Tag: Elections

Would Electing More Women Make the U.S. Congress Less Polarized?

Posted on May 13, 2024 | Policy Brief

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With growing ideological polarization in the electorate and among U.S. Congress members, the view that electing more women would help solve partisan gridlocks has also grown especially popular. In this policy brief we review recent evidence on gender differences in cooperative behavior among legislators and argue that the prediction that a more female U.S. Congress would be less polarized does not find strong support in the data. While, in the past, Republican women have cooperated more with Democrats than their male colleagues we find evidence that this was due to higher ideological proximity between Republican women and Democrats rather than gender per se. Among Democrats, women actually appear to cooperate less with the opposite party than their male colleagues. Moreover, in recent years gender differences in ideology among Republicans have been narrowing, which also reduce gender differences in cooperation with the opposite party.

Gender Differences in Cooperative Behavior

Observers of U.S. politics have repeatedly reported increasing polarization in the U.S. electorate and Congress over the last decade, with growing concerns that the partisan gridlocks that have impaired Congress’ activities in the last two years will only grow after the 2024 elections. At the same time, it is widely believed that electing more women to the U.S. Congress would help reduce partisanship among legislators and promote cooperation across party lines. For instance, a report by the Center for American Women and Politics found that “collaboration by women across party lines is often fostered by participation in bipartisan, single-sex activities […] which can lead to policy collaboration” (Dittmar et al. 2017). These beliefs are rooted not only in anecdotal evidence but also in academic studies that, through laboratory experiments, have shown that women tend to cooperate more than men (cooperation is considered as working in a team to achieve a common good). However, this finding is not universal across settings and studies (Balliet et al. 2011), which suggests some caution in foreseeing fewer partisan gridlocks when more women are elected. Moreover, while laboratory experiments are a very important tool to discover patterns of human behavior in “ideal” conditions, testing for the robustness of experimental findings in real-world settings is a necessary step to draw definite implications for society-level outcomes.

What then is the research-based evidence on women’s willingness to cooperate with opposite parties as legislators?

Do Women in the U.S. Congress Cooperate More With the Opposite Party Than Men?

The proportion of women in Congress continues to be low, currently standing at 29 percent of the House of Representatives and 25 percent of the Senate. However, women’s representation has massively increased over time, especially since the 101st Congress, which was elected in 1989 (see Figure 1). This change has prompted researchers to investigate the effects of women’s different approaches to competitive and cooperative situations on the day-to-day working of Congress.

In examining the dynamics of legislative cooperation, contrasting viewpoints shed light on the role of gender in policymaking. Volden et al. (2013) find that women’s increased cooperativeness especially helps female lawmakers from minority parties who are able to sustain their bills throughout the legislative process, while more obstructive Congress members fail to find consensus. Offering an alternative explanation, Anzia and Berry (2011) show that female lawmakers indeed sponsor and co-sponsor more bills than male lawmakers but argue that this is due to only the best and most ambitious women entering Congress due to discrimination.

Figure 1. Women in Congress over time.

Source: Bagues et al. (2023), data from the Congressional Research Service.

This early work highlights the importance of studying gender differences in Congress overall and by party, while comparing women and men who have similar characteristics and are elected in comparable districts.

In a recent study, Gagliarducci and Paserman (2022) adopt several empirical strategies to assess the extent to which largely comparable women and men in Congress behave differently in terms of cooperativeness. Their measure of cooperation is the number of co-sponsors that women and men respectively attract on their bills, and what share of these co-sponsors that are from the opposite party. Each bill presented to the U.S. Congress has a main sponsor and can have an unlimited number of co-sponsors. These co-sponsors attract support for the bill and aid its passage through the necessary legislative steps. Gagliarducci and Paserman (2022) consider bills proposed to the U.S. Congress between 1988 and 2010 and find that among Democrats there is no significant gender gap in the number of co-sponsors recruited, but women-sponsored bills tend to have fewer co-sponsors from the opposite party. On the other hand, they establish robust evidence that Republican women recruit more co-sponsors and attract more bipartisan support on their bills than Republican men. They conclude that this pattern indicates that cooperation is mostly driven by a commonality of interest, rather than gender per se. This since during this period female Republican representatives were ideologically closer to Democrats than their male colleagues, whereas Democratic women were ideologically further away from Republicans. They proxy representatives’ ideology using information on the ideological leaning of voters in representatives’ constituency in the presidential elections. As the authors observe, these findings challenge the commonly held view that an increase in female representation in the US Congress would help solve partisan gridlock.

