Jan Hanousek
Biographic Data
| ID | 1471488 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Jan Hanousek |
| GIVEN NAMES | Jan |
| FAMILY NAME | Hanousek |
| SIGNATURE | HANOUSEK J |
| AFFILIATIONS | Davidson College |
| ORCID | 0009-0006-3997-5931 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 24 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 25 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 24 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2002 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Politicians’ municipal bond purchases and local government misallocation
Using financial disclosure reports of U.S. senators and representatives, we examine whether politicians’ municipal bond purchases anticipate subsequent fiscal support and how targeted counties evolve afterward. We find that counties whose municipal bonds are purchased by politicians subsequently receive higher federal funding, consistent with politicians investing in jurisdictions that later benefit from intergovernmental transfers. Secondary-mar…
A Dilemma of Self-interest vs. Ethical Responsibilities in Political Insider Trading
Known Versus Anonymous Ownership
The paper extends existing research on the effects of ownership structures on company performance by including a dimension of transparency in the ownership structure. We analyse the effect of an unknown owner and pyramidal structure on company profitability, capital structure and investment. We conduct this research in accordance with existing theories on a panel of private companies within the cultural and political alliance of four Central Euro…
Firms' Total Payout Characteristics in Visegrad Countries
This paper examines payout characteristics of firms in a cultural and political alliance of four Central European nations, the Visegrad Group. The sample consists of more than 100,000 firm-year observations from 2001 to 2015. Our results indicate that smoothing behaviour diminishes among firms with majority ownership and that the total payout characteristics behave according to existing theories on passive ownership behaviour and agency costs
Detection of Changes in Panel Data
This study identifies systemic break points in a factor pricing model for firms traded on European stock markets around the financial crisis. The aim is to shed light on the systemic risk transfer in explaining average stock returns in the fragmented European exchanges. Our analysis takes advantage of recent development in econometrics and employs models which enable "automatic" detection of factor model break points. We find that Western Europea…
Corporate Names and Performance
We provide systematic evidence of the effect of alphabetical sorting on corporate performance based on over a decade of data covering seventeen EU countries in three European language families. We also measure the effects of using English words in a corporate name in a non-English-speaking country, of a corporate name containing a 'national' (patriotic) word, and of simple linguistic properties highlighted in the brand-name marketing literature. …
Innovation Decisions in Uncertain Business Environments of CEE Countries
Corporate innovations are a central part of a country's economic activity. They foster and improve competitiveness, which ultimately leads to economic growth and progress. In this study, we focus on the post-communist European region, where corporations operate under uncertain conditions. Utilizing a sample with almost 100,000 firm level observations over the period from 2001 to 2013, we analyse effects of uncertainty steaming from corruption env…
Impact of Ownership Type, Firm Characteristics and Crisis on Efficiency of the Czech Firms
We analyze how efficiency of firms in the Czech Republic is affected by their size, age, competition, capital structure, ownership types, and global financial crisis. We employ the stochastic frontier approach, use a large and detailed dataset, and cover time span 2001-2012. While effects of firm characteristics are small, the effects of ownership are economically substantial. We show that majority owners are most contributive with respect to fir…
FDI's Impact on Inter-industry Interactions among Domestic Suppliers of Intermediate Goods
In this paper, we analyze the extent of the impact of FDI on the host economy according to theoretical predictions. Within a broader context of international trade flows, we focus on inter-industry interactions between a multinational enterprise (MNE) that enters the domestic market and other firms in the economy. We seek to determine if the MNE uses domestic suppliers of intermediate goods or if it purchases its supplies from abroad or from othe…
Capital Diversion in European Firms after Merger and Acquisions, 1997/2013
This study examines the diversion of funds in M&A deals, using over 7,500 deals from core European countries for the period from 1997 to 2013, sourced from the Zephyr database. Theoretical predictions suggest that in M&A deals acquiring companies may use the target's assets as collateral to raise funds which is then diverted within the internal capital markets. Our results do not indicate an increase in leverage burdens of target firms. While we …
Cluster Analysis of Jumps on Capital Markets
Cluster Analysis of Jumps on Capital Markets We analyze the behavior and performance of multiple price jump indicators across capital markets and over time. By using high-frequency we perform cluster analysis of price jump indicators that share similar properties in terms of their performance in that they minimize Type I and Type II errors. We show that clusters of price jump indicators do not exhibit equal size. Clusters are stable across stock …
