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• Political budget cycles: fiscal cycle effects in state expenditures in Poland

  47-62

  Agnes Halasz

  Views:

  125

  In this paper we aim to investigate what kind of role fiscal cycles played in the development of the state budget balances in Poland between 1989 and 2011. Overall, the results of the latest research have found that political budget cycles (PBC) are more typical in less developed countries with a shorter period of experience with democratic institutions, such as the post-socialist transition economies. Nevertheless, empirical studies point out that this phenomenon has been disappearing over time as voters learn how democratic institutions and political manipulation operate. However, this theory could not be proved by testing the pattern of Poland, neither in the case of budget balances nor for state expenditures. Despite the fact that some fiscal cycle effects were found in public sector wages and pensions in the election period of 1997 and 2001, these proved to be temporary, and simultaneously some other measures were identified that counterbalanced the effects of pork barrel spending. Overall, the cyclical evolution of the budget balances in Poland, particularly in the nineties, was not a result of political budget cycles.

  Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) classifications: D72, E62, H3

• Roadmap for the adoption of the euro in Hungary: dangers and opportunities

  Laszlo Jankovics

  Views:

  151

  In April 2003, the EU Accession Agreement was officially signed for the Czech Republic, Estonia, Cyprus, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovenia and the Slovak Republic. These countries are destined to become EU members in May 2004. As part of the “acquis communautaire”, participation in the new version of the exchange rate mechanism (ERM II), and subsequently in the European Monetary Union (EMU) is obligatory for all new EU members (no opt-out clause is available). Therefore, the question today for the accession countries is no longer whether or not to enter the eurozone but rather the time horizon when the entry should happen.

  Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) code: E42, E58, F33.

• Human Capital and EU-Enlargement

  83-92

  Dietmar Meyer

  Views:

  84

  The enlargement of the European Union is an almost everywhere accepted necessity, but at the same time of course also a compromise. Economies or regions of different economic, social, institutional, etc. development become united in Europe with a territory from the Atlantic to the Eastern borders of Poland, Slovakia and Hungary, from the Baltic Sea to the Mediterranean Sea. This integration process going along with the worldwide globalisation will imply a new distribution, or a redistribution of the factors of production. First of all the human capital will be touched by this development.2 One of the most important results found by social sciences in the 20th century is the realisation of the immense role played by human factors in the process of economic development. The extremely high efficiency of human capital and the high mobility could diminish the regional differences in the economic development and therefore in the social life. But even this is one reason for the mentioned re-allocation of the human capital. In the frame of a very simple static model (See e. g. Bishi – Kopel [2002]) the flow of human capital between different regions – called the European Union and the New Member States – will be analysed. The introduction of search costs extends the field of policy-analysis.

• Regions and the European integration: The Europeanization of the regions in Central and Eastern Europe

  54-68

  Jürgen Dieringer

  Views:

  92

  The process of Europeanization that is the adjustment of the national legal regulations, intstitutions and decision making patterns to the European political practice leads to the significant transformation of the national political systems. In the horizontal dimension of the state institutions this concerns primarily the relationship between the executive and the legislative powres whereas in the vertical dimension this influences the relationship bewteen the central state and the regions or provinces. The paper examines the source and durability of the Europeanization process in three Central and Easterna European countries, in Poland, Hungary and Czech Republic. Focus is primarily laid upon the institutional adjustments.