Our goal was to analyse the effects of performance funding in the specific conditions of Czech and Slovak institutions of higher education, based on the assumption that the key motive for introducing performance funding is to increase accountability. The article confirms that NPM tools still co-exist with other reform trajectories and framings and provides a detailed explanation of how performance funding schemes work in financing higher education-based science in selected transition countries. Finally, we observe that the effects of performance funding on accountability differ depending on the funding parameters and context. We also identified forms of adaptation not previously reported in the literature.

"The importance of public administration (PA) education and training is obvious, any effective public administration system needs an influx of a new and well-educated workforce. Compared to the (relatively) better situation in other Central and Eastern European countries, the Czech Republic and Slovakia represent a very specific case – the falling number of students in PA programs threatens the existence of the only programs with international accreditation (those at Masaryk University Brno and Matej Bel University in Banska Bystrica). The aim of this paper was to investigate the reasons why so few students apply and enroll in these EAPAA-accredited programs. Qualitative research is used to achieve this goal. In the opinion of the program chairs and our secondary analysis, there are multiple factors behind the very low level of demand which critically threatens the existence of the best master programs in the countries studied. A very specific issue that appears to be unique for both countries is free public university education with unregulated demand. Such an environment, combined with the performance- based funding of public universities and other higher education institutions, where the number of students is a decisive factor in the amount of the public grant to the university, generates an oversupply of places offered to secondary school graduates. The role of other potential barriers for the interest to study public administration is catalyzed by the ‘oversupply’ conditions. The questionnaire, the statements of program chairs, and our secondary analysis confirm that there is a role to be played by monitoring other potential barriers — the fact that programs are run in economics faculties, limited trust in politicians, government and public administration, the system of access to the civil service and salary levels in the public sector."

Families with dependent children are among the social groups most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper examines the development of measures applied by the Czech national government for compensating families with children during the COVID-19 crisis. It summarizes the aims of the measures as announced by the government or its ministries. This is supplemented by a summary of the available opinions of experts and other policy stakeholders. Based on this, the paper discusses the adequacy of the adopted measures and points out lessons for the future policymaking in the given area. A relatively high number of measures were identified. This suggests that the government strived for proactive policy to address families as a vulnerable social group. However, a rapid and sometimes unrestrained legislative process seems to have come at the expense of a proper public debate on the need for and impact of the new measures. Given the uncertain time horizon of the epidemic, the apparent lack of consideration regarding the budgetary implications of the measures seems worrying.

Compared to the EU average of 28.2% of GDP, Czech social expenditure was about one-third lower (18.9% of GDP) in 2016. The low level of expenditure is relatively stable over time: between 2005 and 2016. In the long-term, the increasing expenditure on the old age and sickness/health functions takes resources away from the other functions. Funding of the social insurance system has been very stable over time in the Czech Republic. Almost three-quarters of social protection expenditure was financed from social security contributions in 2016, the fourth quarter was financed by the general government. The social security contributions are paid by employees and employers, the proportion of their payments being approximately 1:3. The contribution rate payable by self-employed persons corresponds to the sum of the rates payable by the employee and the employer. The payments of contributions have no floor except for the self-employed. In 2008, ceilings on social security payments were introduced. The biggest part of social protection expenditure is connected with old-age pensions. Its share increased from 37.3% (2005) to 43.7% (2016) of all social protection expenditure. The healthcare (HC) insurance rate has been stable for a long time despite the fact that the system regularly produces a structural imbalance between income and expenditure. Non-contributory benefits (family-related benefits and social assistance) are financed from tax revenues. In the Czech system, tax reliefs are an essential source of support for families with children. The most relevant development after 2008 was the increase in the child tax credit. Financing through social insurance contribution has a major impact on the tax costs of labour that increase the overall costs of labour. Fortunately, the Czech Republic is still a converging economy with low labour costs. Different tax expenditure has a mixed impact on the labour market. In the pension system, there is a mismatch between the relatively flat rate of the pension benefit and the contributory payments. Pension rights of workers in arduous and hazardous jobs have been inadequately addressed for a long time. As regards the healthcare system, there are significant disparities between the average contributions of employees and self-employed persons: the base for calculating the contributions of self-employed earners corresponds to only 50% of their profits. The state still pays too little for state-insured persons. The existing mix of financing options does not create any incentives for health promotion. Our recommendations include: i) general recommendations: to start a national debate on the composition of funding sources for social protection, to limit the impact of economic performance on the (procyclical) debate on the expenditure of the social system, ii) taxation: to limit the impact of the growth of tax costs on total labour costs, with a primary focus on lower-income taxpayers, to periodically re-evaluate the child tax credit, to consider the abolition of the low-income spouse tax credit and a tax rebate on a spouse iii) pension system: to separate the financing of the pension system from the state budget, to consider rebalancing the calculation of the pension benefit so that the flat basic amount is financed to a greater extent from general taxes, to address the issue of retirement of the WAHJ group, while having employers more financially involved in this change, iv) healthcare: to increase patients’ co-payments for routine and not very serious services, to reflect health-risk behaviour in the calculation of contribution rate, and to dedicate, at least partly, some revenue from the Pigouvian “corrective” taxes (mainly the tobacco tax) to fund payments for state-insured persons.

