PhDr. Ing. Tomáš Evan, Ph.D.

Publications

Cultural Diversity and Its Impact on Governance

Authors
Evan, T.; Holý, V.
Year
2023
Published
Socio-Economic Planning Sciences. 2023, 89 1-13. ISSN 0038-0121.
Type
Article
Annotation
Hofstede’s six cultural dimensions make it possible to measure the culture of countries but are criticized for assuming the homogeneity of each country. In this paper, we propose two measures based on Hofstede’s cultural dimensions which take into account the heterogeneous structure of citizens with respect to their countries of origin. Using these improved measures, we study the influence of heterogeneous culture and cultural diversity on the quality of institutions measured by the six worldwide governance indicators. We use a linear regression model allowing for dependence in spatial and temporal dimensions as well as the high correlation between the governance indicators. Our results show that the effect of cultural diversity improves some of the governance indicators while worsening others depending on the individual Hofstede cultural dimension.

The Role of a Nation's Culture in the Country's Governance: Stochastic Frontier Analysis

Authors
Evan, T.; Holý, V.
Year
2022
Published
Central European Journal of Operations Research. 2022, 30(2), 507-520. ISSN 1613-9178.
Type
Article
Annotation
What role does culture play in determining institutions in a country? This paper argues that the establishment of institutions is a process originating predominantly in a nation’s culture and tries to discern the role of cultural background in the governance of countries. We use six of Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions and the six Worldwide Governance Indicators to test the strength of the relationship on 94 countries between 1996 and 2019. We find that the strongest cultural characteristics are Power Distance with a negative effect on governance and Long-Term Orientationwith positive effect. We also determine how well countries transform their cultural characteristics into institutions using stochastic frontier analysis.

Can investment incentives potentially cause unemployment? An empirical analysis of the relationship between FDI and employment based on the OLI framework

Authors
Evan, T.; Bolotov, I.
Year
2021
Published
Central European Business Review. 2021, 11(03), 1-17. ISSN 1805-4862.
Type
Article
Annotation
Unemployment, particularly in depressed regions, is more often than not used by politicians as the main argument for investment incentives provided to MNCs. This paper applies Dunning’s OLI Framework to the relationship between FDI and employment with the assumption that political negotiation between MNCs and the host government might actually have zero effect or a negative effect on employment. Since the last letter of OLI, internalization, suggests that MNCs optimize all production factors available to them and “subsidies” provided to MNCs by governments decrease the relative price of capital, MNCs may try to use more labour-saving techniques. Two hypotheses are tested using the dynamic panel model (DPD) and Granger causality tests for 193 countries for the years 1985–2019 where the first is supported with no strong relationship discovered between the variables. The results of the paper should support debate on the efficiency of investment incentives.

Economic Conditions for Innovation: Private vs. Public Sector

Authors
Evan, T.; Holý, V.
Year
2021
Published
Socio-Economic Planning Sciences. 2021, 76 1-15. ISSN 0038-0121.
Type
Article
Annotation
The Hicks induced innovation hypothesis states that a price increase of a production factor is a spur to the invention. We propose an alternative hypothesis restating that a spur to the invention requires not only an increase of one factor but also a decrease of at least one other factor to offset the companies’ cost. We illustrate the need for our alternative hypothesis in a historical example of the industrial revolution in the United Kingdom. Furthermore, we econometrically evaluate both hypotheses in a case study of research and development (R&D) in 29 OECD countries from 2003 to 2017. Specifically, we investigate the dependence of investments to R&D on the economic environment represented by average wages and oil prices using panel regression. We find that our alternative hypothesis is supported for R&D funded and/or performed by business enterprises while the original Hicks hypothesis holds for R&D funded by the government and R&D performed by universities. Our results reflect that the business sector is significantly influenced by market conditions, unlike the government and higher education sectors.

Measuring Mancúr Olson: What is the Influence of Culture and Institutions & Policies on Economic Development?