In a recent working paper (Bagues et al. 2023), we assess the replicability and reproducibility of these findings, given their practical relevance in the face of the upcoming 2024 Congress elections. Our work is part of a large effort promoted by the Institute for Replication to improve the credibility of social science by systematically reproducing and replicating research findings published in leading academic journals.

Using the same data and empirical strategies as in Gagliarducci and Paserman (2022), except for correcting for some data collection errors and proposing different assumptions on the empirical specifications, we virtually confirm all their original findings. Most importantly, we also extend the analysis to cover 2011-2020 to study gender differences in legislative cooperation in a context that differs in at least two relevant aspects. During this period the share of women in the House of Representatives became substantially larger and, moreover, within-party gender differences in ideology changed compared to previous decades. While Democratic female representatives are still less conservative that Democratic men, women became ideologically more similar to their male colleagues among Republicans. We reach this conclusion by proxying representatives’ ideology using information on the ideological leaning of voters in representatives’ constituency in the presidential elections, as in Gagliarducci and Paserman (2022).

Consistent with the hypothesis that gender differences in cooperation across parties are driven mainly by ideological distance, we observe that bills sponsored by female Democrats are less likely to have opposite party co-sponsors than bills sponsored by male Democrats. We also, do not observe any gender differences in bipartisan cooperative behavior among Republicans. Finally, we observe more robust evidence that during the last decade bills from both Republican and Democratic women attracted more sponsors than bills from their male colleagues.

In sum, the novel evidence from the 2011-2020 period strengthens the finding that cooperation with members of the other party is driven mainly by ideological proximity rather than gender per se.

Conclusion

We have reviewed the recent academic literature on gender differences in willingness to cooperate among legislators, considering the largely popular view that a more female U.S. Congress would be less polarized and thus face fewer partisan gridlocks. Such a view is particularly salient at a time of increased polarization in U.S. politics and growing representation of women in the U.S. Congress.

Overall, studies of the extent to which bills promoted by women and men in Congress attract co-sponsors from members of the opposite party invite caution in predicting fewer gridlocks from the election of more women. Women legislators do not appear to be inherently more willing to cooperate with the opposite party. Gender differences in cooperation noticed in the past seem to be mainly driven by Republican women being more likely to legislate with Democrats because of a higher degree of ideological proximity to the opposite party compared to their male colleagues. However, analysis of recent data also show that Republican women have become ideologically more aligned to their male colleague in the last decade. This suggests that as the share of women in Congress increases, their characteristics and ideological standing might also change, making it hard to predict patterns of future behavior based on the past.

References

  • Anzia, Sarah F., and Christopher R. Berry. (2011). The Jackie (and Jill) Robinson effect: Why do congresswomen outperform congressmen? American Journal of Political Science 55, no. 3. pp. 478-493.
  • Bagues, Manuel, Pamela Campa, and Giulian Etingin-Frati. (2022). Gender Differences in Cooperation in the US Congress? An Extension of Gagliarducci and Paserman. No. 75. I4R Discussion Paper Series, 2023.
  • Balliet, Daniel, Norman P. Li, Shane J. Macfarlan, and Mark Van Vugt. (2011). Sex differences in cooperation: a meta-analytic review of social dilemmas. Psychological Bulletin 137, no. 6. p. 881.
  • Dittmar, Kelly, Sanbonmatsu, Kira, Carroll, Susan, Walsh, Debbie, and Wineinger, Catherine. (2017). Representation Matters: Women in the U.S. Congress. Centre for American Women and Politics, Rutgers University.
  • Gagliarducci, Stefano, and M. Daniele Paserman. (2022). Gender differences in cooperative environments? Evidence from the US Congress. The Economic Journal 132, no. 641, pp. 218-257.
  • Volden, Craig, Alan E. Wiseman, and Dana E. Wittmer. (2013). When are women more effective lawmakers than men?. American Journal of Political Science 57, no. 2. pp.326-341.

Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in policy briefs and other publications are those of the authors; they do not necessarily reflect those of the FREE Network and its research institutes.

