Skip to main content
Disciplines
Automotive Business IT + Informatics Construction + Real Estate Electrical Engineering + Electronics Energy + Sustainability Insurance + Risk Finance + Banking Management + Leadership Marketing + Sales Mechanical Engineering + Materials
Events
DE
EN
Books
Journals
Topic Page
Marketing
Start single access now
Access for companies
EXTENDED SEARCH
Log in
Top
Published in:
Introduction: The Story and the Lessons Read chapter Read first chapter

2021 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

5. How the European Union Made Poland European Again

Author : Marcin Piatkowski

Published in: Does EU Membership Facilitate Convergence? The Experience of the EU's Eastern Enlargement - Volume I

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Log in

Activate our intelligent search to find suitable subject content or patents.

search-config
loading …

Abstract

This chapter analyzes the sources of Poland’s unprecedented economic performance after 1989, when Poland became Europe’s and the world’s growth champion. I argue that this growth miracle was driven by five fundamental factors, including Poland’s accession to the European Union. All five factors were critically important, but without accession to the EU, Poland’s economic miracle would not have happened.

Dont have a licence yet? Then find out more about our products and how to get one now:

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

  • über 102.000 Bücher
  • über 537 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

  • Automobil + Motoren
  • Bauwesen + Immobilien
  • Business IT + Informatik
  • Elektrotechnik + Elektronik
  • Energie + Nachhaltigkeit
  • Finance + Banking
  • Management + Führung
  • Marketing + Vertrieb
  • Maschinenbau + Werkstoffe
  • Versicherung + Risiko

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

inform now

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

  • über 67.000 Bücher
  • über 340 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

  • Bauwesen + Immobilien
  • Business IT + Informatik
  • Finance + Banking
  • Management + Führung
  • Marketing + Vertrieb
  • Versicherung + Risiko




Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

inform now
previous chapter Regional Dynamics in EU11
next chapter Transformation of the Trade and Financing Model of the Hungarian Economy After EU Accession
Footnotes
1
Although, if the source statistics can be fully believed, Albania’s GDP per capita during 1990–2018 increased by 149 percent, a shade higher than Poland’s.
 
2
Based on data from the World Bank’s WDI database https://​data.​worldbank.​org/​indicator/​ny.​gdp.​pcap.​pp.​kd, plus own projections for 2018.
 
3
Malinowski (2016) argues that Poland’s GDP per capita in 1580 reached 85 percent of income in France. That said, given the much higher income and wealth inequality in pre-modern Poland, where the top 6–8 percent of the society—the ruling gentry and aristocracy—monopolized the economy, the median levels of income were lower than today. In addition, more than 80 percent of the society were serfs, whose status was in practice not that entirely different than that of slaves. They would be quite surprised to hear that they lived in a “golden age”.
 
7
A recent paper by Blanchet, Chancel and Gethin (2019) argues that Poland’s inequality measured by income shares is the highest in Europe, with the top 10 percent of Poles taking over almost 40 percent of the national income versus less than 30 percent in the Czech Republic.
 
8
Owing to a strong resistance from a robust civil society, Poland’s mass privatization was delayed until 1996, much later than among most other post-socialist countries. When it finally happened, strong institutions, independent media, and availability of market prices for assets ensured that the privatization was much “cleaner” than elsewhere and did not lead to the emergence of oligarchs.
 
9
In Piatkowski (2018), I focus on Poland’s long-term development and propose a new model of institutional development based on the amended concept of “inclusive” and “extractive” institutions developed by Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson (2005) and Acemoglu and Robinson (2012).
 
10
Leszek Balcerowicz, Grzegorz W. Kolodko, and Marek Belka, the three key economic policymakers of the last 30 years, were all Fulbright scholars in America in the 1970s and 1980s and have kept close touch with Western economics throughout their careers. Jacek Rostowski, Poland’s finance minister during 2007–2014, was the most Western of all: he was born and spent most of his life in the UK, moving to Poland to assume the minister’s position.
 
