Poland's enterprise environment - a Polish view

The paper briefly presents environment for business in Poland as of the end of the year 2005. A few comments, however, on its evolution in the course of the transition period are also made. The paper broaches administrative, legal and financial requirements to start and run business activities by both natural and legal persons. In addition, it presents government support schemes for investors. A brief description of the scope of the grey economy and corruption completes the picture of the business environment. The topic has been approached from the foreign investor's perspective. Although foreign investors are subject to the same laws as domestic (Polish) ones, in a limited number of cases they are treated differently than the latter. These cases, and specifically land purchase and employment of foreign citizens, are reviewed.business climate, industrial policy, state aid, grey economy, Poland.

How Human Services Programs and Their Clients Can Benefit From National Health Reform Legislation

Explains how information technology investments for Medicaid expansion also will enable state agencies to share information that expedites eligibility determination for other needs-based benefits, increases access to supports, and facilitates enrollment

Visas and Work Permits: Possible Global Negotiating Initiatives

We discuss global options for initiatives intended to ameliorate adverse impacts of visa and work permit systems used by national governments around the world. We first describe and document some of their effects, noting the relative lack of other research work on these issues. We then discuss proposals for a new and supplemental global visa structure which have been made as part of the Mode 4 GATS negotiations in the WTO, suggesting that the GATS/WTO may be an imperfect institutional location for negotiating on these matters. We then evaluate other approaches, including what realistically could be possible if a new body specifically created for global negotiation in the area were to be used.

An Analysis of Leading Congressional Health Care Bills, 2007-2008: Part I, Insurance Coverage

Compares coverage and cost estimates of bills to improve health coverage through private-public approaches, universal public insurance, tax changes, increased coverage for children and the disabled, expanded health savings accounts, and other strategies

The Permit Power Revisited: The Theory and Practice of Regulatory Permits in the Administrative State

Two decades ago, Professor Richard Epstein fired a shot at the administrative state that has gone largely unanswered in legal scholarship. His target was the permit power, under which legislatures prohibit a specified activity by statute and delegate to administrative agencies the discretionary power to authorize the activity under terms the agency mandates in a regulatory permit. Accurately describing the permit power as an enormous power in the state, Epstein bemoaned that it had received scant attention in the academic literature. He sought to fill that gap. Centered on the premise that the permit power represents a complete inversion of the proper distribution of power within a legal system, Epstein launched a scathing critique of regulatory permitting in operation, condemning it as a racket for administrative abuses and excesses. Epstein\u27s assessment of the permit power was and remains accurate in three respects: it is vast in scope, it is ripe for administrative abuse, and it has been largely ignored in legal scholarship. The problem is that, beyond what he got right about the permit power, most of Epstein\u27s critique was based on an incomplete caricature of permitting in theory and practice. This Article is the first to return comprehensively to the permit power since Epstein\u27s critique, offering a deep account of the theory and practice of regulatory permits in the administrative state. This Article opens by defining the various types of regulatory permits and describing the scope of permitting in the regulatory state. From there it compares different permit design approaches and explores the advantages of general permits, including their ability to mitigate many of the concerns Epstein advanced. This Article then applies a theoretical model to environmental degradation problems and concludes that if certain conditions are met, general permits can effectively respond to many of the complex policy problems of the future. Finally, this Article adds to the scholarship initiated by Epstein by proposing a set of default rules and exceptions for permit design and suggesting how they apply to complex policy problems

Siting Power Plants: Recent Experience in California and Best Practices in Other States

Compares California's power plant siting with results in other states. Includes interviews with California state agency representatives, developers and process mediators. Part of a series of research reports that examines energy issues facing California

Diversity in the labour market: The legal framework and support services for migrant workers in Germany

This paper describes the legal and regulatory framework under the Immigration Act of 30 July 2004 (Zuwanderungsgesetz). The Immigration Act, made up of several acts and amendments to existing legislation, has established a new concept of managed migration by the Act on Residence, Economic Activity, and Integration of Foreigners on the Federal Territory (Residence Act). This Act describes as its purpose to manage and restrict the influx of foreigners into the Federal Republic of Germany and to enable and organize immigration with due regard to the integration capacity and the interests of the Federal Republic of Germany in terms of its economy and labour market policy. --

Building a Common Policy on Labour Immigration: Towards a Comprehensive and Global Approach in the EU? CEPS Working Document, No. 256, 7 February 2007

This paper addresses the building of a common EU policy on labour immigration. It reviews the latest policy developments concerning the harmonisation of the rules for admission and residence of third-country workers in the EU. In November 2006, the European Commission published a Communication entitled “Global Approach to Migration one year on: Towards a Comprehensive European Migration Policy”, which reemphasises the need to develop a transnational policy on regular immigration facilitating the admission of certain categories of immigrant workers through “a needsbased approach” and especially taking into account the case of the “highly skilled”. By September 2007 the Commission intends to present two proposals for directives dealing respectively with the conditions for entry and residence of highly skilled workers and a common general framework of rights for all immigrants in legal employment. The main questions evoked by the EU’s ‘global and comprehensive’ approach and these two proposals are considered along with the essential weaknesses that current policy and legal trends in the national arena may pose to any eventual Europeanisation as a result of following their patterns too closely

Product market regulation in Romania : a comparison with OECD countries

Less restrictive product market policies are crucial in promoting convergence to higher levels of GDP per capita. This paper benchmarks product market policies in Romania to those of OECD countries by estimating OECD indicators of Product Market Regulation (PMR). The PMR indicators allow a comprehensive mapping of policies affecting competition in product markets. Comparison with OECD countries reveals that Romania's product market policies are less restrictive of competition than most direct comparators from the region and not far from the OECD average. Nonetheless, this achievement should be interpreted in light of the fact that PMR approach measures officially adopted policies. It does not capture implementation and enforcement, the area where future reform efforts should be directed if less restrictive policies are to have an effective impact on long-term growth prospects.Public Sector Regulation,Transport Economics Policy&Planning,E-Business,Emerging Markets,Markets and Market Access