The Constitution-Making Process in Poland*

The process of constitution making in Poland since 1989, and the content of the two draft constitutions prepared separately by the Sejm and the Senate are described in this paper. The relatively weak sense of constitutionalism in Poland's tradition is commented on and compared with the role of judicial review by the courts and constitutional tribunals in the United States and Europe. The latter part of the article discusses the role of the Church, the civil society, the unions and voluntary associations in constitution making and in the post-Communist society in general.     

The post-September spiral in Baja

As a result of the securityprecautions taken by the US after September11, Baja has experienced enormous economicdislocation, affecting both legitimate andunderworld businesses. Increased vigilancealong the border has complicated efforts totraffic undocumented immigrants and drugs.One of the consequences has been anincrease in other illegal operations on theMexican side of the border such askidnapping, robbery, and local distributionof drugs.     

Capital punishment in Poland: The debate continues

Throughout its modern history, Poland has not escaped controversies surrounding the use of the death penalty. Tracing the historical development of laws dealing with the issue demonstrates an evolution influenced by various legal, political, social, philosophical, and international factors, leading up to the current absence of the penalty from the Polish legal system. The debate in society revolves around some stereotypical views held by different social groups. One of the biggest challenges is how to reconcile those views with empirical evidence, especially on issues like the deterrent effect of capital punishment. The authors describe the death penalty debate in Poland from these perspectives and take a retentionist position with regard to some selected crimes. As long as there are individuals willing to take other people's lives in a premeditated and deliberate manner demonstrating callous contempt for another person's existence, death remains the only punishment satisfying a sense of social justice and upholding the value of human life.     

The Price-Wage Mechanism in Poland: An Endogenous Switching Model

This paper proposes a two-equation price-wage model that enables to test whether the inflationary pressure on wage rate is only present when the rate of inflation is greater than some threshold value. Since the likelihood function for this model is very nonstandard, we develop a small-sample Bayesian approach to estimate its parameters. Our empirical results for Poland, 1962–1993, give support to the hypothesis of the price- wage spiral with a positive threshold value of inflation.     

Wage determination in late socialism: The case of Poland

Does economic transition necessitate a profound change in the inter-industry wage structure? This paper argues that principles of wage determination in centrally planned economies were not basically different from those prevailing in market economies. Even if the center became involved in wage setting, reward for human capital and the compensating differential had to be taken into consideration. Moreover, market power led to rent-sharing via wage bargaining and efficiency wages. Hence, this paper claims that wages in socialist economies were determined by similar factors to those in market economies. This is supported by comparison of inter-industry wage structures between socialist and capitalist countries and by results of the estimation of the wage equation for Poland. There is a noticeable degree of similarity in wage structures generated by both systems.     

Privatizing the Police-State: The Case of Poland

Netherlands International Law Review -     

Dental age in Central Poland

Precise evaluation of the developmental stage of a child is an integral part of both diagnosis and treatment of pediatric patients; it is also essential in forensic medicine and dentistry. Among radiological methods for dental age estimation in children the Demirjian's method is widely used, however original standards elaborated for the French-Canadian population are mostly not suitable for other populations. The aim of the study was to compare the dental age of children from the region of Mazovia (Central Poland) with the developmental standards presented by Demirjian, to analyse sexual dimorphism of dental age in the studied group and to estimate validity of the Demirjian's standards for the studied Polish population. The material consisted of clinical files and panoramic X-ray images of 994 children aged from 6 to 16 in good general health, without development impairments. Chronological ages of the patients were established. Next dental ages were estimated by means of the Demirjian method based on developmental maturity of seven left mandibular permanent teeth. It was found that the standards were significantly different from the chronological ages in the studied population, which means that dental development was considerably accelerated. The most significant acceleration was observed in girls aged 11 and 12, as well as in 13-year-old boys; in both groups a considerable acceleration of the dental age was seen in 6-year-olds. No statistically significant differences between dental ages of girls and boys were observed in particular age groups. There were devised gender-specific equations allowing for adaptation of original Demirjian's scores for estimation of dental age in the population of Mazovia (Central Poland). In conclusion, the developmental standards used by Demirjian are not suitable in the case of the population of children of Central Poland. Therefore, it is necessary to establish new tables for this population.     

Gender Pay Gap in Poland

In this paper we examine the gender pay gap in Poland over 1987–1996, i.e., shortly before and during the transition to market economy. The principle source of data used throughout the paper is the Household Budget Survey conducted by the Polish Central Statistical Office. The study documents three major results. First, the transition to market economy in Poland favored women substantially in terms of relative earnings differentials. The gender pay gap decreased by 10.2 log% points and the position of mean female in male wage distribution went up by 9.9 percentiles over 1987–1996. By 1995, the values of these measures reached the level observed in industrial economies such as the U.K., Austria, Italy or Australia. Second, rising relative skills of women and rising returns to skills explain about half of the fall in the gender pay gap over 1987–1996. Third, the pay gap did not follow a smooth adjustment process. 1989, the year of the first democratic parliamentary elections, which resulted in forming the first non-communist government, saw the most spectacular change, although actual market reforms began one year after. The changes in the early phase of the transition were mostly driven by sudden shifts in relative wages and employment across industries. Afterwards, the pay gap measures stabilized, partly because rising overall wage inequalities offset the advantages of females due to observed skills.     

