing pharmaceutical company. To this goal, I used both theoretical knowledge from the first and second chapter, and internal data of the company. Particularly, this thesis is dedicated to its management, however, it may also inspire those who are interested in this issue.

This thesis occupies with the design of the road bridge over the stream Živný, a railway lane and a projected road between Běleč village and Husinec village. There are designed three variants of bridges. The variant no. 1 – continuous box girded beam – was chosen for the detailed analysis. The pre-stressed concrete road bridge is designed and evaluated according to European standards – Euro codes. The sequential construction influence and its impact on the construction is also considered in the calculations. The drawing documentation and the visualization of the bridge are made.

Cette thèse se compose de trois articles empiriques appliquant à divers sujets des techniques d'économétrie sur données de panel. L'article principal étudie l'évolution de la transmission des prix des trois principales céréales (blé, maïs, riz) des marchés internationaux vers les producteurs domestiques pour 52 pays sur la période 1970-2013, et cherche à identifier les principaux facteurs expliquant l'hétérogénéité des pass-through. Le second article mesure l'élasticité du trafic aérien au produit intérieur brut dans le monde et met en évidence la grande stabilité de la relation tant dans le temps que d'une région à l'autre. Enfin, le troisième article modélise le mécanisme de fixation du taux de rendement servi par les assureurs français à leurs clients sur les produits d'assurance-vie. / This dissertation is composed of three empirical articles resorting to econometric methods in panel data analysis to address various research questions. The main article investigates the evolution of the level of price transmission for the three major cereals (wheat, maize and rice) from the international commodity markets down to the local producers for 52 countries between 1970 and 2013 while attempting to identify the main drivers of the heterogeneity in pass-through. The second article measures the elasticity of air-traffic to GDP around the world and demonstrates that the relationship is very stable across régions and through time. Eventually, the third article models the mechanisms through which French life-insurers set the rate of return they pay annually to their policyholders.

Suite à la crise financière de 2007, les outils de politique monétaire conventionnelle se sont avérés insuffisants pour stabiliser l'économie et empêcher la diffusion de la crise financière. Les banques centrales ont de fait mis en place des politiques monétaires non conventionnelles. L’objectif de cette thèse est de participer à la compréhension théorique et empirique des politique monétaires non conventionnelles en concentrant nos efforts de modélisation sur la nature non-linéaire de la crise financière. Les deux premiers chapitres de cette thèse développent des modèles DSGE incorporant des contraintes de crédit occasionnellement saturées de manière à capturer la nature transitoire des phénomènes de crise. Dans le premier chapitre - obtenu dans un cadre d'économie fermée - un résultat notable est que les politiques d’assouplissement quantitatif diminuent bien l’amplitude de la crise, mais augmentent sa durée. Dans le deuxième chapitre, lorsque l’on implémente des programmes d’assouplissement quantitatif au niveau d'une union monétaire hétérogène constituée de deux pays, se pose le problème des hétérogénéités entre les pays membres de cette union. Nous trouvons qu’il est toujours plus intéressant pour la banque centrale de concentrer ses achats de titres dans les pays de l’union les plus touchés par la crise financière. De plus, un niveau intermédiaire d’intégration financière permet de minimiser les conséquences de la crise au niveau de l’union monétaire dans son ensemble. Dans le troisième chapitre, nous utilisons un modèle Markov-Switching VAR Bayésien pour comparer l’efficacité des politiques d’assouplissement quantitatif en période de crise et en période normale. Alors que les programmes d’assouplissement quantitatif sont particulièrement efficaces en période de crise, nous ne trouvons aucun effet significatif de ces programmes sur les variables macroéconomiques lorsque l'économie retourne à son état initial. / Following the 2007 financial crisis, conventional monetary policy tools prooved insufficient to stabilize the macroeconomy and to avoid a financial disruption. As a consequence, central banks relied more heavily on unconventional monetary policy tools. This thesis aims at contributing to the understanding of unconventional monetary policy tools, focusing on the inherently non-linear nature of financial crises. In the first two chapters, we use DSGE models with occasionally binding credit constraints to account for the transitory nature of financial disruption events. In chapter one, in the case of a closed economy, we find that quantitative easing decreases the magnitude of the crisis but increases its duration. Still, when looking for intertemporal effects of quantitative easing programs, it appears that they are always welfare improving. In chapter two, when implementing quantitative easing on a two country monetary union, comes the question of how to deal with heterogeneities between members. We find that it is always better to implement nationaly tailored quantitative easing programs. Finally, an intermediate degree of financial integration proves optimal to dampen the macroeconomic consequences of the financial crisis on the overall monetary union. In the third chapter, we use a Markov-Switching Bayesian VAR model to compare the efficiency of quantitative easing in normal times versus financial crisis times. While quantitative easing programs are highly efficient during financial crisis times, we find no significant effect of these programs when the economy goes back to normal times.

