Stabilization And Structural Adjustment In Poland

The Solidarity-led government which came into power in Poland in Autumn 1989 faced two enormous tasks. First, to stabilize an economy prone to hyperflation. Second, to replace a crumbling command system in favour of a market mechanism, in a country whose market institutions had been destroyed under forty years of communist rule. This book recounts the events of this period and the course taken by the new government, and analyzes the significance of this for the transition process in Poland and elsewhere.

The Solidarity-led government which came into power in Poland in Autumn 1989 faced two enormous tasks. First, to stabilize an economy prone to hyperflation. Second, to replace a crumbling command system in favour of a market mechanism, in a country whose market institutions had been destroyed under forty years of communist rule. This book recounts the events of this period and the course taken by the new government, and analyzes the significance of this for the transition process in Poland and elsewhere.

July 1996 The authors argue that significant adjustment took place in Polish industry after Poland's 1990 reforms. They analyze data on two- and three-digit manufacturing industries, disaggregated by firm ownership and size. By applying a statistical model to labor productivity growth, they try to disentangle structural determinants of the recovery from cyclical determinants. They contend that structural determinants outweigh cyclical ones. They find that the productive response of state enterprises was markedly different from that of private firms--private firms outperformed state enterprises (just as anecdotal evidence suggested). Size also matters, at least among private firms. Generally, there seem to be increasing returns to scale for private firms, except for very large enterprises (many of which were previously state-owned and may need further restructuring). The fact that size does not appear to matter among public enterprises suggests that several of them have not yet adopted optimal technologies and production processes.

The paper analyzes common issues emerging from the recent experience with Fund-supported programs in Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria and Romania. These comprise the initial price-overshooting and the output collapse, fiscal sustainability as well as the financial and structural problems associated with bad loan portfolios and sluggish implementation of privatization programs. Substantial success, in varying degrees, has been achieved in the initial macro-stabilization and opening-up effort. At the same time mounting difficulties with fiscal and monetary control may be emerging, as a result of social and political pressures and insufficiently clear policy signals on the micro-issues involving the sharp structural transformation of the productive and financial systems.

This seminar volume, edited by Richard C. Barth, Alan R. Roe, and Chorng-Huey Wong, presents an overview of the links between structural and macroeconomic policies that were addressed in an IMF Institute seminar held in Washington, D.C., in 1993. The most important areas of structural reform are covered: the price system, tax and expenditure policy, exchange rate management, external trade, public enterprises, the financial sector, and social safety nets. Four case studies are presented: China, Poland, Argentina, and the Gambia.