Marek Góra

Active labor market policies in Europe: Performance and perspectives

Executive summary.- and overview.- The European Employment Strategy.- An overview of Active Labor Market Policies.- The methodology of program evaluation.- Reports from selected EU25 member states.- The effectiveness of European ALMPs.- Conclusions and policy recommendations.

Long-Term Unemployment, Unemployment Benefits and Social Assistance: The Polish Experience

This paper provides a comprehensive account of the regulations governing the systems of unemployment support and social assistance in post-communist Poland. To provide a solid foundation for a further discussion of these issues, the paper extensively characterizes the Polish labor force in terms of the prevalence and duration of unemployment. A final aspect of our empirical analysis concerned the question of what are the main sources of personal income for labor force participants, unemployed workers and long-term unemployed workers. In conclusion, we argue for a reform of the Polish systems of income support that separates the objectives of employment growth and poverty alleviation, and that improves upon the implementation of support schemes.

Tax Wedge and Skills: Case of Poland in International Perspective

The project intended to explain the causes of high structural unemployment in Poland. It is generally believed that the high level of unemployment in Poland is determined to a decisive degree by factors such as a restrictive labor code, high degree of unionization and/or the unemployment benefits system. The research provides macroeconomic and microeconomic evidence that the employment consequences of a tax wedge can be more severe for the low-skilled. Consequently, it argues that a high tax wedge can be potentially more harmful in countries abundant in this kind of labour. These results should send a strong message to policymakers, especially those in Central and Eastern Europe. The project was financed by a research grant provided by the Ministry of Education and Science, Poland and conducted by a team of CASE researchers: Marek Gora (coordinator), Mateusz Walewski, Artur Radziwill and Agnieszka Sowa. It was completed in the first quarter of 2006.

Reintroducing Intergenerational Equilibrium: Key Concepts behind the New Polish Pension System

The paper discusses conceptual background of the pension system from the viewpoint of its long-term objective, which is to ensure intergenerational equilibrium irrespective of the demographic situation. This requires stabilisation of the share of GDP allocated to the entire retired generation. Traditional pension systems aim, instead, at stabilisation of the share of GDP per retiree. The change in demographic structure observed over the past for a couple of decades and this historic attempt to stabilise the share of GDP per retiree led to severe fiscal problems and negative externalities for growth, as observed in numerous countries. Many countries have tried to reform their pension systems in different ways to try to resolve the issue of these ever-increasing costs. Poland adopted a new pension system in 1999. This new pension system allows Poland to reduce pension expenditure (as a percent of GDP), instead of increasing it - as is projected for the majority of other OECD countries. Although the Polish reform uses a number of techniques applied elsewhere, its design differs from the typical approaches - and the lessons and results are promising for all OECD countries. This paper presents the theoretical and practical application of this alternative approach and as such, the key features of the new Polish pension system design.

Social Security, Labour Market and Restructuring: Current Situation and Expected Outcomes of Reforms

The paper focuses on the social safety nets in Russian Federation and Ukraine in the view of changes on the labour market since the beginning of economic transition. We showed that many past phenomena (e.g. restructuring of the economy, wage and pension arrears, new groups at-risk-of-poverty, demographic transition) caused a need to change an old type social safety net (SSN) into the new one, better adapted to emerging more liberal economy problems. Additionally, we analysed some gender specific issues related to social security that are caused mainly by inequalities in the labour market. Differences of earnings between men and women in Russia caused by sector segregation account for seem to be more important than the gap between gender earnings attributed to the position. In Ukraine the main contributors to gross gender differential of log earnings (that equals to 32%) explained by our model are sector segregation and occupation. We also pointed out to future policy challenges in the area of social security systems in both countries. The retirement reforms introduced recently are a step in the right direction, although their impact will not be felt for a number of years. Other reforms, with more immediate results, are necessary. Social safety nets should be made more efficient and social benefits should be better targeted.

Pension Reform Options for Russia and Ukraine: A Critical Analysis of Available Options and Their Expected Outcomes

This paper provides the results of analyses of key problems related to pension systems and their reforms in Russia and Ukraine. The pension systems and their reforms in both countries are compared. They are also compared with the general picture observed in the OECD or selected countries belonging to that area. The analysis focuses on long-term trends rather than short-term shocks. The recent economic crisis is not covered since the analysis was mostly completed by 2008. First, we present the general picture which describes the current demographic and economic situations as well as the challenges that are being faced. Then we turn to reform options and actions already taken. We particularly focus on issues that are specific to the countries analyzed.

Central and Eastern European labour markets in transition

The transition in the Visegrad countries (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovak Republic) has been a long lasting process. Monitoring the process has been very interesting because it is both similar and dissimilar to “normal” performance of OECD economies. At the beginning of the transition, due to lack of information we could only make educated guesses about what was really happening. This was particularly true in the case of labour market developments. The data necessary for analysis were either non-existent, incomplete or not fully reliable. Now, after a few years of the transition we know quite a bit about Visegrad economies, including the performance of their labour markets. Moreover, we also have a general view of how Visegrad labour markets differ from those in developed countries and how they differ from each other.

Preserving social models while regaining competitiveness: can Europe do both?

European social models have many advantages and some disadvantages—both have been widely discussed. However, disputes on whether the European welfare state is a good or bad idea have become less relevant since the demographic dividend that used to fuel the institutions of the welfare state has disappeared. Having fewer resources, Europeans must spend less. In order to adjust to the new situation it is crucial to rethink the essence of social goals, to explain conclusions to the public, and to then neutralise certain elements of social models in order to withdraw them from political bargaining and downsize them. All this is necessary in order to save the social models, which have become overused. Not having the demographic dividend available, politicians have had to increase the burden put on production factors, reducing net remunerations. European social models still have a lot of potential for the future. If they focus on the key social goals and are of a reasonable scale then they will once again contribute to higher productivity and competitiveness among European economies.

Restructuring and Social Safety Nets in Russia and Ukraine - Socail Security Influence on Labor Mobility: Possible Opportunities and Challenges

The paper discusses the issue of labor force mobility in a broad sense, and analyses how changes in social security policy and the structure of the social safety net (SSN) affects different aspects of labor force mobility. The text is structured as follows: Introduction, then follows Chapter 2, which provides an overview of the labor market and social safety net developments in Russian and Ukraine over the last decade, as well as discusses common features of these countries. The Chapter 3 establishes theoretical models for different aspects of labor force mobility, discusses the availability of data on Russia and Ukraine to test these models, and provides a statistical analysis of the data. The Chapter 4 discusses results of the statistical analysis. The final chapter discusses policy conclusions that can be derived from comparison of the effect of the SSN on labor mobility in these two countries, and extends them to all countries in transition.

Adequacy of Contributions: The Key Goal of the Polish Pension Reform

Pension reform is high on the agenda almost everywhere in Europe. The contributions to this Forum outline the different pension systems of selected European countries, providing an assessment of both the reform steps taken so far and the need for further reform.