Corruption and Firm Efficiency in New EU Countries
We study the effects of corruption on firm efficiency using a unique comprehensive dataset of private firms from 10 Central and Eastern European countries for the period from 2002 to 2013. We find that an environment characterized by a high level of corruption has an adverse effect on firm efficiency. This effect is amplified for firms with a lower propensity to behave corruptly, i.e. foreign-controlled firms, while domestically-owned firms are n…
Determinants of the European Trade
We analyze the effect of the large set of theoretically motivated determinants on international trade among European countries during the period 1992-2008. The determinats cover areas of culture, institutions, infrastructure, and geography, including trade directions. We analyze trade in three types of goods: raw materials, parts and components, and capital goods. For each type of goods we differentiate trade in flows, extensive margin, and inten…
Price Jumps during Financial Crisis
In this paper, we employ the high-frequency data from Prague Stock Exchange (PSE) and New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) to analyse the variation in extreme price movements and market volatility around the period of fall of Lehman Brothers. The sample ranges from January 2008 to July 2009. We employ the price jump indicators optimal with respect to Type-I and Type-II errors. The former one shows an increase in market volatility and extreme price move…
Trade with Final Goods in European Union
Based on the gravity model of the trade with imperfect specialization we suggest a testable econometric specification. The model considers bilateral gravity equation as a statistical relationship limited by the multilateral specialization patterns among countries. We test the model on disaggregated bilateral trade data of the European Union (EU) countries. Our results show that trade in final goods between East and West in Europe is driven by mul…
Corporate Efficiency
We employ a large panel data set and analyze efficiency in the Czech firms during 1998-2007. We investigate how their efficiency evolves over time and how it is affected by ownership structures. Methodologically we employ a panel version of a stochastic production frontier model. We distinguish several categories of the ownership concentration by domestic owners and through foreign direct investments (FDI). Our results show that concentrated and …
Effect of the Czech Firms Break-Up on their Profitability and Productivity
In this article we analyze medium- and long-term effects of firm break-up (and subsequent change in ownership) on its profitability and productivity. We use an extensive data-set of the Czech firms for the period 1996-2005. We employ the propensity score based matching methodology to account for potential endogeneity. Our results show that initial effects of the firm break-up are positive but they vanish in five to seven years after the break-up.…
Corruption and Economic Freedom Links to Public Finance and Investment in New EU Members
We analyze corruption and economic freedom links to public finance and investment in new EU members. In terms of the public investment our results show that improvement in economic freedom is linked to increases in public investment while lowering of corruption is linked with increase or decrease with respect to public investment. As a complementary finding we show that increases in public investment are also linked with the ambiguous effect. In …
Effect of Intraday Information Flow on the Emerging European Stock Markets
We analyze effect of intraday information flow in three emerging EU stock markets-the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland. We use five-minute intraday data on stock market index returns and 15 types of EU and U.S. macroeconomic announcements during 2004-2007. We measure each announcement as its difference from market expectation. Mean and variance equations are jointly estimated. We bring evidence of strong spillovers from matured stock markets a…
Control potential of the state in privatized firms
The privatization strategy in many transition economies involved the creation of a special government agency that administered state property during privatization programs as well as after the privatization was declared complete. The National Property Fund (FNM) was the agency in the Czech Republic. In many firms the state kept residual state property long after the privatization was completed. We analyze the control potential of the state exerci…
Mission impossible
An easy and popular method for measuring the size of the underground economy is to use macro-data such as money demand or electricity demand to infer what the legitimate economy needs, and then to attribute the remaining consumption to the underground economy. Such inferences rely on the stability of parameters of the demand equations, or at very least on knowledge of how these parameters are changing. We show that the pace of change of these par…
"Breakups, privatization and firms" performance
This paper uses new firm-level data to examine the effects of breakups of the Czech firms and their subsequent privatization on corporate performance. Unlike the existing literature, which analyzes breakups almost exclusively in advanced economies, we control for accompanying ownership changes and the fact that spinoffs and ownership are endogenous variables. We find that breakups increase the firm's profitability but do not alter its scale of op…
Consumers' Opinion of Inflation Bias Due to Quality Improvements