Polish Parliamentary Elections 2023: Social Transfers and the Voters the Government is Counting On

Posted on October 9, 2023 | Policy Brief

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The heated election campaign preceding the October 15th election in Poland has focused on fundamental issues related to the rule of law, migration, media freedom, women’s and minority rights, climate policy as well as Poland’s role on the international arena. The election outcome will determine Poland’s role in the EU and as well as the country’s future relations with Ukraine. It will also be decisive for the direction of Polish politics and the foundations of socio-economic development for many years to come. Despite these issues, the primary worries for a substantial portion of Polish households concern the domestic challenges of increasing prices and material uncertainty. With this in mind, this Policy Brief summarizes the results of CenEA’s recent analysis, which demonstrates a clear pattern in the United Right government’s policy, that in the last four years has strongly favored older groups of the Polish population. In the 2019 elections financial support directed to families with children was a key factor in securing a second term in office for the governing coalition. It remains to be seen if the focus on older voters pays off in the same way on October 15th.

Introduction

The upcoming parliamentary elections on October 15th will close a very special term of the Polish Parliament, marked by the Covid-19 pandemic, a surge in prices of goods and services, as well as the full-scale, ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine and the tragic consequences associated with it. An evaluation of the second term of the United Right’s (Zjednoczona Prawica) government should, on the one hand, cover the most important decisions made in response to these crises. On the other hand, the last four years have also been a time of significant decisions with important medium- and long-term consequences, both directly for Polish households’ financial situation and more broadly for the economy at large and the country’s socio-economic development.

The heated election campaign has focused on the fundamental issues related to the rule of law, migration, media freedom, women’s and minority rights, climate policy as well as Poland’s role on the international arena. The upcoming vote is likely to be decisive in regard to Poland’s relations with partners in the EU, the role it will play in the EU and – as recent government declarations have demonstrated – the development of future relations with Ukraine. The result of the October elections will be pivotal also for the direction of Polish politics and the foundations of socio-economic development for many years to come. At the same time however, recent surveys have shown that the main concern for a significant part of the Polish society lies closer to home, driven by the challenges of rising prices of goods and services and related material uncertainty.

In light of this, this policy brief summarizes the tax and benefit policies directly affecting household finances, which were implemented in the first and second term of the United Right’s rule (i.e., 2015-2019 and 2019-2023). The brief draws upon a detailed analysis published recently in the CenEA Preelection Commentaries (Myck et al. 2023 a,b,c). The results show a notable shift in the government’s focus – while families with children were the main beneficiaries of the reforms implemented in the first term, the policies over the last four years have concentrated transfers and tax advantages to older generations. As we approach election day, it seems likely that the government will further try to mobilize support from this group of voters

The United Right’s Second Term: Tax and Benefit Reforms During High Inflation

In recent years, Polish households has, apart from two major crises (the Covid-19 pandemic and the complex consequences from the Russian invasion of Ukraine), faced one of the greatest price increases in the EU. During the closing term of Parliament, from January 2020 to July 2023, prices increased by 35.6 percent and have continued to grow at a rate significantly exceeding the inflation target set by the National Bank of Poland (2.5 percent +/- 1 percentage point per year). By the end of 2023 the combined inflation rate will reach 38.7 percent. Although average wages have also been rising (nominally by 41.7 percent from January 2023 to July 2023), wage growth has not kept up with the inflation for many workers. One needs to also bear in mind that a significant proportion of Polish households rely on income from transfers and state support. At the same time households’ material conditions have deteriorated as a result of a significant reduction in the real value of their savings.

In 2022 and 2023 the government introduced a number of temporary policies designed specifically to assist households facing higher energy and food prices. Throughout the final term in office, it also adopted several reforms which – as we show below – affected some groups more than others, reflecting a clear policy preference:

a) in January 2020 and May 2022 respectively, the government legislated an additional level of support addressed to retirees and disability pensioners. These so-called 13th and 14th pensions have raised the minimum level of pension benefits.

b) in January 2022 the government implemented a major overhaul of the income tax system (the so-called Polish Deal) which significantly influenced the tax burden on most taxpayers, strongly benefitting pension recipients.

c) throughout the term of Parliament, the government has kept the values of most social benefits frozen at their nominal level. This includes its flagship program – the universal 500+ parental benefit (500 PLN, roughly 110 EUR per child per month), introduced in 2016 – as well as means tested family benefits directed to poorer families with children. As a result, both the values as well as eligibility thresholds has fallen by nearly 40 percent.

The implications of these three policy areas are reported in Table 1 for the 2019-2023 term of Parliament and contrasted with benefits and costs from government policies implemented in the first term of Parliament (2015-2019). The results have been calculated using the SIMPL microsimulation model and are based on a representative sample of over 30 000 Polish households from the 2021 Household Budget Survey (for methodological details see Myck et al., 2015; 2023c). The applied method allows for singling out policy effects from other factors affecting household incomes.