L'objectif de cette thèse est d'évaluer la conduite des politiques macroprudentielles dans une union monétaire hétérogène, comme la zone euro, en s'appuyant sur les très récents développements théoriques et empiriques des modèles en équilibre général dynamique stochastique (DSGE) et de l'économétrie Bayésienne. Dans notre analyse, nous considérons deux faits majeurs caractérisant l'Eurosystème: la divergence des cycles économiques entre le cœur et la périphérie de la zone et l'intégration bancaire à l'origine de spillovers lors de la mise en œuvre de politiques macroprudentielles. Voici les résultats que nous tirons de nos expérimentations. D'abord, la mise en œuvre des mesures de politique macroprudentielle améliore le bien-être au niveau de l'union. Les gains de bien-être plus élevés sont observés lorsque les pays utilisent plusieurs instruments et lorsque la politique macroprudentielle est mise en œuvre de manière granulaire. Cependant, la conduite de la politique macroprudentielle n'est pas forcément bénéfique pour tous les pays participants: dans la plupart des cas, les pays périphériques sont gagnants tandis que les pays du cœur enregistrent des faibles gains de bien-être voire parfois des pertes. Dans nos simulations, nous constatons qu'il existe un équilibre favorisant le bien-être à la fois aux niveaux mondial et national pour tous les participants mais sa réalisation nécessite une intervention d'une autorité fédérale telle l'ESRB. Enfin, l'introduction de prêts transfrontaliers ouvre un nouveau canal de transmission international important qui tend à augmenter les gains de bien-être associées à des mesures macroprudentielles. Ignorer ces prêts bancaires transfrontaliers peut conduire à des résultats fallacieux dans le classement des différents plans d'instauration de la politique macroprudentielle. / The aim of this thesis is to evaluate the conduct of macroprudential policies in an heterogenous monetary union, such as the Eurozone, by borrowing on the very recent theoretical and empirical developments of Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) models and Bayesian econometrics. We account for two main patterns of the Eurosystem: the business cycles divergence between core and peripheral countries and the globalization of banking and its spillovers when implementing macroprudential policies. As a main result, the implementation of macroprudential policy measures improves welfare at the global level. The highest welfare gains are observed when countries use multiple instruments and when macroprudential policy is implemented in a granular fashion. However, the conduct of macroprudential policy is not a free lunch for participating countries: in most situations, peripheral countries are winners while core countries record either smaller welfare gains or even welfare losses. In many policy experiments, we find that there exists an equilibrium that combines welfare increases at both the global and national levels for all participants but its enforceability requires a federal action, thus justifying the existence of a coordination mechanism such as the ESRB in the Eurozone. Finally, the possibility of banks to engage in cross border lending introduces an important spillover channel that tends to increase the welfare gains associated to macroprudential measures. Ignoring this phenomenon may lead to fallacious results in terms of the welfare ranking of alternative implementation schemes.

Throughout the 1900s, the English subject has gone through massive change in the Swedish school system. The main focus has always been on the British standard, with the United Kingdom as the model for all who study English or educate students. In the past decades, the American standard has been increasingly popular amongst the younger generations which leads to a mismatch between the experiences in school versus the ones outside of school. In light of Brexit and a shift away from Britain, there is cause to believe that this will also impact the educational system. With Euro-English being discussed amongst English scholars, there is reason to believe in a trickle-down effect on young students and teachers as well. This study consists of a survey as well as semi- structured interviews to see what attitude students and teachers have towards British English, American English as well as Euro-English. It will also investigate what impact that may have on the education system as of now as well as the future if nothing changes or if there is no change in the curriculum. The results show growing interest in American English or variations such as Euro-English that are the result of mixture. The results also show teachers being hesitant towards Euro-English, but with an interest due to the value of English varieties overall. Furthermore, the results may be an indicator of an upcoming gap in the education system if Euro-English remains ignored.