The chapter summarizes situation and effects of performance based funding of Universities in two CEE countries - the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Although positive effects can be identified, compared to the developed countries pervasive effects are much more visible. These effects are visible in different forms, like, efforts to create own publication platforms, publishing in predatory journals, creating citation circles, establishing samizdat journals, all related to the substitution of quality by quantity.

The theory expects that performance measurement and management is necessary (and performance financing can be good motivating factor), but all these is to a large extend a “mission impossible”. This paper just illustrates the knowledge provided by the unlimited number of theoretical (or mixed) studies documenting pros and cons of performance measurement and performance financing and their use in the public sector by selected concrete examples. We hope that the paper provides value added especially because it clearly links the theory and the practice.

Growing housing costs have been recorded in the Czech Republic over the last decade. The fact would not present a problem if household incomes grew in the same rate. However, as our outcomes show, the number of households where the share of expenditures on housing exceeds 30% or even 40% of their disposable incomes has grown. We can also interpret this fact from the increases of expenditures on social benefits provided to these households in the Czech Republic with the aim to support them in covering excessive housing expenditure (CZK 12 billion in 2014). The paper focuses on a specific group of elderly households. We would like to find an answer to the question what the extent to which these households have become a new vulnerable group is. On the basis of the EU-SILC data we have identified that the housing expenditures of 31% of these households (2014) exceed 30% of their disposable incomes; their number grew by more than 50% in the studied period 2005-2014. The non-take-up analysis also showed that up to 90% of the households entitled to the housing allowance did not apply for this benefit in 2013.

Přechod z ekonomicky aktivni faze života do ekonomicky neaktivni je casto spojen s poklesem cistých disponibilnich přijmů domacnosti seniora. To může mit negativni vliv na financni dostupnost bydleni. Cilem teto monografie bylo zhodnotit, jak se mezi roky 2005 až 2014 změnila financni dostupnost bydleni a bytova situace seniorske populace. Na zakladě toho posoudit, jestli se senioři jako socialni skupina nestali novou ohroženou skupinou, ktera ma problemy s dostupnosti bydleni, připadně ktere segmenty seniorske populace tyto problemy maji.

The unemployment is one of the factors which have a direct impact on the performance of the economy. Furthermore, there is a direct link between the unemployment rate and the government budgetary position; unemployed persons usually draw on social benefits and their tax payments to public budgets are lower. This paper aims to comprehensively assess the impact of unemployment on the condition of both the income and the spending side of public budgets. We based our quantification of the impact of unemployment on public budgets on earlier published studies. The paper’s contributions are then as follows: (1) compared to the previous studies for the Czech Republic, we attempted to comprehensively capture the studied impacts, (2) we discuss the methodological problems that are associated with particular methods of the impact calculation, and (3) we propose other methods that we have developed to quantify some items. Publicly available statistical data were used to quantify the costs; another of the applied methods was the economic modelling. The results of our study suggest that the annual costs of one year-round unemployed person amounted to about CZK 207 thousand for year 2014.

Within the EU, the Czech Republic belongs to the countries with unemployment below average. Therefore, it may seem that unemployment benefits and other direct costs connected with unemployment constitute a rather small expenditure. In our paper we show that this first impression is false. This paper comprehensively assesses the impact of unemployment on public budgets. Its contributions are as follows: (1) we discuss the methodological problems that are associated with particular methods of the impact calculation, and (2) we quantigy the impacts for the Czech Republic budgets in the years 2010 2015 and compare them with other studies. Our results suggest that in 2015 the annual costs of unemployment reached EUR 9.064 per unemployed person. According to other studies, the nominal value of the costs is slightly higher than is the case in Slovakia (as a similar economy) and lower than the results for traditional European countries. The results are also lower when the costs are compared to average labour costs in the economy.

