Vol. 8 No. 1 (2008)
Poznań University of Economics Review
Published:
30-03-2008
Articles
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Domestic labour, foreign capital and welfare
A competitive allocation of labour across different sectors of a small open economy may not be socially optimal when one sector uses foreign specific capital. We argue that a suitably designed economic policy is required to maximize national welfare of the host country. In particular such a policy design has to take into account repatriation of factor income by multinational firms. (original abstract) -
The modeling of technology diffusion : theory and empirics
The aim of the article is to review the classical approach to the modeling of technology diffusion and to introduce two modifications of this approach. We present the setup of these modifications and the results of the empirical analysis based upon them. We discuss the role of technology diffusion in a group of 28 OECD countries in the period 1981-1999. (original abstract) -
Familisation and defamilisation policy in 22 European countries
High employment and activation rates have come to be hallmark of the European Union strategy. To support the economic growth and limit the negative consequences of aging societies Member States have to attract more people into employment. Breaking down the barriers to labour market entry and re-entry, especially for women who take on family responsibilities, has become some kind of signum temporis. But the problem we face is not only how to encourage women to enter the labour market but how to reconcile a number of objectives: achieving gender equity, raising fertility, lowering unemployment, increasing labour market activity, improving the well-being of children. The paper compares state policy towards working families in 22 European OECD countries and their potential consequences for women's labour market activity. It develops and uses a welfare state typology based on the theoretical concept of familisation and defamilisation. After the widely recognised Esping-Andersen's typology of welfare-state has been criticised mostly by feminist authors, scholars all over the world are looking for alternative criteria to identify models which are "gender sensitive" i.e. reflect the gender differences due to caring responsibilities. The debate led to introduce a theoretical concept of (de) familisation which concentrates on the extent to which public policy supports family in its caring function. The paper focuses on the caring function of a modern family and its consequences for women labour market activity. We identify models of state policy based on three criteria: defamilisation of care, familisation of care and defamilisation of cost of the children. The former two were used by other authors but their methods of measuring are questioned in this paper. 'Defamilisation of cost of children' measures the taxes, tools and family benefits which remain unnoticed by many authors. The typology allows the identification of variations of state policies and thus a classification of 22 European countries investigated here. (original abstract) -
Efficient real estate market in Poland
The information efficiency of the real estate market is its ability to fully and immediately reflect all significant information in real estate prices. Efficiency is understood as the continuous reflection of respective information entering the system in real estate transaction prices, assuming this information is known, understood and unconditionally part of the decision-making process. Efficiency may be defined on two levels. The first one relates to the organization effectiveness of market system structures. The other one is related to the precision with which the price established on the real estate market reflects the actual value of the real estate and also to its ability to respond to the continuous inflow of information. The paper presents the theory of real estate market efficiency and verifies the hypothesis that the information efficiency of the real estate market in Poland is insufficient. (original abstract)
