Regional price deflators in Poland: evidence from NUTS-2 and NUTS-3 regions

This paper analyzes regional price differentials in Poland at the NUTS-2 and NUTS-3 levels. It applies unique raw-price data and calculates regional purchasing power parity (PPP) deflators for the 16 NUTS-2 regions. It then estimates PPP deflators for the 66 NUTS-3-level regions by applying the multiple imputation approach. Finally, it verifies whether these are intra- or interregional price inequalities that have a greater influence on the overall price inequality level. It is found that the price levels are significantly higher than the average in the better-developed regions and lower in the lagging ones. It is also found that it is the intra- rather than the interregion differentials that influence more the overall inequality level.     

Integration into Global Production and Distribution Networks through FDI: The Case of Poland

Technological progress has led to increasing importance of the international division of labour organized around global production and distribution networks. Multinational corporations have been a driving force behind these developments. This article studies the role of MNCs in integrating a host country into the international system of division of labour in the context of Poland. It provides evidence of Poland's increasing participation in global production and distribution networks that is taking place through FDI inflows. It concludes that, thanks to a large volume of FDI inflows, Poland's exports driven by production fragmentation will continue to expand at even faster rates than those observed in recent years.     

Heterogeneity in Early Life Investments: A Longitudinal Analysis of Children's Time Use

We examine socioeconomic heterogeneity in children's time use using diary data from two waves of a nationally representative longitudinal cohort study in Ireland. Children from disadvantaged households spend significantly less time reading, doing homework, and engaging in physical exercise and sport than their counterparts, and more time engaging in unstructured play. Though most gaps are relatively small at age 9, they widen considerably by age 13. This pattern is similar for girls and boys. Parental education appears to be a more important factor in family investment decisions about children's time use than household income. Given the important role of extra-curricular activities in promoting cognitive and non-cognitive skill development, the systematic differences in children's time use we document in this paper may contribute to cumulative disadvantage and widening skill gaps through adolescence and into adulthood.     

Individual wages and regional market potential

In this article, we study wage determinants in Poland by employing the augmented NEG wage equation that controls for individual worker characteristics. Our analysis is based on the Labor Force Survey (LFS) conducted by the Polish Central Statistical Office (CSO) for the period 1999–2009. Using annual data on about 10,000 Polish workers in 16 regions, we find that a significant fraction of inter‐individual wage differences can be explained by the geography of access to markets.     

The Brazilian wage curve: new evidence from the National Household Survey

This paper reconsiders the Brazilian wage curve using individual data from the National Household Survey at 27 Federative Units over the period 2002–2009. We find evidence in favor of the Brazilian wage curve with an unemployment elasticity of ?0.08. We also find that males in Brazil are significantly more responsive to local unemployment rates (?0.13) than their female counterparts. In fact, we find that the unemployment elasticity for women is statistically insignificant. Applying gender-specific unemployment rates, the elasticity for men decreases to ?0.09, while the elasticity for women remains statistically insignificant. This paper also finds that the estimates for Brazilian wage curve are completely different for the case of formal and informal workers.     

The Great Recession,Household Income,and Children's Test Scores

Economic downturns may have important implications for the educational attainment and human capital accumulation of children. We examine how income losses during the Great Recession were associated with children's educational performance in Ireland, one of the countries most severely affected by the global financial crisis. Using longitudinal data from a nationally representative child cohort study, collected before and after the recession at ages 9 and 13 years, we estimate panel models to examine the impact of income changes on standardized tests. We explore both objective and subjective measures of recession impact, and investigate non-linearities and effect heterogeneity using quantile regression. While income is strongly associated with educational performance overall, there is little evidence of a short-run negative impact of income shocks during the Great Recession on children's test scores.