FIR Will Work on Two New Projects Supported by the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic

The Board of the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic (GA CR) has decided to finance projects in the field of basic research for the coming year. The competition was great, the agency saw a significant increase in support applications. GA CR will thus distribute funds in the total amount of CZK 4.2 billion.

The Faculty of International Relations recorded great success and will participate in two supported projects:

Winners and losers: Who benefits from the work of the Czech National Bank? Heterogeneous impact of monetary policy on companies and households

PhDr. Mgr. Jakub Matějů, M.A., PhD, Prague University of Economics and Business, The Faculty of International Relations

The project leader is Jakub Matějů (University of Economics, CNB), other members include Monika Junicke (University of Economics, UNRR), Haroon Mumtaz (Queen Mary, University of London) and Angeliki Theophilopoulou (Brunel University London). This study has two objectives, namely to show how different firms benefit from monetary policy and its effect on their decisions, and reveal how monetary expansion affects labour income inequality.

The Czech National Bank (CNB) it actively uses both conventional and unconventional monetary policy instruments, from which some firms and households benefit more than others. Because the literature usually focuses on the impact of monetary policy on aggregates and large economies, we identify a significant knowledge gap in measuring the heterogeneous impact of monetary policy in a small open economy. The CNB’s exchange rate to the euro and the series of significant changes in interest rates that accompanied it. On the one hand, individual data at the enterprise level will allow us to examine whether export-oriented firms have benefited more from expansionary policies in terms of revenue, value-added or profit; and the policy impact on the corporate recruitment or investment decisions. On the other hand, using unique individual wage data, we can identify the distributional effects of monetary policy on individual households’ income, and thus examine the extent to which monetary policy shocks affect wage income inequality.

The energy discourse of the European Commission and the European Parliament and its impact on the Member States

Mgr. et Mgr. Lukáš Tichý, Ph.D., The Institute of International Relations, v.v.i.

The project focuses on the impact of the EU’s energy discourse (reflecting in particular energy security) on selected EU Member States (Czech Republic, Germany, France, Italy and Sweden). The energy discourse will be monitored using the so-called Discourse-Historical Approach. We believe the energy discourse of the European institutions (namely the European Commission and the European Parliament) has an impact on the discourse of the Member States and thus leads to fundamental changes in their view of energy.

The main researcher is Lukáš Tichý from the Institute of International Relations. The members of the research team for the Faculty of International Relations are Alžběta Vítková, Zbyněk Dubský and Markéta Votoupalová.

FIR Will Work on Two New Projects Supported by the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic