Ins and Outs of Polish Unemployment

This paper studies flows on the labour market in Poland in 1995-2008. We show that the main driving force behind the unemployment rate is the behaviour of outflow to employment. In addition, this flow is found to be procyclical, while the separation rate is acyclical.unemployment, job finding, worker flows

Analysis of HF data on the WSE in the context of EMH

This paper focuses on one of the heavily tested issues in the contemporary finance, i.e. efficient market hypothesis (EMH). The existing evidence in the literature is ambiguous. For some markets, the departure from efficiency is observed only when High Frequency (HF) data are analysed. Therefore, we verify efficient market hypothesis (EMH) basing our analysis on 5-minute data for WIG20 index futures quoted on the Warsaw Stock Exchange (WSE). We use robust regression that assigns the higher weights to the better behaved observations in order to verify the existence of daily and hourly effects. Our results indicate that the day of the week effect and hour of the day effect are observed. What is more important is the existence of strong open jump effect for all days except Wednesday and positive day effect for Monday. Considering the hour of the day effect we observe positive, persistent and significant open jump effect and the end of session effect. Aforementioned results confirm our initial hypothesis that Polish stock market is not efficient in the information sense.high-frequency financial data, robust analysis, pre-weighting, efficient market hypothesis, calendar effects, intra-day effects, the open jump effect, the end of session effect, emerging markets

Educational Aspirations

The purpose of this study is to check to what extent different environmental and institutional surroundings affect educational aspirations. We conduct a comparison study between different local municipalities in Poland. We use statistical description to compare educational aspirations in selected regions of Poland and apply econometric techniques to test formally the relation between educational aspirations and education, income and other socioeconomic factors. We show that the level of aspirations is well diversified and is higher in developed areas of Poland. We also found that contrary to the existing literature, the educational aspirations seem to rise with age of the respondent.aspirations, returns to education

Dynamic caliper matching

Matched sampling is a methodology used to estimate treatment effects. A caliper mechanism is used to achieve better similarity among matched pairs. We investigate finite sample properties of matching with calipers and propose a slight modification to the existing mechanism. The simulation study compares the performance of both methods and shows that a standard caliper performs well only in case of constant treatment or uniform propensity score distribution. Secondly, in a case of non-uniform distribution or non-uniform treatment the dynamic caliper method outperforms standard caliper matching.propensity score matching, caliper, efficiency, Monte Carlo study, finite sample properties

Economic determinants of sport participation in Poland

The article presents statistical description of economic factors that determine sport participation in Poland. Utilising data from 2008 Sport Participation Survey the biprobit model that takes into account the dependency between individuals and household attitude to sport participation is estimated. Sport participation is found to slightly decline with age of a person, on the other hand, education is found to be positively related to sport participation. The idiosyncratic factor of sport participation in Poland is the influence of children; they seem to encourage their relatives to partake in physical activity. Additionally, both the income level of a household and a personal income of a person have an influence on sport participation.sport participation, sport expenditure, household, income, education

Gender wage gap by occupational groups in Poland

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the gender wage gap in Poland in different occupational groups. The authors aim to investigate how much of the raw differences in wages can be explained by differences in personal characteristics and in which occupational groups the unexplained part of wage gap is the highest. The authors use the individual data from employers’ statistics with detailed information about wages and personal characteristics of workers. The authors use base salaries per hour as the dependent variable. After controlling for differences in the gender composition of occupational groups the authors choose 24 occupational groups at 3-digit level and perform Oaxaca-Blinder two-component decomposition. The authors are the first to analyse the differences in gender wage gap in Poland by occupational groups. Another original contribution is that the wage gap is analysed not for the whole sample but after controlling for the segregation effect. The results indicate that firstly, the raw differences by gender in base wages per hour are smaller than the ones in average wages per hour. Secondly, after controlling for differences in the gender composition of occupational groups the raw wage gap in Poland increases from 6.7% to 10.8%. Thirdly, in most of the analysed occupational groups the differences in characteristics explain only a minor part of the wage gap. The highest share of the unexplained part was among managers and in groups in which the specific vocational skills are required

Impact Of Social Capital On Individual Well-Being In Poland. Proxy-Based Approach

In this paper we attempt to quantify the impact of social capital on individual well-being. We follow the Putnam (1995) approach and select five key social capital components to construct a synthetic index for social capital using a multivariate probit model. Social capital is considered as one of the three crucial individual endowments: physical capital, human capital and social capital. The impact of the synthetically constructed social capital index on individual’s well-being is estimated using a Mincer type earning equation. The results show that social capital explains up to 20% of income variation both at individual and household level. However, human capital and physical capital remain the critical determinants of individual income.social capital, income, well-being, local community, household

Returns from Income Strategies in Rural Poland. Factor Markets Working Document No. 64, August 2013

In order to stabilise and improve their income situation, rural households are strongly encouraged to diversify their activities both within and outside the agricultural sector. Often, however, this advice is only moderately pursued. This paper addresses issues of rural household income diversification in the case of Poland. It investigates returns from rural household income strategies using propensity score matching methods and extensive datasets spanning 1998-2008. Results suggest that returns from combining farm and off-farm activities were lower than returns from concentrating on farming or on self-employment outside agriculture. This differential is stable over time although returns from diversification have relatively improved after Poland’s accession to the EU. This is also visible in the fact that since 2006 returns from combining farm and off-farm activities have evened with returns from relying solely on hired off-farm labour, thus smoothing the difference observed before the accession. Further, over the analysed period, households pursuing the diversification strategy performed better than those relying solely on unearned income. Finally, in general, the income in households combining farm and off-farm activities was higher than in those combining two off-farm income sources

Returns from income strategies in rural Poland

In Poland, rural households are encouraged to diversify their activities both in and outside the agricultural sector in order to stabilize and improve their income. However, relatively few households appear to do this. This paper addresses this issue, investigating the returns from the income strategies of rural households using propensity score matching methods and extensive data sets for 1998–2008. The results suggest that returns from combining farm and off-farm activities are lower than returns from specialization, namely, concentrating on either farming or off-farm activities. The income difference between farmers and those who combine farming and off-farm activities increased after Poland joined the European Union.Income diversification, rural areas, propensity score matching, Poland

Minimum wage workers in the private sector in Poland: regional perspective

The aim of the paper is to analyse regional diversification of minimum wage workers in the private sector in Poland and identify regions more vulnerable to minimum wage increases. Firstly, we examine the regional differences in the share of minimum wage workers. Secondly, we look at the structure of minimum wage earners. Finally, we use empirical approach analogous to Nestić et al. (2018) to identify low-wage sections and low-wage regions. We use individual data from the Structure of Earnings Survey in Poland. The research period covers 2008-2016. Six Polish regions are identified as the low-wage ones: five economically underdeveloped provinces of Eastern Poland and one region located centrally. These regions are characterised not only by high percentage of young people working for the minimum wage, but also high share of prime age and elderly minimum wage workers. High share of minimum wage earners is not only among low-qualified workers, but also among those with secondary education. These are employed in labour intensive, low-wage sections of the economy. What is particularly interesting is the fact that the results are fairly stable over time. To the best of our knowledge this is the first study of such kind not only for Poland but also for other countries.The project is financed by the National Science Centre, project number: UMO-2017/25/B/HS4/02916