11
In the early days of transition, the reforms were also anchored by the IMF and the World Bank financing support programs (Roaf et al. 2014), the US-led international effort to create a US$ 1 billion Stabilization Fund, and the need to follow the reforms underlying the agreed 50 percent debt restructurings with Paris Club and later London Club of creditors.
 
13
According to one perspective, Poland’s culture is still in many ways closer to that of Latin America than to many other countries in Europe. See Inglehart–Welzel Cultural Map at http://​www.​worldvaluessurve​y.​org/​WVSContents.​jsp
 
15
Poland and Ukraine had a similar GDP per capita in 1990. In 2018, Poland’s GDP PPP was almost four time higher than in Ukraine. From: https://​data.​worldbank.​org/​indicator/​NY.​GDP.​PCAP.​PP.​KD?​locations=​PL-UA
 
16
Mexico’s economy much depends on the USA, Malaysia on China and Poland on Germany. World Bank (2017) selected Mexico and Malaysia as Poland’s peers in their comparative analysis of Poland’s performance.
 
17
Despite much criticism of the current Law and Justice party’s government, including its attempts to undermine the rule of law, the economic policy has been far from populist: over the last four years, 2015–19, the government has presided over an almost 20 percent increase in GDP per capita, one of the highest growth ratios in the EU, a decline in inequality and poverty and a falling public debt.
 
18
Annual median equivalized disposable household income measures median income for families adjusted for taxes, social security contributions and social benefits. It is also adjusted for purchasing power parity (OECD 2019, p. 76).
 
21
In Poland, real labor productivity per person increased by 23.8 percent during 2010–2018, the second fastest rate of increase in the EU, after Romania. In Germany, it increased by only 5.5 percent. Source: https://​appsso.​eurostat.​ec.​europa.​eu/​nui/​show.​do?​dataset=​nama_​10_​lp_​ulc&​lang=​en
 
22
Although rapidly growing labor market shortages over the last few years, only partially filled by a significant increase in labor immigration, especially from Ukraine, have spurred a much faster increase in wages. That said, growth in unit labor costs continues to be subdued (IMF 2019).
 
23
See the World Bank’s Worldwide Governance Indicators for the current reading of Poland’s institutional quality: https://​info.​worldbank.​org/​governance/​wgi/​#reports
 