Table 1 shows a clear difference in focus; from substantial benefits directed at families with children in 2015-2019 to policies targeted at pensioners, partly at the cost of families with children, in the second term. It is also worth noting that while government policy continued to increase household incomes, the resulting gains in disposable incomes in the second term have been much more modest.

Table 1. The impact of modelled policies in the tax and benefit system on household income in the two terms of the United Right’s government.

Source: CenEA – own calculations using the SIMPL model based on 2021 Household Budget Survey data (reweighted for simulation purposes and indexed to July 2023).
Notes: Simulations with respect to the system and price level from July 2023. Changes are presented in relation to the indexed system from 2015 for the first term of office of the United Right government and the indexed system from 2019 for the second term of office. *Including family allowance with supplements, care benefits, parental leave benefit, and one-off allowance for the birth of a child. The applied exchange rate is 4.6PLN=1EUR.

The contrast is also visible when the totals from Table 1 are divided and allocated to specific family types, as presented in Figure 1. On average lone parent families gained about 800 PLN (170 EUR) per month as a result of policies implemented in the 2015-2019 term, while they lost 160 PLN (35 EUR) in the second term. Married couples with children gained 950 PLN (205 EUR) and lost 259 PLN (55 EUR) in each term, respectively. In contrast to this, gains of pensioner families were modest during the first term, while the policies implemented in the second term imply gains of about 310 PLN (70 EUR) per month for single pensioners and 630 PLN (140 EUR) per month to pensioner couples. Gains and losses by family type resulting from policies implemented between 2019-2023 are shown in more detail in Figure 2. Over 85 percent of single pensioners have seen gains of more than 200 PLN (45 EUR) per month, and a similar proportion of pensioner couples gained over 400 PLN (90 EUR) per month. At the same time the majority of families with children, both among lone parent families and married couples, principally as a result of benefit freezes, saw their incomes fall in real terms. The values of the universal 500+ parental benefit will be indexed in January 2024, and the government has made this indexation an important element of the campaign. However, the indexation will not compensate the losses that families experienced in the last four years, a period with high inflation. It remains to be seen if a promise of higher transfers in the future will translate into political support, as seen in the 2019 elections (Gromadzki et al. 2022).

Figure 1. The impact of modelled policies in the tax and benefit system on household income in the two terms of the United Right’s government, by family types.

Source: CenEA – own calculations using the SIMPL microsimulation model based on 2021 Household Budget Survey data (reweighted for simulation purposes and indexed to July 2023).

Figure 2. Ranges of monthly benefits and losses resulting from the modelled policies introduced in the United Right government’s second term of office (2019-2023), by family type.

Source: CenEA – own calculations using the SIMPL microsimulation model based on 2021 Household Budget Survey data (reweighted for simulation purposes and indexed to July 2023).

Timing and Other Tricks: Securing the Votes of Older Generations

The so-called 13th and 14th pensions are paid once per year, in May and September respectively, to recipients of public pensions, at a value equivalent to a monthly minimum pension (approximately 360 EUR). While the first is a universal benefit, the latter has a withdrawal threshold and is thus targeted at lower income pensioners. In 2023 the government decided to increase the value of the 14th pension to about 580 EUR, with the benefits paid out to pensioners in September, the month before the election. This additional bonus came at the cost of about 7 billion PLN (1.6 billion EUR) – a budget which could have paid for two years of indexation of benefits targeted at low-income families with children or financed the payment of the indexed value of the universal 500+ parental benefit for nearly four months. The decision completes the picture of a clear preference for the older generation in regard to social policy in recent years and suggests a clear focus on this group of voters prior to the upcoming election.

The government has also taken a number of steps to facilitate electoral participation among voters in smaller communities by increasing the number of polling stations and making it obligatory for local administrations to finance transportation for older individuals with mobility limitations. The government is also mobilizing voters in smaller communities with turn-out competition initiatives. Additionally, some commentators have pointed out that the choice of election day – one day ahead of the so-called ‘Papal day’, devoted to the memory of John Paul II – is also non-accidental.

Conclusion

The analysis presented in the recent CenEA Preelection Commentaries and summarized in this brief indicates that in the area of reforms directly affecting household incomes, pensioners are the social group that benefited most from the United Right’s government policies in the 2019-2023 term of office. This is evident both from policies that have become a permanent feature of the Polish tax and benefit system, as well as from various one-off decisions. Taking into account other policies surrounding the approaching parliamentary election, it seems clear that the government is strongly counting on the support of older generations of voters on October 15th. As election day is approaching it becomes more and more evident though, that securing their vote may not suffice to win a third term in office. Numerous policy and corruption scandals, a significant departure from judicial independence and an extreme degree of governing party dominance in public media have come to the fore of public debate ahead of the vote. According to recent polls the final outcome is still uncertain and even small shifts in support might swing the future parliamentary majority. According to Gromadzki et al. (2022), financial support directed to families with children was a key factor for securing a second term in office for the United Right coalition four years ago. It remains to be seen if the policy focus on older voters pays off in the same way on October 15th.

