The main topics related to the global economic crisis were tackled by a range of foremost foreign and Czech economists at the international scientific conference called „Czech and World Economy after the Global Financial Crisis“ held by VŠFS, which took place at the ČNB‘s (Czech National Bank) Congress Center on November 25, 2011.
The current economic problems of the Czech Republic and European Union were discussed in the morning part of the conference. Mr. Miroslav Singer, the Governor of ČNB talked about the dramatic economic developments in 2011 (weakened growth impulses, worse prospects of a solution to the debt crisis in the Euro zone). „The financial crisis has not finished, yet symptoms of a new recession have appeared“, says the Governor. „There is a limited scope for fiscal expansion“. At the end of his speech Mr. Singer stated that an export connection with the German economy represents the main danger for the Czech Republic. On the other hand, the stability of the financial sector is good news.
Professor Michael Landesmann, director of WIIW research department (Viennese Institute of International Economic Studies) presented the main speech on „New member countries in the context of European financial and economic crisis: differences and prospects“. He mainly pointed out significant differences between the countries of middle and Eastern Europe regarding the current account deficits of their payment balances and their public debts. However, the Czech Republic shows very favourable indicators. In the opinion of prof. Landesman, the return to a pre-crisis development is unlikely in the near future. The flow of capital has significantly reduced and the whole region is evaluated as risky.
The morning programme continued with speeches of three famous Czech economists. Mr. Petr Zahradník, head of the Office of European Union in Česká spořitelna (Czech Savings Bank) and a member of NERV, presented the paper on „Crisis in EU and Euro zone and its potential impacts on the EU coherent politics as a part of a short-term financial framework“.
Mr. Tomáš Sedláček, the main macroeconomy strategist of ČSOB and a member of NERV, called his presentation „Fiscal and monetary politics after (?) the crisis“. He states that the issues of fiscal policy and creation of debts should not be cared for by politicians but by a specialized institution, just as the issue of currency policy is.
Mr. Aleš Michl, an analyst at Raiffeisenbank, gave his speech on „(Non)competitiveness of the Czech economy in the period of crisis“.
The afternoon programme focused on contributions of the winners of the „Prize of prof. F. Vencovský“ in the third year competition of young talented economists. PhDr. Adam Geršl, Ph.D. and PhDr. Jakub Seidler won the first place for their original theoretical economic paper Excessive Credit Growth and Countercyclical Capital Buffers in Basel III, together with RNDr. Filip Matějka, Ph.D. who presented his paper on Information Frictions and Monetary Policy. The winners will share the main prize of 200 000 Kč, which was donated by an organizer of the whole event - VŠFS.
The aim of this competition is to support the development of science and to continue in the tradition linked with the name of a foremost Czech economist František Vencovský. There were 11 scientific papers evaluated in the competition, out of which the nomination committee with the VŠFS rector Bohuslava Šenkýřová chose five as the winning ones. They will be presented in the nearest issues of the scientific magazine ACTA VŠFS.
The papers of the conference will be published on the multimedia collection.
