Pecs-S20 Historical Roots of Regional Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Tracks
Day 3
| Wednesday, August 24, 2022 |
| 16:00 - 17:30 |
| B313 |
Details
Chair: Michael Fritsch (Friedrich Schiller University Jena)
Speaker
Dr. Korneliusz Pylak
Post-Doc Researcher
Lublin University of Technology
Every ending is a new beginning: The impact of entrepreneurship in socialist Poland on economic growth 1995–2020
Author(s) - Presenters are indicated with (p)
Korneliusz Pylak (p)
Discussant for this paper
Maria Greve
Abstract
See extended abstract.
In this paper we aim to employ a natural experiment in which Poland before and after the introduction of the market economy in the early 1990s is analysed. The aim of the analysis is to determine how the economic situation at the end of the People's Republic of Poland (in 1988) influenced the development of Polish municipalities between 1995 and 2020. This would make it at least partly possible to identify the primary factors initiating economic growth. Considering the above, the aim of the analysis is to determine the impact of the conditions existing at the end of the People's Republic of Poland (1988) on the level of economic growth measured by 1) the change in the level of income per capita, 2) the change in the size of labour resources and 3) the level of start-ups in municipalities in the period 1995-2020.
Since in different periods this impact could have been different, especially in the initial period when the economy was struggling to respond to the shock of political transformation, the magnitudes of the explained variables are calculated for five-year periods. Separate analyses have been prepared for each of these periods.
The factors explaining growth include a number of variables from 1988–89, including the share of the private sector in the economy, the share of manufacturing, investment expenditure in the socialised economy, the share of employees in science and technology development and expenditure in this sector, the share of employees with higher education, as well as the size of the potential market, population density and distance to administrative centres of (former) voivodeships. In addition, growth factors were introduced for neighbouring municipalities, selected according to different criteria, reflecting the varying scale of the effects of growth poles on development.
The study employed a wide range of data sources, starting with 2,939 city and municipality books from the National Census conducted on 6 December 1988 ("Population. Housing conditions"), statistical yearbooks for 49 provinces from 1990–95, as well as data from the Statistics Poland Local Data Bank for 1995–2020. All name changes, mergers, and separations of municipalities during the study period were also tracked to ensure comparability of data. Financial figures were recalculated for 2020 considering the general level of inflation in the country and the denomination of the Polish currency (zloty). Hence, the administrative breakdown and historical financial figures reflect the status as of 2020.
In this paper we aim to employ a natural experiment in which Poland before and after the introduction of the market economy in the early 1990s is analysed. The aim of the analysis is to determine how the economic situation at the end of the People's Republic of Poland (in 1988) influenced the development of Polish municipalities between 1995 and 2020. This would make it at least partly possible to identify the primary factors initiating economic growth. Considering the above, the aim of the analysis is to determine the impact of the conditions existing at the end of the People's Republic of Poland (1988) on the level of economic growth measured by 1) the change in the level of income per capita, 2) the change in the size of labour resources and 3) the level of start-ups in municipalities in the period 1995-2020.
Since in different periods this impact could have been different, especially in the initial period when the economy was struggling to respond to the shock of political transformation, the magnitudes of the explained variables are calculated for five-year periods. Separate analyses have been prepared for each of these periods.
The factors explaining growth include a number of variables from 1988–89, including the share of the private sector in the economy, the share of manufacturing, investment expenditure in the socialised economy, the share of employees in science and technology development and expenditure in this sector, the share of employees with higher education, as well as the size of the potential market, population density and distance to administrative centres of (former) voivodeships. In addition, growth factors were introduced for neighbouring municipalities, selected according to different criteria, reflecting the varying scale of the effects of growth poles on development.
The study employed a wide range of data sources, starting with 2,939 city and municipality books from the National Census conducted on 6 December 1988 ("Population. Housing conditions"), statistical yearbooks for 49 provinces from 1990–95, as well as data from the Statistics Poland Local Data Bank for 1995–2020. All name changes, mergers, and separations of municipalities during the study period were also tracked to ensure comparability of data. Financial figures were recalculated for 2020 considering the general level of inflation in the country and the denomination of the Polish currency (zloty). Hence, the administrative breakdown and historical financial figures reflect the status as of 2020.
Dr. Maria Greve
Assistant Professor
Utrecht University
Shades of a Socialist Legacy? Innovation Activity in East and West Germany 1925-2014
Author(s) - Presenters are indicated with (p)
Michael Fritsch, Maria Greve (p), Michael Wyrwich
Discussant for this paper
Korneliusz Pylak
Abstract
There seems to be a consensus in the literature that socialism left an adverse imprint on the level of innovation activity and that this socialist legacy hampers the development after the switch to a market economic system. We investigate the long-term socialist treatment effect on the number of patents across East German regions by applying a difference-in-difference approach. There is increasing divergence between East and West that is only partly a result of socialist legacy but rather rooted in the transformation process. In particular we find that German unification led to a consolidation of research activities in fields that equally comprised the technological profiles of East and West. This consolidation seems to have a considerable long-term negative effect on innovation activity in the East.
