The aim of this study is to clarify, whether and where the widespread opinion that systemic change from socialism to capitalism went along with dramatically rising inequality is true and how income distribution does affect the overall growth performance of transition countries. The countries...

This paper analyzes the evolution of inequality in Poland during the economic transition that began in 1989-90. Using micro data from the Household Budget Surveys, we find that, after a brief spike in 1989, income and consumption inequality actually declined to below pretransition levels during...

The authors revisit Western Europe's record with labor-productivity convergence and tentatively extrapolate its implications for the future path of Eastern Europe. The poorer Western European countries caught up with the richer ones through both higher rates of physical capital accumulation and...

Progress in achieving institutional changes should be evaluated through the prism of their influence on the development abilities of the relevant country. In Poland, during 20 years of comprehensive systemic shift, GDP increased more than in any other postsocialist country. To judge the...

There is large evidence on a positive impact of information and communication technologies (ICT) on economic growth and productivity in a number of developed countries in the 1990's. There are however no studies, which would estimate the contribution of ICT to growth and productivity in...

Following up on a previous paper by the same author on the contribution of ICT capital to growth and labor productivity in Poland 1995-2000, this paper extends the study to eight transition economies: Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Russia, Slovakia and Slovenia. The paper shows that...

Unification of Europe through development and enlargement of the European Union is a great political success. Poland is also joining the EU hoping to accelerate development. Although this enlargement signifies new investment opportunities in Europe and it will create the largest internal market...

1) The negotiated terms of Poland's accession to the EU oblige us to accede to the EMU too. However, they do not predetermine the date of our EMU entry. In this paper, four most probable, in the author' opinion, scenarios of our accession to the EMU were presented. Scenario A assumes accession...

There are good reasons to assume that in the longer term Poland's economic growth will be unimpressive at best. This pessimistic judgement, however, does not reflect a sceptical evaluation of Poland's potential, but rather an evaluation of the merits of the current international economic order....

When it seems that everything or nearly everything has been said about the prerequisites and prospects of economic growth - in the Polish context, too (Kolodko 2002b and 2002c; Noga 2004) - it is worthwhile to revisit certain aspects of this phenomenon, which is of vital importance for the...