Measurement of quality changes has proven to be an especially difficult aspect of calculating unbiased rates of inflation. We propose a new methodology of capturing quality improvements based on consumer focus groups and apply this methodology in an environment where quality changes might be expected to be especially rapid and extensive, a post‐Communist transition economy. We find that the methodology indicates a substantial understatement of qu…
Data Watch
This section will offer a description of data sources that may be of interest to economists. The purpose is to describe what data are available from those sources, what questions can be addressed because of the unique features of the data, and how an interested reader can gain access to the data. Suggestions for data sources that might be discussed here (or comments on past columns) can be sent to William N. Evans, c/o Data Watch, University of M…
Corruption and Economic Freedom Links to Public Finance and Investment in New EU Members
We analyze corruption and economic freedom links to public finance and investment in new EU members. In terms of the public investment our results show that improvement in economic freedom is linked to increases in public investment while lowering of corruption is linked with increase or decrease with respect to public investment. As a complementary finding we show that increases in public investment are also linked with the ambiguous effect. In …
Corporate Efficiency
We employ a large panel data set and analyze efficiency in the Czech firms during 1998-2007. We investigate how their efficiency evolves over time and how it is affected by ownership structures. Methodologically we employ a panel version of a stochastic production frontier model. We distinguish several categories of the ownership concentration by domestic owners and through foreign direct investments (FDI). Our results show that concentrated and …
Control potential of the state in privatized firms
The privatization strategy in many transition economies involved the creation of a special government agency that administered state property during privatization programs as well as after the privatization was declared complete. The National Property Fund (FNM) was the agency in the Czech Republic. In many firms the state kept residual state property long after the privatization was completed. We analyze the control potential of the state exerci…
Determinants of the European Trade
We analyze the effect of the large set of theoretically motivated determinants on international trade among European countries during the period 1992-2008. The determinats cover areas of culture, institutions, infrastructure, and geography, including trade directions. We analyze trade in three types of goods: raw materials, parts and components, and capital goods. For each type of goods we differentiate trade in flows, extensive margin, and inten…
Price Jumps during Financial Crisis
In this paper, we employ the high-frequency data from Prague Stock Exchange (PSE) and New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) to analyse the variation in extreme price movements and market volatility around the period of fall of Lehman Brothers. The sample ranges from January 2008 to July 2009. We employ the price jump indicators optimal with respect to Type-I and Type-II errors. The former one shows an increase in market volatility and extreme price move…
Trade with Final Goods in European Union
Based on the gravity model of the trade with imperfect specialization we suggest a testable econometric specification. The model considers bilateral gravity equation as a statistical relationship limited by the multilateral specialization patterns among countries. We test the model on disaggregated bilateral trade data of the European Union (EU) countries. Our results show that trade in final goods between East and West in Europe is driven by mul…
"Breakups, privatization and firms" performance
This paper uses new firm-level data to examine the effects of breakups of the Czech firms and their subsequent privatization on corporate performance. Unlike the existing literature, which analyzes breakups almost exclusively in advanced economies, we control for accompanying ownership changes and the fact that spinoffs and ownership are endogenous variables. We find that breakups increase the firm's profitability but do not alter its scale of op…
Data Watch
This section will offer a description of data sources that may be of interest to economists. The purpose is to describe what data are available from those sources, what questions can be addressed because of the unique features of the data, and how an interested reader can gain access to the data. Suggestions for data sources that might be discussed here (or comments on past columns) can be sent to William N. Evans, c/o Data Watch, University of M…
Innovation Decisions in Uncertain Business Environments of CEE Countries
Corporate innovations are a central part of a country's economic activity. They foster and improve competitiveness, which ultimately leads to economic growth and progress. In this study, we focus on the post-communist European region, where corporations operate under uncertain conditions. Utilizing a sample with almost 100,000 firm level observations over the period from 2001 to 2013, we analyse effects of uncertainty steaming from corruption env…
Data Watch
This section will offer a description of data sources that may be of interest to economists. The purpose is to describe what data are available from those sources, what questions can be addressed because of the unique features of the data, and how an interested reader can gain access to the data. Suggestions for data sources that might be discussed here (or comments on past columns) can be sent to William N. Evans, c/o Data Watch, University of M…
Consumers' Opinion of Inflation Bias Due to Quality Improvements
