This thesis assesses the usefulness of confidence indicators for short term forecasting of the economic activity in the Czech Republic. The predictive power of both the business confidence indicator and the customer confidence indicator is examined using two empirical approaches. First we predict the likelihood of economic downturn defined as a discrete event using logit models, later we estimate GDP growth out of sample forecasts in the framework of vector autoregression models. The results obtained from the downturn probability models confirm the ability of confidence indicators (especially the business confidence indicator) to estimate the current economic situation and to anticipate economic downturn one quarter ahead. Results from the out-of-sample GDP growth value forecasting are ambiguous. Nevertheless the customer confidence indicator significantly improved original forecasts based on a model with standard macroeconomic variables and therefore we conclude in favour of its predictive power. This result was indirectly confirmed by OECD as the Czech customer confidence indicator has been included as a new component in the OECD domestic composite leading indicator since April 2012.

Summary Thesis Comparison of Greek and Czech economies has been devied into two main parts, the theoretical and the practical one. The theoretical part was about gaining an important theoretical knowledge, which lead to a broader understanding of the issue. There were mentioned descriptive methods, describing various macroeconomic indicators, that were used to compare the two national economies. Alos, there were taking into consideration several main economical aspects, such as: gross domestic product, general unemployment rate, inflation rate, export, import and interest rates, and the national debt coefficient. The last chapters have been devoted to describe the Maastricht criteria and the process of involving euro in Czech Republic. The practical part included individual macroeconomic indicators, examined in terms of development of both economies, and subsequently with the help of statistical methods, made the comparison, that highlighted important analogies and differences. For deeper perception of the issue, there were used data of other European Union countries and countries that had eccepted euro in this thesis. And the last but not the least, the macroeconomic data evaluation has been set for the period from 2005 to 2015. Findings were based on the last part of the thesis, which obtained comparison of the development of both economies in the past, and also included the assumption for future development. Conclusion described the impact on Czech Republic economy, influenced by embracement of euro.

Lefká, I. The influence of macroeconomic indicators on the amount of written premiums in selected EU countries. Diploma thesis. Brno, 2013. The aim of this thesis is to identify macroeconomic variables that affect the amount of written premiums in selected EU countries - the Czech Republic, Germany, Austria and the Slovak Republic. For each country is developed an econometric model that explains the dependence of written premiums to GDP, inflation, unemployment rate and the average wage, following by an economic, statistical and econometric model verification. The data used was obtained from the Sigma statistics of reinsurance company Swiss Re, the European (re)insurance federation (Insurance Europe), the World Bank, the Statistical Office of the European Union (Eurostat), the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) and other expert sources.

This thesis analyses the impact of announcements of macroeconomic indicators in United States on price development of the VIX Futures, S&P500 Futures and EUR/USD FX rate. Theoretical part contains construction and description of individual markets. Empirical part investigates the reaction of market prices after 1, 10 and 30 minutes after announcement of an individual indicator value on a market surprise demonstrated as a difference between reported value and analysts' expectations. We tried to find a systematic reaction of market participants and the pace of absorption of new information into the market price. There have been found minimum of situations, where we explained the market move as a linear combination of market surprise. However, there was a several cases, where the market did not adjust to announced information quickly and was inefficient in a short period. In the second part of empirical research we tested all significant models on an out-sample data. The goal was to determine whether the market inefficiencies persisted and stable profit could be achieved. We analysed the brutto performance, then netto performance including all transaction costs. Finally, we defined a simple trading rules with a purpose of profit stabilization and lowering the riskiness of trades. For VIX Futures and EUR/USD markets we achieved a low loss, respectively negligible profit. For S&P 500 Futures we obtained a profit strategies for all selected indicators, total profit was high with a very low volatility of invested capital.

My diploma work describes comparison of enterprise and tax environment in Germany and in Visegrad group (Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, and Poland). The goal of my work is to compare mainly the West and East Germany and Visegrad group, as well as to compare the described countries each other. The main source used in the work is analysis of the European Bank for Research and Development considered the business environment in the investigated countries. This analysis is closely described in the first chapter. The short description of the tax system in Germany and Visegrad group can you find in the second chapter. I chose only the taxes, which significantly influence the business decision. In the third chapter, I realized the comparison of all described facts and tried to find relations between the investigated countries each other, as well as between the every single indicator (e. g. if the business environment depends on the macroeconomic environment, etc.).