Authors
Evan, T.; Bolotov, I.
Year
2021
Published
Prague Economic Papers. 2021, 30(3), 290-315. ISSN 1210-0455.
Type
Article
Annotation
Mancúr Olson Jr. wrote his influential study Big Bills left on the Sidewalk: Why Some Countries are Rich, and Others Poor in 1996. In his paper, Olson claimed that the differences in economic development between countries are caused by just two factors: institutions & policies and culture. We attempt to test his conjecture through econometric modelling by combining and comparing it with a broadly defined orthodox production function in an indirect neoclassical notation (Solow-Minhas-Arrow-Chenery’s SMAC framework). The ‘pseudo-production function’ obtained is econometrically sound and of similar explanatory power to models including economic variables, although we find strong evidence of interdependence between capital-labour share and institutions & policies and culture. We consider the test, performed on panel data from 154 countries over 5-year averages from 1980–2014, to be robust and consistent with Olson’s ideas.

Foreign Direct Investment and Corruption: Proving the Contra-Intuitive

Authors
Evan, T.; Bolotov, I.
Year
2020
Published
20th International Joint Conference Central and Eastern Europe in the Changing Business Environment: Proceedings.. Prague University of Economics and Business, 2020. p. 64-77. ISSN 2453-6113. ISBN 978-80-245-2395-8.
Type
Proceedings paper
Annotation
This paper builds on the assumption of a contra-intuitively weak relation between foreign direct investment (FDI) and corruption in time. Provided multinational corporations depend, among other, on arbitrary political decisions of home as well as of host governments to offset the extra costs from the diverse international socio-economic business environment, FDI inflows may not immediately lead to a more transparent environment in the host country. By formalizing Dunning’s eclectic and Vernon’s obsolescing bargain models, the works we consider seminal on the topic, we fail to find any statistically significant non-spurious dynamic relationship between corruption and FDI on a global scale. Our test includes two panel Granger causality tests within a dynamic panel model framework on the dataset of 154 countries for the years 1980–2015. (PDF) Foreign Direct Investment and Corruption: Proving the Contra-Intuitive. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/344928729_Foreign_Direct_Investment_and_Corruption_Proving_the_Contra-Intuitive [accessed Nov 03 2020].

Influence of women’s workforce participation and pensions on total fertility rate: a theoretical and econometric study

Authors
Evan, T.; Vozárová, P.
Year
2018
Published
Euroasian Economic Review. 2018, 8(1), 51-72. ISSN 2147-429X.
Type
Article
Annotation
This paper explores the influence of the two historical and arguably most important correlates of fertility, i.e. female labor participation and pensions. We confirm the long-established negative impact of government provided pensions and all other welfare state social policies except pro-family ones on fertility between 1990 and 2013 in OECD countries. We also claim the reports about positive correlation between female labor participation and fertility, which caused a recent upsurge in research, to be spurious. Our results show a statistically insignificant relationship as a result of pro-family policies designed to offset the negative impact of female labor participation. We conclude that current societies in developed countries continue to have an unsustainable level of reproduction to an extent allowing depopulation, largely due to high and ever increasing female labor participation and a high level of social expenditure, particularly on pensions. We suggest an alternative set of pro-family and pro-natality policies and a decrease in social expenditure as a possible solution.

Some effects of Intellectual property protection on national economies: theoretical and econometric study

Authors
Evan, T.; Vozárová, P.; Bolotov, I.
Year
2018
Published
Prague Economic Papers. 2018, 27(1), 73-91. ISSN 1210-0455.
Type
Article
Annotation
This paper aims to theoretically derive and afterwards econometrically assess the impact of intellectual property protection (IPP) on national economies. The authors’ main hypothesis is that by creating a form of non-market protection, IPP limits free competition and has no positive effects on national economies and the world economy in general. The hypothesis is tested through estimation of relationship between charges for the use of intellectual property and 1) gross domestic product, 2) GDP growth, 3) unemployment, 4) exports of high-tech products, 5) FDI outflow, and 6) expenses on research and development in a panel dataset of 146 countries in years 2005–2014 based Arellano-Bond estimator for dynamic panel models. The data tells us that changes in these charges have not a significant impact on the studied indicators, which counts against claims of positive impact of IPP on economies and growth.