Measurement of quality changes has proven to be an especially difficult aspect of calculating unbiased rates of inflation. We propose a new methodology of capturing quality improvements based on consumer focus groups and apply this methodology in an environment where quality changes might be expected to be especially rapid and extensive, a post‐Communist transition economy. We find that the methodology indicates a substantial understatement of qu…
Mission impossible
An easy and popular method for measuring the size of the underground economy is to use macro-data such as money demand or electricity demand to infer what the legitimate economy needs, and then to attribute the remaining consumption to the underground economy. Such inferences rely on the stability of parameters of the demand equations, or at very least on knowledge of how these parameters are changing. We show that the pace of change of these par…
"Breakups, privatization and firms" performance
This paper uses new firm-level data to examine the effects of breakups of the Czech firms and their subsequent privatization on corporate performance. Unlike the existing literature, which analyzes breakups almost exclusively in advanced economies, we control for accompanying ownership changes and the fact that spinoffs and ownership are endogenous variables. We find that breakups increase the firm's profitability but do not alter its scale of op…
Control potential of the state in privatized firms
The privatization strategy in many transition economies involved the creation of a special government agency that administered state property during privatization programs as well as after the privatization was declared complete. The National Property Fund (FNM) was the agency in the Czech Republic. In many firms the state kept residual state property long after the privatization was completed. We analyze the control potential of the state exerci…
Effect of Intraday Information Flow on the Emerging European Stock Markets
We analyze effect of intraday information flow in three emerging EU stock markets-the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland. We use five-minute intraday data on stock market index returns and 15 types of EU and U.S. macroeconomic announcements during 2004-2007. We measure each announcement as its difference from market expectation. Mean and variance equations are jointly estimated. We bring evidence of strong spillovers from matured stock markets a…
Effect of the Czech Firms Break-Up on their Profitability and Productivity
In this article we analyze medium- and long-term effects of firm break-up (and subsequent change in ownership) on its profitability and productivity. We use an extensive data-set of the Czech firms for the period 1996-2005. We employ the propensity score based matching methodology to account for potential endogeneity. Our results show that initial effects of the firm break-up are positive but they vanish in five to seven years after the break-up.…
Corruption and Economic Freedom Links to Public Finance and Investment in New EU Members
We analyze corruption and economic freedom links to public finance and investment in new EU members. In terms of the public investment our results show that improvement in economic freedom is linked to increases in public investment while lowering of corruption is linked with increase or decrease with respect to public investment. As a complementary finding we show that increases in public investment are also linked with the ambiguous effect. In …
Corporate Efficiency
We employ a large panel data set and analyze efficiency in the Czech firms during 1998-2007. We investigate how their efficiency evolves over time and how it is affected by ownership structures. Methodologically we employ a panel version of a stochastic production frontier model. We distinguish several categories of the ownership concentration by domestic owners and through foreign direct investments (FDI). Our results show that concentrated and …
Trade with Final Goods in European Union
Based on the gravity model of the trade with imperfect specialization we suggest a testable econometric specification. The model considers bilateral gravity equation as a statistical relationship limited by the multilateral specialization patterns among countries. We test the model on disaggregated bilateral trade data of the European Union (EU) countries. Our results show that trade in final goods between East and West in Europe is driven by mul…
Price Jumps during Financial Crisis
In this paper, we employ the high-frequency data from Prague Stock Exchange (PSE) and New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) to analyse the variation in extreme price movements and market volatility around the period of fall of Lehman Brothers. The sample ranges from January 2008 to July 2009. We employ the price jump indicators optimal with respect to Type-I and Type-II errors. The former one shows an increase in market volatility and extreme price move…
Determinants of the European Trade
We analyze the effect of the large set of theoretically motivated determinants on international trade among European countries during the period 1992-2008. The determinats cover areas of culture, institutions, infrastructure, and geography, including trade directions. We analyze trade in three types of goods: raw materials, parts and components, and capital goods. For each type of goods we differentiate trade in flows, extensive margin, and inten…
Cluster Analysis of Jumps on Capital Markets
