This paper presents the results of an attempt to use the combined results of the dedicated survey performed by CASE in 2007 and Polish LFS data in order to: (a) analyze the development of the shadow employment in Poland in years 2003-2008 and, (b) analyze the transition probabilities in and out of shadow employment. The estimated share of shadow workers in total employment in Poland in years 2003-2008 was increasing until 2006 and then started to decrease in the years 2007 and 2008. Other results are in line with one of the main conclusions of the CASE study from 2007 suggesting that shadow employment is more a way of coping with lack of other employment opportunities than an equivalent or even superior alternative to any legal employment contracts. On the other hand those who enter shadow employment are more active part of the group having problems with finding full time/open term employment. They are much more inclined to cope with their situation by entering some form of self-employment than to stay passive and depend on social assistance.

The effect of the global financial crisis on Azerbaijan’s economy is closely related to the country’s strong dependence on oil exports. The local economy was mostly affected by a drop in oil prices and not so much by outflows of foreign capital and reduced investment.

There are large regional disparities in labour market indicators in countries in Central Europe and the Baltic region. Such disparities appear to be persistent over time indicating, in part, a lack of flexibility in the prevailing adjustment mechanisms. Internal labour mobility is often seen as a potentially important instrument to reducing adjustment costs when other mechanisms fail. Drawing from 2004 LFS data and utilizing a common empirical framework and estimation strategy, this paper identifies patterns and statistical profiles of geographical mobility. It finds internal migration to be generally low and highly concentrated amongst better-educated, young and single workers. This suggests that migration is more likely to reinforce existing inequalities rather than act as an equalizing phenomenon. By way of contrast, commuting flows have grown over time and are more responsive to regional economic differentials. The findings suggest the need for appropriate and country-tailored policy measures designed to increase the responsiveness of labour flows to market conditions.

This paper analyzes the distribution of real household incomes and consumption growth in Azerbaijan between 2004 and 2009. Decile-specific price deflators were used to calculate real incomes and consumption dynamics. The analysis, which was based on growth incidence curves, showed that economic growth between 2004 and 2009 was definitely propoor, both for real incomes and real consumption. Our results also indicate that household incomes were much more strongly correlated with oil GDP than with non-oil growth. Employment was the most important source of income growth for all deciles. Poorer households changed their coping strategies from subsistence agriculture to paid- and selfemployment. Although this led to a dynamic increase in their incomes, it hardly changed their consumption basket, with food still constituting more than 65% of spending. This means that their actual standard of living level did not change very much. Our results also indicate the low effectiveness and efficiency of social transfers; they were found to be almost evenly distributed among income deciles and played a negligible role in the income growth of the poorest households.

The aim of this paper was to analyse possible directions and magnitudes of the relationship between the social security driven tax wedge, employment and shadow employment in Russia and Ukraine. Previous results suggest a limited positive relationship between the size of the tax wedge and shadow employment and in recent years both analysed countries undertook serious steps in order to reform and to simplify their payroll tax system and consequently to reduce shadow employment. Our result suggest that the unskilled persons engaged in unregistered jobs in Ukraine and Russia are not rewarded with higher net earnings. It seems that, in their case, shadow employment is the way to escape unemployment and resulting poverty, rather than to evade taxes. Hence, it seems that, in this case, broadening of general employment opportunities for this group would result in a decrease in shadow employment. We also found that the effect of the SSN benefits on shadow employment was rather low in both countries. One of the explanations is the fact that SSN benefits remain largely universal, and are not sufficiently tied to former employment history and social security contribution paid.

Remittances in Moldova reach 36% of GDP, hence they constitute an essential part of the Moldovan economy. The most visible characteristic of remittances is their unequal distribution. The analysis applying the standard Lorenz Curve proves that 75% receiving households gets only 25% of total amount being sent to the country. The way remittances are distributed does not seem to be random. Higher amounts go in general to younger and more educated households. Remittances strongly influence the economic potential of households, especially if they are high enough. They often constitute the main source of households' income, but they not discourage the members of receiving households from economic activity. It indicates that migration and working abroad is the manifest of economic activity, on the other hand it suggest that lack of employment opportunities in the country is an important reason for migration. Those who obtain remittances tend to have higher share of investments in their total household spending. Significant share of remittances for all groups is spent on education - the basic investment increasing the future competitiveness. In rural areas remittances are much more often used to improve the quality of farms than to start running other businesses. It seems that lack of infrastructure and good governance is the main reason for which educated and young emigrants sending significant amounts of money do not decide to invest them in entrepreneurial activities. Eradicating these impediments for local development should be become a highest priority.