Modelling wages in centrally planned economies: The case of Poland

The main idea developed in this paper is that rising excess demand for the labour force results in higher growth of wages over the ‘notional’ rate of growth. The rationale is that employees change their jobs searching for higher wages, and employers are willing to offer higher pay in order to get additional workers. This relationship is highly nonlinear, and can be regarded as an extension of the idea known as the Phillips curve to the area of ‘negative’ rate of unemployment. Additionally, one can observe that if the disequilibrium intensity in the labour market is small, its changes cause stronger reactions of wages in strategic branches than in the remaining sectors of the economy. It is similar to the situation of excess demand for labour. If there is a high rate of unemployment, reductions of wages affect more branches of secondary importance for the economy. The empirical investigation is based on Polish data covering the time period from 1964 through 1984. As excess demand for labour is unobservable, a proxy is used as an indicator of disequilibrium. It is introduced to the equation explaining the rate of growth of average wages, in addition to the rate of productivity growth of labour and the rate of inflation. Estimates are derived for 10 industry branches and sectors of the economy. The results confirm the initial hypothesis.     

Price-wage dynamics in a transition economy: The case of Poland

In this paper we analyse the wage-price relationship of an economy in transition characterized by important structural changes. It is known (see Perron, 1989) that structural breaks in stationary time series can induce apparent unit roots. The stationarity analysis of the series employed in the present model is conducted jointly with the assumption that the breakpoint location is unknown. We follow a testing procedure recently proposed by Zivot and Andrews (1992). Cointegration analysis of wages and prices in the presence of structural breaks finds empirical evidence in favour of two cointegrating vectors involving prices and wages. Our analysis focuses on the different structural behaviour of the price-wage dynamic relationship in the short and long term; we also demonstrate the relative importance of import prices as a source of wage-price fluctuations.     

The Effect of Incomes Policies on Inflation in Bulgaria and Poland

Transition countries, and many other countries with incomplete markets, have faced long periods with both high inflation and unemployment. Policies to reduce inflation without high unemployment include incomes policies, which were widely employed in transition countries. This paper studies the effects of incomes policies on inflation in Bulgaria and Poland in 1990-1993. The actual policies, which were complex and changing, are examined. The policies do not appear well-designed in a technical sense to reduce inflation. A time-series analysis is made which includes standard determinants of inflation including past inflation, wage increases, exchange rate changes, and monetary changes, plus a dummy for incomes policies. The regressions are fairly successful in fitting standard factors that should influence inflation, particularly the exchange rate and unemployment in Bulgaria and wages and unemployment in Poland. They find a fairly substantial inflation-reducing effect from the Bulgarian policy but no significant results from the Polish policy.     

多层螺旋CT在交通事故尸检中的应用价值

目的在交通事故死亡者尸检中应用多层螺旋CT进行检查,探讨其应用价值。方法随机数字法选取10名因交通事故死亡者的尸体进行常规CT和多层螺旋CT尸检,进行三维重建图像分析,与尸体解剖尸检结果加以对比分析。结果多层螺旋CT诊断与尸体解剖检查一致性高,较常规CT诊断准确。结论在交通事故死亡者尸检中,应用多层螺旋CT诊断,方法简便易行,与常规尸检结果具有较高的诊断一致性,应用价值极高。     

Narratives on World War II in Poland

Memories of the World War II in life stories about its events and experiences are part of every Polish family history. The analysis of life stories of wartime helps to discover the meaning of past events and experiences to individuals, as well as to whole social strata. The role of family affiliations in Polish narratives about the war is briefly discussed, and chosen details of historical background are characterized in one case, using the biographical narrative interview. Two sisters, when telling their own biographies, present the history of their family. Their reasons for concentrating on the collective aspect of their war experiences are explained, and significant social and historical processes exemplified in their story are described. The sisters' family history represents a part of tradition that has been forgotten in postwar Polish society. Pauperization of the landowner stratum prevented the process of transmitting this part of cultural heritage to forthcoming generations. Communist authorities welcomed this process of forgetting, whereas the important aspect of Polish cultural and social heritage based on the lifestyle of the countryside estates was emasculated.     

Regional Development of Small Firms in Poland

Employing a probit, logit and gompit model this paper demonstrates that small firm development, represented by a group of structural, behavioral and performance variables determine regional location in Poland. The paper uses original data that samples the small firm stratum in two contrasting regions, Pomorskie and Lubelskie. The following variables were shown to be significantly correlated with regional location: legal structure, subcontracting, technological level of the products of the firm, average wage and intention to expand turnover.