Cluster Analysis of Jumps on Capital Markets We analyze the behavior and performance of multiple price jump indicators across capital markets and over time. By using high-frequency we perform cluster analysis of price jump indicators that share similar properties in terms of their performance in that they minimize Type I and Type II errors. We show that clusters of price jump indicators do not exhibit equal size. Clusters are stable across stock …
Corruption and Firm Efficiency in New EU Countries
We study the effects of corruption on firm efficiency using a unique comprehensive dataset of private firms from 10 Central and Eastern European countries for the period from 2002 to 2013. We find that an environment characterized by a high level of corruption has an adverse effect on firm efficiency. This effect is amplified for firms with a lower propensity to behave corruptly, i.e. foreign-controlled firms, while domestically-owned firms are n…
Impact of Ownership Type, Firm Characteristics and Crisis on Efficiency of the Czech Firms
We analyze how efficiency of firms in the Czech Republic is affected by their size, age, competition, capital structure, ownership types, and global financial crisis. We employ the stochastic frontier approach, use a large and detailed dataset, and cover time span 2001-2012. While effects of firm characteristics are small, the effects of ownership are economically substantial. We show that majority owners are most contributive with respect to fir…
FDI's Impact on Inter-industry Interactions among Domestic Suppliers of Intermediate Goods
In this paper, we analyze the extent of the impact of FDI on the host economy according to theoretical predictions. Within a broader context of international trade flows, we focus on inter-industry interactions between a multinational enterprise (MNE) that enters the domestic market and other firms in the economy. We seek to determine if the MNE uses domestic suppliers of intermediate goods or if it purchases its supplies from abroad or from othe…
Capital Diversion in European Firms after Merger and Acquisions, 1997/2013
This study examines the diversion of funds in M&A deals, using over 7,500 deals from core European countries for the period from 1997 to 2013, sourced from the Zephyr database. Theoretical predictions suggest that in M&A deals acquiring companies may use the target's assets as collateral to raise funds which is then diverted within the internal capital markets. Our results do not indicate an increase in leverage burdens of target firms. While we …
Corporate Names and Performance
We provide systematic evidence of the effect of alphabetical sorting on corporate performance based on over a decade of data covering seventeen EU countries in three European language families. We also measure the effects of using English words in a corporate name in a non-English-speaking country, of a corporate name containing a 'national' (patriotic) word, and of simple linguistic properties highlighted in the brand-name marketing literature. …
Innovation Decisions in Uncertain Business Environments of CEE Countries
Corporate innovations are a central part of a country's economic activity. They foster and improve competitiveness, which ultimately leads to economic growth and progress. In this study, we focus on the post-communist European region, where corporations operate under uncertain conditions. Utilizing a sample with almost 100,000 firm level observations over the period from 2001 to 2013, we analyse effects of uncertainty steaming from corruption env…
Firms' Total Payout Characteristics in Visegrad Countries
This paper examines payout characteristics of firms in a cultural and political alliance of four Central European nations, the Visegrad Group. The sample consists of more than 100,000 firm-year observations from 2001 to 2015. Our results indicate that smoothing behaviour diminishes among firms with majority ownership and that the total payout characteristics behave according to existing theories on passive ownership behaviour and agency costs
Detection of Changes in Panel Data
This study identifies systemic break points in a factor pricing model for firms traded on European stock markets around the financial crisis. The aim is to shed light on the systemic risk transfer in explaining average stock returns in the fragmented European exchanges. Our analysis takes advantage of recent development in econometrics and employs models which enable "automatic" detection of factor model break points. We find that Western Europea…
Known Versus Anonymous Ownership
The paper extends existing research on the effects of ownership structures on company performance by including a dimension of transparency in the ownership structure. We analyse the effect of an unknown owner and pyramidal structure on company profitability, capital structure and investment. We conduct this research in accordance with existing theories on a panel of private companies within the cultural and political alliance of four Central Euro…
A Dilemma of Self-interest vs. Ethical Responsibilities in Political Insider Trading
Politicians’ municipal bond purchases and local government misallocation
Using financial disclosure reports of U.S. senators and representatives, we examine whether politicians’ municipal bond purchases anticipate subsequent fiscal support and how targeted counties evolve afterward. We find that counties whose municipal bonds are purchased by politicians subsequently receive higher federal funding, consistent with politicians investing in jurisdictions that later benefit from intergovernmental transfers. Secondary-mar…
Economics (22 works) · Business (15 works) · Finance (13 works) · Finance (12 works) · Monetary economics (11 works) · Corporate Finance and Governance (10 works) · Macroeconomics (10 works) · Econometrics (7 works) · Industrial organization (7 works) · Microeconomics (7 works)