A non-parametric statistical test for J.R. Hicks’ induced innovation hypothesis

Authors
Bolotov, I.; Evan, T.
Year
2017
Published
International Days of Statistics and Economics Conference Proceedings. Praha: VŠE, 2017. p. 183-194. ISBN 978-80-87990-12-4.
Type
Proceedings paper
Annotation
This paper attempts to construct a simple non-parametric statistical test, a combination of a) Student’s t-test, b) Wald’s F-test and c)calculus for the induced innovation hypothesis published by J. R. Hicks in 1932: “a change in the relative prices of the factors of production is itself a spur to invention, and to invention of a particular kind directed to economizing the use of a factor which has become relatively expensive”. The test is performed on parameters estimated from a dynamicized comparatively static economic model constructed by the authors from Lancaster’s characteristics consumer behaviour theory and the neoclassical production function with a Gorman-style representative consumer and firm. Estimations are performed on a panel dataset, which comprises 154 countries for the years 1980–2015 (5544 rows) with the help of the General method of Moments (GMM). The paper contributes to the overall economic and historical causes of innovations in economies.

Analysis of dynamic relationship between corruption and foreign direct investment

Authors
Evan, T.; Bolotov, I.
Year
2017
Published
ANTIcorruption&fraud: DETECTION&MEASUREMENT. Praha: Anglo-American University, 2017. p. 40-64. ISBN 978-80-906585-2-3.
Type
Proceedings paper
Annotation
This text builds on our seminary work about the contra-intuitively weak relation between FDI and corruption. The mainstream economic thinking suggests improving transparency leads to increased FDI inflow. While economic environment without corruption is certainly value per-se, we find that given the nature of multinational corporations and FDI, it does not necessary translate to higher FDI. Multinational corporations depend on arbitrary political decisions of home as well as host governments to offset their extra costs from doing business in multiple socio-economic environments of various countries, thus somehow increased level of corruption might be an outcome of this relationship. Following our previous theoretical research as well as of others, mainly Dunning’s eclectic model, this paper verifies there is no significant dynamic relationship between corruption and foreign direct investment. We base our conclusions on the results of ordinary and generalized least squares dynamic panel models and generalized method of moments applied to data from Transparency International, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund for 154 countries and the years 1980–2015.

Chapters of European Economic History

Authors
Year
2014
Published
Praha: Univerzita Karlova v Praze. Nakladatelství Karolinum, 2014. ISBN 978-80-246-2814-1.
Type
Book
Annotation
The Chapters of European Economic History describe key moments in the economic development of the European continent and its offshoots. Starting with antiquity through the Middle Ages, it continues with the economic impact of the Age of Exploration and the Reformation. The Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions or Liberal Movements are analysed against the background of the ever increasing influence of European states on economic affairs around the globe. Europe was the continent to establish colonies in large areas of the world shaping their production, trade, and investment patterns. The author describes two waves of globalisation with the first one starting around 1830 and being centred clearly on Europe in its heyday. Everything ends for the Old Continent with the First World War. The book provides a description of the financial centre moving to the USA as Europe descended into economic misery and social radicalism. The economic base of both Nazi and Communist totalitarianism is compared briefly as well as the second wave of globalisation we are experiencing today with the first one of the 19th century. The book’s non-technical approach makes it appropriate for all those interested in the issue of economic history.

