Bozena Leven

Poland's transition and new opportunities for women

Abstract Since 1990, marketization has fundamentally altered Polands economy. Like many former Soviet bloc countries, Polish prices, wages, and foreign trade have been liberalized, and many state assets are now privatized. Independent central banks, commercial banking systems, and stock exchanges have been formed, and the taxation and legal systems have been restructured to support a market economy. The dominant view is that this process should benefit most Poles over time. For Polish women, however, the first phase of economic transition was a mixed blessing. This paper explores their experiences in between 1990 and 2003 and discusses two positive, mutually supportive ways that Polish women have benefited during transition: First, the segmentation of the labor market has positioned women advantageously in the countrys key financial sector and entrepreneurial ranks. Second, women have benefited from the growth of a womens movement. Together, these two processes can be expected to accelerate the pace of positive changes for Polish women.

Can State-owned Banks Promote Enterprise Restructuring? Evidence from One Polish Bank' s Experience

In this paper, we take a detailed look at one Polish banks experiences with financial sector reforms focusing on a bank-led enterprise-restructuring plan that linked directly bank privatization and recapitalization to bad-debt workouts. Based on personal interviews and original statistical data, we evaluate the performance of Bank Depozytowo-Kredytowy (BDK) in promoting financial and operational restructuring of its clients. We found that BDK continued to provide soft lending to keep four old military‐industrial companies afloat and actually increased its exposure to these companies during the program. The five success stories among BDKs clients were companies that had external agents other than the bank promoting and monitoring their operational restructuring. From our case study of BDK, we conclude that, while banks may play a role in financial restructuring of their clients, their ability to affect operational restructuring is quite limited. Moreover, stateowned banks are particularly vulnerable to incentive problems when dealing with large state-owned enterprises that may be too big or too political to fail.

New Developments in Poland's Emigration-The EU Factor

Abstract In this paper, we seek to better understand who the “typical” recent Polish emigrants are, why they have emigrated, and the major implications of the recent wave of emigration for Poland and EU business environment. To do so, we examine the composition of Polish emigrants by gender, education, occupation, region, and country of destination-with a particular focus on permanent emigration. We then identify and assess the impact of the economic conditions and policies most relevant to emigration changes, both on Poland and the EU. The major conclusion of this paper is that while the West European fears of Polishand other East European immigrationare understandable, they are not well supported by economic theories or current Polish labor mobility trends.

Marketization and Poland's transfer payments

This study will examine the effects of Polands transition on structural and policy changes in the primary categories of central government transfer payments, family assistance programs, pensions, and unemployment benefits. In this paper, changes in the structure of transfer payments for 1990 through 1997 will be quantified, and the relevant programs are described. This paper also examines the regulatory and policy framework of transfer payments. The welfare effects of transfer payment changes on Polands different societal groups will be calculated, and certain policy recommendations are presented.