In 2010, the reverberations of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis had created a whole new crisis in Europe. Five Eurozone countries, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, and Cyprus all had requested financial aid packages, unable to repay their national debt. The crisis is ongoing in Europe ever since, becoming the greatest challenge presented to the Eurozone since the monetary union was formed. The intent of this thesis is to explore the effects of the Eurozone crisis on the political systems of Germany, France, and the United Kingdom. This thesis will study the effects utilizing the most prominent perspectives in political economy: neoliberalism, neomercantilism, and structuralism. This thesis also attempts to explain the recent rise in Euroscepticism in each country, whilst seeking an explanation in the rise in three Eurosceptic parties: Alternative für Deutschland from Germany, National Front from France, and the United Kingdom Independence Party. Lastly, this thesis conducts a comparative analysis to find the common elements in each case study, as well as the areas in which the studies diverge.

This essay examines the relationship between exchange rate volatility, estimated using a GARCH model, and level of trade for Sweden and Finland. The data used was collected from Refinitive Eikon Datastream with monthly observations for the time period January 2005 - December 2022. The obtained results indicate that the volatility of the Swedish Krona and Euro positively increases the level of trade for Sweden respectively Finland according to the ARDL model. However, while examining different time perspectives the conclusions resulted in inconclusiveness for the countries and perspectives. The ARDL bounds test for Sweden corresponded with inconclusive results regarding a possible positive long term relationship between SEKs exchange rate volatility and level of trade. Furthermore, the Granger causality test did not state a short term relationship between the two variables for Sweden nor did it state a reversed relationship. On the other hand, for Finland, the ARDL bounds test and Granger causality test denied both a long term and short term positive relationship between the EURs exchange rate volatility and level of trade for Finland. However, for Finland a reversed Granger causality test was shown indicating that the level of trade has an impact on the volatility of the EURs exchange rate.

In recent years, there have been remarkable advancements in automated driving systems. Consumer protection organizations, such as Euro NCAP, play a pivotal role in enhancing the overall safety of these modern vehicles. While previous emphasis has been on passive safety, the significance of active safety systems has surged in recent years. Evaluating the performance of these systems now relies on standardized test scenarios designed to simulate real-world accidents. Addressing this challenge, the future necessitates the incorporation of virtual methods to supplement traditional track tests. Given the complex nature of high-dimensional test cases, an exhaustive grid search is exceedingly time-consuming. In light of this challenge, we present a novel testing method utilizing search-based testing with Bayesian Optimization to efficiently navigate and explore the expansive search space of Euro NCAP CCR scenarios to identify the performance-critical scenarios. The methodology incorporates the Brake Threat Number as a robust criticality metric within the fitness function, providing a reliable indicator for assessing the inevitability of collisions. Furthermore, the research utilizes a surrogate model derived from the evaluation points used by the optimization algorithm to determine the performance-critical boundary that separates the critical and the non-critical scenarios. Additionally, this approach leverages the surrogate model for conducting sensitivity analysis, explaining the impact of individual parameters on the system’s output.

This thesis sheds light on the functioning and characteristics of payment systems to serve as a foundation for understanding the drivers for higher payment system efficiency. Its central goal is to develop insights into the determinants of collective payment choice suitable to lower payment costs to society. So far, the institutional environment, as potential important influence on the payment instrument mix, has not been focused on in the literature. Therefore, particular emphasis is laid on the empirical analysis of the impact of institutional factors on the share of card payments on consumer spending at the point of sale (POS). For this, a unique panel data set is constructed covering the eight most important European payment markets ranked by non-cash transaction volumes. The empirical results allow formulating conditions necessary to achieve a more efficient payment mix. They also form a basis for the assessment of related policy measures with a focus on the SEPA project in terms of their efficiency enhancing effect. Future research could possibly build upon the panel data collected.