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The Family as an Externality within a Market Economy: Evidence from the Czech Republic The dissertation thesis deals with an issue of fertility decline in developed countries from a perspective of relationship between the family and the market economy. The family is perceived as an externality with respect to theoretical economic framework as well as to real economy of the Czech Republic in the period of economic transition. In other words, neither theory nor applied policy fully reflects contribution of the family for the whole society. The thesis goes into the family specification from distinct standpoints, its development within time, relationship to economy and briefly introduces economic approaches to the family at both micro and macro level. In addition, the thesis carries out analyses of Czech data in the period 1989-2010. While the macro analysis is focused on interaction between fertility and economy performance, the micro analysis is devoted to financial support provided by state to the family via the social scheme and the tax system. Keywords: the family, fertility, economy, the Czech Republic, the social scheme, the tax system

Fiscal externalities bring benefits or costs to more units of public governments and they are caused by the activity of just one of them. Externalities are generally described in the first part of the thesis as well as the fiscal and tax externalities. The theoretical part of the thesis deals also with tax exporting and the tax competition. The end of this part is comprised by the relation among the municipalities, fiscal externalities and the property tax. The second part of the thesis is more analytical and includes own research using data primarily collected then the analysis and finally evaluation are made. The final chapter of the thesis is more focused on the individual tax bases of the property tax and possible tax exporting relating to these tax bases. This chapter also includes the foreign studies where the issue of tax exporting is discussed.

This thesis focuses on capturing causal link between alcohol consumption and one of its externalities, crime. The quasi-natural experiment of the Czech temporary ban on hard liquor following an outbreak of methanol poisonings in September 2012 provides a valuable setting for evaluation of the alcohol-crime relationship. Over the course of the prohibition, violent crime rates fell by approximately 10 %, just like the aggregate of aggravated assault, criminal threatening, vandalism and property damage. In addition, the biggest share of reduction in crime falls on weekend criminality. The number of offenders under the influence of alcohol dropped by approximately 18 % for traffic-related offences and by 28 % in non-traffic offenses. The possibility of the reduction in crime being caused by lower detection capabilities of the law enforcement was examined. The reduction in reported cases of e.g. driving under the influence might be to a large extend explained by lower detection, but it could have reduced only rates of victimless crimes. Finally, the property crime rate was not significantly affected by the intervention, except for burglaries into bars and restaurants.

This thesis answers the question how big is the negative externality associated with driving under the influence of alcohol in crowns per kilometer driven by the driver with alcohol in blood. The calculation includes the economic consequences of accidents, specifically, loss of production, the cost of health care, administration and social expenditures, included are also the values of lost human lives and values for heavy and light injuries. Calculation of externality is used to determine the fine that internalizes this externality.

This thesis deals wiht the subsidies as a tool for solving positive externalities in the environmental field. The theoretical part explains the principle of externalities, and offers three variants of their solution - a system of taxes and subsidies, according to A.C. Pigou, the negotiation of compensation, according to R. Coase, and connected property. From these theoretical concepts are in reality to solve positive externalities mainly used subsidies. Selected subsidies programs for environmental protection are subject to the following analysis. Classic example of positive externality is considered pollination activity of bees. Therefore, the second half of thesis describes how this agricultural sector, beekeeping, depends on subsidies. This thesis proposes another solutions to develop and streamline the sector without the use of subsidies.

The aim of this thesis is to analyze the importance of coal-fired power plants on the market of electric energy, with emphasis on aspects that fundamentally affect their production. Coal-fired power plants belongs nowadays among socially unpopular source of electricity. In recent decades intensively growing interest groups that support state intervention and regulation of the energy sector. This is essentially a massive promotion of renewable energy sources at the expense of fossil fuel plants. Analysis of individual power sources shows that despite the current restrictive measures imposed on power plants burning fossil fuels, and especially coal-fired power plants, electricity produced from coal resources is still competitive, despite some drawbacks has many positive qualities. Coal-fired power plants produce higher amounts of greenhouse gases and other pollutants than other types of power plants. On the other hand, they are able to provide a stable supply of electricity to transmission network, and thus partially offset the high volatility of electricity supply from renewable energy sources. The price of electricity from coal-fired power plants could be considered as relatively low in comparison with other energy sources. The analysis shows that in terms of practical economic policy is not economically justified to reduce the proportion of coal-fired power plants in the total production of electricity.