Literature
Acemoglu, D., & Robinson, J. (2012). Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty. New York: The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Acemoglu, D., Johnson, S., & Robinson, J. (2005). Institutions as the Fundamental Cause of Long-Run Growth. In P. Aghion & S. Durlau (Eds.), Handbook of Economic Growth (Vol. 1A, pp. 385–472). Amsterdam/San Diego: Elsevier/North-Holland.
Bąk, M. (2009). Uwarunkowania transformacji gospodarczej w krajach Europy Środkowej i Wschodniej. In G. W. Kolodko & J. Tomkiewicz (Eds.), 20 lat transformacji. Osiągnięcia, problemy, perspektywy. Warsaw: WAIP.
Blanchet, T., Chancel, L., & Gethin, A. (2019). How Unequal Is Europe? Evidence from Distributional National Accounts, 1980–2017. WID, World Working Paper No. 2019/06.
Bolt, J., Inklaar, R., de Jong, H., & van Zanden, J. L. (2018). Rebasing ‘Maddison’: New Income Comparisons and the Shape of Long-Run Economic Development. Maddison Project Working Paper 10.
Bukowski, M., Koryś, P., Leszczyńska, C., Tymiński, M., & Wolf, N. (2018). Wzrost gospodarczy ziem polskich w okresie I globalizacji (1870–1910). Ekonomista, 2018/2, 127.
Campos, N., Coricelli, F., & Moretti, L. (2014). Economic Growth and Political Integration: Estimating the Benefits of Membership in the European Union Using the Synthetic Counterfactuals Method. IZA Discussion Paper No. 8162.
Czapiński, J. (2015). Główne wyniki i wnioski. Diagnoza Społeczna 2015, Warunki i Jakość Życia Polaków—Raport. Contemporary Economics, 9(4), 16–24.
EBRD. (2016). Transition Report 2016–17. Transition for All: Equal Opportunities in an Unequal World. London: European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
Gill, I., & Raiser, M. (2012). Golden Growth. Restoring the Lustre of the European Economic Model. Washington, DC: The World Bank.
Gomułka, S. (2018). Poland’s Economic Performance in Global and Long-Term Perspective: Surprises So Far and Risks in the Years Ahead. Central European Economic Journal, 5, 109–117.CrossRef
IMF. (2019). Republic of Poland: 2018 Article IV Consultation.
Kolodko, G. W. (2000). From Shock to Therapy: The Political Economy of Postsocialist Transformation. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRef
Kolodko, G. W. (2009). A Two-Thirds Rate of Success. UNU/WIDER Research Paper No. 2009/14.
Kolodko, G. W. (2011). Truth and Lies: Economics and Politics in a Volatile World. New York: Columbia University Press.CrossRef
Kolodko, G. W., & Tomkiewicz, J. (Eds.). (2019). Strategia dla Polski. Ćwierć wieku później. Warsaw: PWN.
Koryś, P. (2018). Poland from Partitions to EU Accession. A Modern Economic History, 1772–2004 (pp. 1–390). Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRef
Luengnaruemitchai, P., & Schadler, S. (2007). Do Economist’ and Financial Markets’ Perspectives on the New Members of the EU Differ? IMF Working Paper No. WP/07/65, International Monetary Fund, Washington, DC.
Malinowski, M. (2016). Little Divergence Revisited: Polish Weighted Real Wages in a European Perspective, 1500–1800. European Review of Economic History, 20(3), 345–367.CrossRef
Ministry of Regional Development. (2013). Wpływ polityki spójności na rozwój społeczno-gospodarczy Polski w latach 2004–2015 w świetle wyników badań makroekonomicznych.
OECD. (2019). Household disposable income database. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Piatkowski, M. (2009). The Coming Golden Age of New Europe. Center for European Policy Analysis Report Nr. 26.
Piatkowski, M. (2013). Poland’s New Golden Age: Shifting from Europe’s Periphery to Its Center. World Bank Policy Research Working Paper, Working Paper Series Nr. 6639.
Piatkowski, M. (2014). The Warsaw Consensus: The New European Growth Model. In W. Grzegorz & W. Kołodko (Red.), Management and Economic Policy for Development. Hauppauge, NY: Nova Science Publishers.
Piatkowski, M. (2018). Europe’s Growth Champion. Insights from the Economic Rise of Poland (pp. 1–400). Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRef
Roaf, J., Atoyan, R., Joshi, B., Krogulski, K., & an IMF Staff Team. (2014). 25 Years of Transition, Post-Communist Europe and the IMF. Regional Economic Issues Special Report, The IMF, Washington, DC.
Roland, G. (2014). Transition in Historical Perspective. In A. Aslund & S. Djankov (Eds.), The Great Rebirth: Lessons from the Victory of Capitalism Over Communism. Washington DC: Peterson Institute for International Economics.
Székely, I. P., & Ward-Warmedinger, M. (2018). Reform Reversal in Former Transition Economies (FTEs) of the European Union: Areas, Circumstances and Motivations. IZA Policy Paper No. 142.
Vonyo, T. (2017). War and Socialism: Why Eastern Europe Fell Behind Between 1950 and 1989. Economic History Review, 70(1), 248–274.CrossRef
World Bank. (2017). Lessons from Poland, Insights for Poland: A Rapid and Inclusive Transition to High-Income Status. Warsaw: World Bank.CrossRef
Metadata
Title
How the European Union Made Poland European Again
Author
Marcin Piatkowski
Copyright Year
2021
Book
Does EU Membership Facilitate Convergence? The Experience of the EU's Eastern Enlargement - Volume I

Print ISBN: 978-3-030-57685-1

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-030-57686-8

Copyright Year: 2021

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57686-8_5