There is a large body of literature on the relationship between innovations and employment at the firm level, with most of the results indicating positive effects. Thus far, this kind of analysis has not been performed for Poland and it seems to be an important and interesting field for research. On the other hand, there is some empirical evidence that developments in the Polish labour market are at least partially driven by the Skill Biased Technical Change (SBTC) process. This paper tries to fill in this gap by looking at three dimensions of the relationship between innovations and employment in Poland: innovations and job creation, innovations and the skill structure of employment innovations, and wage formation. The results of the analysis indicate that there is a weak but positive relationship between the level of innovations and the probability of job creation. However, we have not been able to prove that innovations have any effect on the skill structure of labour demand in Poland. We have however found a positive and statistically significant relationship between the level of innovations and skill-biased wage changes. The results indicate that innovations positively influence the wages of skilled workers while they negatively influence the wages of the unskilled.

This paper attempts to evaluate wage rigidity related to risks of increased size and volatility of unemployment after the candidate countries enter the EMU. Such evaluation is done through the study of past labour market adjustment mechanisms and, in particular, the role played by the exchange rate movements and independent monetary policy. The paper examines some institutional and structural characteristics of candidate countries labour markets that could influence the wage elasticity. The analysis indicates that generally nominal wages are not flexible in candidate countries. Inflationary surprises and nominal exchange rate movements have an effect on the adjustment, especially during the Russian crisis. On the other hand fast productivity growth creates the environment in which unit labour can adjust to unfavourable labour market outcomes through moderation of real wage dynamics despite nominal stickiness. The paper indicates possible fields of further in-depth research in this area.

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.

Opracowanie oparte na danych BAEL pozwala na bardziej dokładne wyjaśnienie procesów zachodzących na rynkach pracy Lubelszczyzny i Podkarpacia. W porównaniu do raportów kwartalnych, które także zawierają charakterystykę sytuacji na rynkach pracy w tych województwach oraz szacują zmiany tendencji, opracowanie wykorzystujące dane BAEL wnosi nowe spojrzenie na determinanty zachodzących i przewidywanych zmian. Ewolucja popytu na pracę w zależności od zawodu oraz według sekcji EKD jest interesującym przyczynkiem do rozważań prowadzonych w raportach kwartalnych. Natomiast, przykładowo pokazanie wpływu miejsca zamieszkania i cech przedsiębiorstw jest wskazaniem nowych relacji istotnych dla kształtowania się zatrudnienia w województwie lubelskim i podkarpackim.

Drawing from a variety of data sources and utilizing a common empirical framework and estimation strategy, this study identifies patterns and statistical profiles of geographical mobility. It finds internal migration to be generally low and highly concentrated among better-educated, young, and single workers. This suggests that migration is more likely to reinforce existing inequalities than to act as an equalizing phenomenon. By way of contrast, commuting flows have grown over time and are more responsive to regional economic differentials. The findings suggest the need for appropriate and country-tailored policy measures designed to increase the responsiveness of labor flows to market conditions.

The European Commission awarded a contract in November 2005 to a consortium composed of the TARKI Social Research Institute (Hungary), CASE, Center for Social and Economic Research (Poland) and CEPS to analyse the socio-economic developments and the process of structural reforms in what were then four candidate countries: Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania and Turkey. The objective was to identify the major challenges in the current demographic, social and economic context that could be considered relevant in determining the capacity of these countries to function in the European Union. This study presents a synthesis of the findings for all four countries, and consists of an analytical section and a statistical annex. The four country reports are published separately in this same series.

As the process of population ageing in Europe carries on and the retirement age increases, the relationship between age and productivity becomes more and more important. One can be afraid that as the average age of the working individual goes up, the average level of productivity growth will go down, resulting in decreasing competitiveness of European economies. Our expectation is that due to serious differences in labor market structures between New Member States (NMS) (including current candidates) and the EU15, the former are the first order candidates to experience higher than average productivity costs of ageing in the near future. In this paper, one tries to examine this hypothesis. The research strategy in this study has been based on the assumption that, in general, wages are correlated with productivity on the individual level and, as such, can be used as a proxy for productivity. Such an assumption is quite risky and can be easily criticized. Hence, based on the results of earlier studies, our main empirical analysis is limited to groups of workers for which one can expect that correlation between productivity and wages is still substantial. It seems, that taking all the caveats in mind, the results of our analysis show that the relative productivity of older workers in the NMS is lower than in EU15.