The unemployment is one of the factors which have a direct impact on the performance of the economy. Furthermore, there is a direct link between the unemployment rate and the government budgetary position; unemployed persons usually draw on social benefits and their tax payments to public budgets are lower. This paper aims to comprehensively assess the impact of unemployment on the condition of both the income and the spending side of public budgets. We based our quantification of the impact of unemployment on public budgets on earlier published studies. The paper's contributions are then as follows: (1) compared to the previous studies for the Czech Republic, we attempted to comprehensively capture the studied impacts, (2) we discuss the methodological problems that are associated with particular methods of the impact calculation, and (3) we propose other methods that we have developed to quantify some items. Publicly available statistical data were used to quantify the costs; another of the applied methods was the economic modelling. The results of our study suggest that the annual costs of one year-round unemployed person amounted to about CZK 207 thousand for year 2014.

Social exclusion is often accompanied by spatial detachment which usually has a form of concentration of socially excluded households in segments of cheap housing of less quality or otherwise unattractive housing. In our analysis we analyse whether we can identify such socially excluded households in the data using housing costs indicators. We concentrate only on the rental segment of the housing market. We argue that existence of households which have to pay an inadequately high rent makes the possibility for poverty identification, especially if we compare the actual housing costs with the costs implicit. In the results section we present information on these households and discuss whether we identified the right group. Besides the data analysis we show that the interplay of individual parts of the housing policy led to a situation when some households pay an inadequately high rent which the state considerably contributes to. Although the problem concerns about 1% of Czech households, consequences of a failure to solve the situation can be critical for both the citizens themselves and the public sector. Our paper may serve as a basis for future analysis of alternative policy impacts.

This paper focuses on the mortgage interest deduction for owner-occupied housing in the Czech Republic. The main research question concerns the distribution of personal income tax liability given the rather generous interest deduction for owner-occupied housing loans and changes to it when restrictions are placed on the interest deduction in 2014. We used data for the Czech Republic from the EU-SILC surveys for our analysis. We estimated the value of this tax expenditure at approximately CZK 4.1 billion in 2011, with more than half the amount spent by the highest two deciles in income distribution. Personal income tax reform is legislated to begin in 2015 one part of which will be a cap on loan interest. This reform will lead to a decrease in the yearly value of the tax expenditure but will be followed by an increase in the PIT rate. Taken together, this will generate greater tax expenditures. Our computations show that the impact will be negative on households in the highest decile, while other groups will feel some benefit.

By joining the European Monetary Union (the “EMU”), member countries lost the ability to use monetary policy as a tool for macroeconomic regulation. The attention was then focused on regulation of fiscal policy and Stability and Growth Pact (the “SGP”) was the instrument agreed upon. The states of the EMU have agreed to meet the 3% of GDP requirement for the maximum annual public budget deficit. Based on evolution of public debt in member countries, we can say that the SGP has failed as a tool for fiscal discipline. In this paper, we answer the question of whether the failure was due to the incorrect concept of the SGP or whether the development of the debt was affected more by arbitrary disrespect of the agreed rules. The two reasons mentioned above are interdependent. To separate them, we construct a dynamic model of EU countries’ public debt. By using real data, we simulate the potential values of public debt in a situation where the SGP rules have been respected in recent years. Comparing the results for the potential debt given by simulation of the model with the current real values, we are able to quantify the impact of non-compliance for each country. The initial results indicate that there are both EU states where non-compliance led to a negligible increase in public debt - up to 7% of GDP - and other states where this factor caused the growth of public debt by more than 30% of GDP.

The stability of the common currency requires coordination of fiscal policies within the EU through compliance with agreed rules in the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP). Member countries stipulate the obligation to keep the public deficit below 3 % of GDP and public debt below 60 % of GDP. Enforcement of SGP is, however, debatable and with regard to public finances of member countries in the last few years its effectiveness could be questioned. Agreed rules should lead to long-term balanced and sustainable public finances. It would be correct to assume that the respect of agreed rules would lead to long-term balanced budgets. In our previous research we established an indicator A1 which gives a level of non-compliance with the required rules. Surprisingly, it was found that despite the compliance with required criteria a large number of countries would be facing an increase in the level of debt. In this paper, we are focused on closer examination of that phenomenon by decomposition of the level of debt. By simulation modelling, we determine the impact of individual factors causing the raise of indebtedness.