The Weak Relation between Foreign Direct Investment and Corruption: A Theoretical and Econometric Study

Authors
Evan, T.; Bolotov, I.
Year
2014
Published
Prague Economic Papers. 2014, 23(4), 474-492. ISSN 1210-0455.
Type
Article
Annotation
Foreign direct investment has become an important factor of development of economies in the last decades. However, its economic nature as well as its relationship with corruption has not yet been clarified in economic literature. Following previous theoretical research, mainly Dunning’s eclectic model, this paper evaluates the econometric relationship between corruption and foreign direct investment by testing three theoretically-based hypo theses: that corruption perception indicator is a stationary variable, that the relationship between corruption and foreign direct investment stock is statistically weak and that changes in foreign direct investment stock do not Granger cause changes in corruption. The verification is based on unit root tests, panel co-integration and Granger causality models performed on data from the Transparency International, the World Bank and the Heritage Foundation and the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) for 94 countries for the years 1998–2007. The results show that there is no significant relationship between the two variables.

Foreign Direct Investment as an Instrument of Multinational Corporations

Authors
Year
2011
Published
Globalizace a regionalizace mezi vladní politikou a tržním prostředím. Praha: Vysoká škola regionálního rozvoje., 2011. p. 56-62. Edice VŠRR. vol. 5. ISBN 978-80-87174-12-8.
Type
Proceedings paper
Annotation
Most of the working papers about international investment implicitly but wrongly assume liberal economic environment. The aim of this article is to find theoretical proofs that behind the current level of international investment are multinational corporations which were created and are maintained within mercantilistic tradition. The paper defines multinational corporations and proves that their most important relationship is the one with governments. Moreover, the text shows how multinational corporation came to being and why they still have large share in the world markets.

Some Issues of Political Economics of Multinational Corporations

Authors
Year
2010
Published
Acta Economica Pragensia. 2010, 2010(18(4)), 32-43. ISSN 0572-3043.
Type
Article
Annotation
The existence of multinational corporations is not self-evident. These corporations have costs linked with business in foreign countries compared to their domestic competitors. Therefore, in the long term, they must have particular advantages over domestic firms. These advantages are external to the market system, and in order to make them exist, a governmental activity is necessary. The government, through its intervention on the market, increases transaction costs of using the market mechanism, and through this, it also increases the influence of multinational corporations. Today, the issue is the influence of active external macroeconomic policy and the policy towards investors which uses incentives for them. The bargaining between governments and MNCs has conformed more to the market rules. However, at the same time, it has also become more institutionalised and still remains in the mercantilistic tradition.

Ekonomické učení Jana Kalvína

Authors
Year
2009
Published
Jan Kalvín: pět set let od narození. Centrum pro ekonomiku a politiku, 2009. ISBN 978-80-86547-82-4.
Type
Invited/Awarded proceedings paper

K některým otázkám politické ekonomie přímých zahraničních investic

Authors
Year
2007
Published
Merkur Conference Proceedings. Bratislava: Ekonomická univerzita Bratislava, 2007. p. 169-181.
Type
Proceedings paper

Economic Thought of John Calvin about interest and usury

Authors
Year
2001
Published
Politická ekonomie. 2001, 49(6), 853-868. ISSN 0032-3233.
Type
Article
Annotation
At the beginning of the text we took into account all relevant biblical sources that until the 16th century played role in considering the compatibility of interest with the biblical message. We also stated important authors that influenced the medieval considerations on this issue. Although the interest was officially prohibited, it was frequently used, especially in connection with loans provided to rulers by strong financial institutions. These institutions took the advantage of their position on the financial market and due to their power also enjoyed immunity to certain religious rules. Strengthening protestant movement together with the economic necessity forced respected reformators to extensive interpretation of the issue of loans. The opinions of these reformators are described. Especially the teaching of John Calvin, namely his seven rules for the effective use of interest. In conclusion, we are describing the impact of Calvin's teaching that brought with the rise of capitalism.

Economic thought of John Calvin about solidarity in society

Authors
Year
2001
Published
Teologická reflexe. 2001, 01(2), 167-177. ISSN 1211-1872.
Type
Article