The relationship between the short-term and long-term Phillips curve for the Czech Republic

Inflation is an important macroeconomic issue that has continued to dominate discussions at major economic fora over time. Governments all over the world are concerned about its rising trend because of its pervasive effect on economic performance. One intriguing fact about inflation is that it is both the cause and effect of certain policy actions of government. Several studies have been conducted on the effect of inflation on economic activities in developing and developed nations, but studies on its cause, particularly in developing nations, are scant. This paper aims at identifying major factors that cause inflation in Nigeria. Based on the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) estimation method, the study shows empirical support for significant impact of external debt, exchange rate, fiscal deficits, money supply and economic growth on inflation. It further shows previous period or lagged inflation rate as a significant determinant of current inflation rate. However, the study produced no evidence of significant longrun impact of interest rate on the rate of inflation in Nigeria. The study recommends economic reforms that target foreign exchange inflow through increased export trade, as well as a paradigm shift away from deficit budgeting. There is also a need for infrastructural and institutional reforms to eliminate or, at least, minimize the impact of structural inequity on output prices.

This paper investigates factors that may impact foreign direct investment in Nigeria. It seeks to establish the role of taxation (corporate tax) for foreign direct investment in Nigeria. Annual time series data derived from the Central Bank of Nigeria statistical bulletin and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development covering a period of 31 years (1985–2015) were used for this study. The variables considered in the study include FDI, corporate tax, exchange rate, inflation rate, real gross domestic product (RGDP). They were analyzed using Ordinary Least Squares (OLS), Johansen Co-Integration model and Unit Root Test. Findings from this research observed that a negative relationship exists between corporate taxation and FDI. Also, the study observed that corporate tax have a significant impact on FDI and there exists a long-run relationship between the two variables.

A significant size of the shadow economy is a threat to the sustainable functioning of a country’s economy, its ability to finance economic and social programs. The paper studies the influence of the shadow economy on the macro-financial stability of the EU countries. The dependence between macro-financial stability and the size of the shadow economy was estimated using the quadrocentric (considering the four channels of the shadow economy) recursive (takes into account direct and inverse relationships between them) model. Dependence between indicators was analyzed using Euler’s methods, Calvo’s and Dixit Stiglitz’s principles, Taylor’s and Smets-Wouters’ function. It has been proved that shadow economy channels affect the macro-financial stability almost equally (an increase in the size of the shadow economy in Slovenia by 1% leads to a decrease in macro-financial stability by 0.562% for tax, 0.56% for investment, 0.572 for institutional, and 0.444 for social channels). At the same time, the growth in the volume of shadow transactions through one channel forms an impetus for the increasing intensity of use of the remaining channels to hide income. With the help of the payment matrix, the optimal level of drivers of shadow economy by which the targeted value of the level of macro-financial stability is achieved was determined. It was concluded that ensuring good governance in the direction of preventing shadow schemes of capital withdrawal should be carried out in terms of institutional, tax, social, and investment channels of the shadow economy.

Acknowledgment
This work was supported by the Slovak Research and Development Agency under the contract No. APVV-16-0602.