The Stability and Growth Pact is a tool level to maintain the fiscal discipline on EU level. The states of the EMU have agreed to satisfy the 3% of GDP requirement for the maximum annual public budget deficit. The pertinence of SGP was questioned since its adoption but the recent financial and economic crisis reveals how weak this tool really is. Based on the evolution of the public debt in member countries, we can say that the SGP has failed as a tool for fiscal discipline. Presented paper is based on previous research which assessed the impact of non-compliance with agreed rules on the level of public debt. Using the simple public debt dynamic model we separate the influence of compliance and non-compliance with the maximum level of deficit rule relative to GDP. Our previous research surprisingly showed that most of EU countries would suffer the raise of the debt level despite the respect of agreed rules in period 1995-2012. In our paper, we will analyze factors causing this situation and we will examine if it is possible to separate the influence of individual factors

The Stability and Growth Pact is a tool level to maintain the fiscal discipline on EU level. The states of the EMU have agreed to satisfy the 3% of GDP requirement for the maximum annual public budget deficit. The pertinence of SGP was questioned since its adoption but the recent financial and economic crisis reveals how weak this tool really is. Based on the evolution of the public debt in member countries, we can say that the SGP has failed as a tool for fiscal discipline. Presented paper is based on previous research which assessed the impact of non-compliance with agreed rules on the level of public debt. Using the simple public debt dynamic model we separate the influence of compliance and non-compliance with the maximum level of deficit rule relative to GDP. Our previous research surprisingly showed that most of EU countries would suffer the raise of the debt level despite the respect of agreed rules in period 1995-2012. In our paper, we will analyze factors causing this situation and we will examine if it is possible to separate the influence of individual factors.

Families with children are traditionally the target group of the social system in developed countries. This paper deals with one component of family policy in the Czech Republic, which is household entitlement. The main focus is on the child tax bonus (hereafter CTB). The paper is divided into descriptive and methodological-analytical parts. The descriptive section provides basic information about the beneficiaries of CTB. In the latter section we formulate research questions about the impacts and effects of CTB. We discover that the influence of tax instruments has grown in recent years. The amount of the tax bonus for children exceeded CZK 3 billion in 2009, with almost 22% of all households with children eligible. Although CTB is income-tested, its redistributive impact is rather small – approximately 80% of recipients cannot be considered as poor. Outcomes from our microsimulation model reveal that 82 to 86% households with CTB were at the same time modelled as eligible and therefore we can use microsimulation techniques for future analyses of policy change.

This paper focuses on the mortgage interest deduction for owner occupied housing in the Czech Republic. The main research goal concerns the method how to model the impact of personal income tax liability as a result of legislative changes in 2014. Personal income tax reform is slated to begin in 2014, one part of which will be a cap on loan interest deductibility. It is suggested, that the reform should lead to a decrease in the yearly value of the tax expenditure.In our analysis data for the Czech Republic from the EU-SILC surveys are used. We estimated the value of this tax expenditure at approximately CZK 5 billion in 2010, with almost half the amount spent by the highest two deciles in income distribution. However, EU-SILC doesn't include all needed variables, so the paper shows and discuses microsimulation method used, its conclusion and limitations.

The paper deals with the performance measurement of scientific outputs in the field of Economics in the Czech Republic, with an emphasis on three Economic faculties situated in the city of Brno. The evaluation of research results takes into consideration the pressure on the efficient allocation of public funds for basic and applied research. The respective institution runs by the CZ government set a uniform methodology, according to which research organizations are evaluated, and once a year they publish detailed results of the research from the past five years. The paper shows that the reaction of the monitored institutions to this process is a fast growth in the point values of the research evaluated. However the results also demonstrated that a quantitative growth in science results is not necessarily accompanied by a growth in their quality. In fact, it may even seem that a whole range of research results were purposefully originated for the sole reason of improving the results of the scientific output. Another problem which the paper points out is the intentional classification of scientific results according to where the applicable evaluation methodology guarantees the achievement of the best results. The article touches upon research carried out by other authors in CZ as well as abroad. The conclusions of the article are in harmony with the conclusions of other authors evaluating the given matter in the CZ.