As apparent from the name of my diploma thesis I am trying to find a relation between the political and the economical cycle in the Czech Republic. It is evident that the political events are motivated by the personal interests of the politicians to be re-elected. Also the development of the economy does not need to be spontaneous but influenced by the populist intentions. In the theoretical part I am trying to explain the relations between the political and the economical cycle and also the behaviour of several macroeconomic variables which I have chosen for the analytical part of my work. These are: GDP development, inflation, unemployment rate, social migration of the population, consumption and balance of the state budget. In the analytical part I am analysing the behaviour of the selected variables in the election period 1996-1998, 1999-2002, 2003-2006 and in the first two years of the postelection period 2007 and 2008. Based on the behaviour of the variables within the political cycle I am trying to find the possible reason of their development, whether it is a spontaneous process characterized by the current phase of the economical cycle or whether it is a result of the implemented populist measures.

The diploma thesis analyses macroeconomic development of five selected new member countries of the European Union, concretely the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Cyprus, Latvia and Bulgaria. The paper is divided into two periods of development - the period of pre-accession preparation ending in 2004 and the period since accession till the present, when the statistics have already been influenced by the global economic crisis. The comparison has been based upon the fundamental macroeconomic indicators such as GDP growth, rate of inflation, rate of unemployment or state of public finances. At the end of each chapter, a brief final summary of development of the examined countries in particular period is stated. The last chapter treats the involvement of new member states in the integration process, namely the country presidency of European Council. Till the present, only the Czech Republic and Slovenia presided the European Council. Other new member countries are yet to fulfil this duty. The integration process is being gradually joined by other, nowadays candidate countries, whose economic situation is also briefly described in chapter three. The aim of the paper is thus to evaluate the economic development of new member states of the EU, comparing the period before and after accession.

This paper deals with FDI in the Western Balkan countries with an emphasis on the determinants that influence FDI inflow. First, the conditions for investing in the region are examined, and then specific variables are chosen to be analyzed in the second part of the thesis. In the empirical part of the paper, the statistical significance of institutional and macroeconomic variables on the FDI inflow is researched. The concluding chapter evaluates the relationship between the accession process and FDI volume, and potential areas for FDI placement are recommended. As overall follow up to the preceding deductions, the investment outlook is finally presented.

This thesis aims to contribute in the field of exchange rate determination. Firstly, it sums results of previous studies (theoretical as well as empirical ones). Consequently, it investigates two approaches to exchange rate determination, and compares their theoretical and empirical performance. Firstly, monetary model is introduced, and secondly 'news' model is presented. Since 'news' model incorporates rational expectations and considers interest rate endogenous, it is expected to give better results in comparison with monetary model. Six exchange rates were chosen for the empirical analysis. They are analyzed in period July 2000 -- June 2012. As expected, 'news' model outperforms monetary model. However, since the volatility of exchange rate is much bigger in reality than both of the models are able to explain, neither of the models can be considered as satisfactory. It is the same result which has been presented in older studies that investigated these models.

Main goal of my dissertation was take a close look at progress of several economics indicators from 1993. I also decided to analyse key factors wich mainly influence these ecnomics indicators. This work is based on classical model IS-LM-BP which is most suitable because of its logic and siplicity. This work is constituted by three parts: first describer theoretical base, second part is dedicate to analysis economy from 1993 and third part is focused on macroeconomical model of Czech economy. Theoretical part presents main parts of national economy (e.g. Gross domestic product, Unemployment, Inflation, Balance of Payment, etc.) including detailed structure of these key indicators. Such a detailed description was importent because of recent modelling and was signiicant for better choice of variable. In second part of this work we analyse economic development from 1993 and we focused on main causes of change. Main goal of this part was exploring of global progress and better understanding to all indicators in the small-open-economy. In final part of dissertation are created several models which are based on historical data and predict progress for nearest future. Because fact that source data are mainly till 2010 we were able to test our models on real data of year 2011. In spite of economical progres in last few years we can say that large majority of results from our models are in compliance with our expectation. However in some cases ware results diferent, we identifed key resons for these results.