Acknowledgement

The authors wish to acknowledge the support of the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) under the FROGEE and FROMDEE projects. FREE Policy Briefs contribute to the discussion on socio-economic development in the Central and Eastern Europe. For more information, please visit www.freepolicybriefs.com.

References

Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in policy briefs and other publications are those of the authors; they do not necessarily reflect those of the FREE Network and its research institutes.

Incomes of Polish Households in the Context of 2005-2011 Tax and Benefit Reforms: A Pre-Election Analysis

Posted on September 19, 2011 | Policy Brief

Policy Brief Image of a Man and Polish Household Representative with Polish Flags Days Before Government Elections

On October 9, Polish voters will decide who will form the new government. In an analysis of tax and benefit reforms introduced over the last two terms of Parliament, the independent Centre for Economic Analysis, CenEA, examines who gained and who lost on the implemented changes. The reforms that have been implemented since 2006 include significant tax reductions and important changes to family benefits, as well as a recent increase in the VAT. In the context of declarations made in earlier electoral campaigns, the actually implemented economic policies introduced, offer little guidance to the voters regarding the reliability of promises made during this current campaign.

The last two terms of office for the Polish parliament includes the period October 2005 till November 2007, and the current four-year term which followed a snap-election in 2007, and which will now come to an end with parliamentary elections scheduled for October 9.

During 2005-2007, the ruling coalition was led by the Law and Justice party (PiS) who then lost the 2007 elections to the Civic Platform (PO). This year, these two parties remain the main contenders for electoral victory.

The years since 2005 have been marked by a series of significant reforms with substantial influence on disposable incomes of Polish households. These reforms are analyzed in the first Pre-election Report recently published by the independent Centre for Economic Analysis, CenEA (Myck et al., 2011). This report analyses the extent of the most important economic reforms undertaken in the last two terms of office and their distributional consequences. The analysis is done using the Polish microsimulation model SIMPL based on a dataset from the Polish Household Budgets’ Survey.

The report considers the following economic reforms:

  1. reductions in disability rates of social security contributions (SSC) in 2007 and 2008,
  2. introduction of a generous child tax credit (CTC) in the personal income tax system in 2007,
  3. introduction of a two-rate (18% and 32%) instead of a three-rate (19%, 30%, 40%) system of personal taxation (PIT reform) in 2009,
  4. a series of reforms to the means-tested system of family benefits (FB) in 2006 and 2009,
  5. a VAT reform which increased the basic rate from 22% to 23% and changed the operation of lower rates at 5% and 8% instead of 3% and 7%.
Table 1. Effect of changes in Social Security Contributions, Personal Income Tax and Health Insurance on the balance of public finance in tax systems from 2005-2011 (year to year changes, in million euro)

Source: based on Myck et al. (2011), Table 4.
Annual values are given in Euros; differences in SSCs are computed as net changes accounting for changes in the public sector’s employer contributions. Exchange rate: 1 Euro = 4.3595 PLN.

While the big reforms grabbed the headlines, subsequent governments which oversaw their implementation, followed the policy of raising taxes and lowering expenditures through policies of freezing the value of tax credits and eligibility thresholds for family benefits. In the latter case, this generated a reduction in the number of children eligible to family benefits by 18%. At the same time, the value of benefits to those receiving them increased, on average, by 60%, with the net effect being a 7% increase in family benefit spending.

It is shown in our report that the reform package implemented in the 5th term of Parliament, and which included, in particular, the SSC reforms (2007/08), the CTC (2007), and a reform of the FB system (2006), has been distributed very evenly across different income groups. Households in income deciles 1-9 saw their incomes grow by about 4.5%, while those in the top decile gained about 3%. The implementation of the tax reform in 2009 brought about significant gains only to high income households. This tax reform was legislated prior to the financial crisis in 2008. The policy of freezing tax credits and benefit-eligibility thresholds, introduced in 2008 and 2011, resulted in losses for middle-income groups but meant that the bottom decile gained about 1%. This was largely through changes in the value of family benefits for families receiving them.

The entire 2006-2011 package of tax and benefit reforms, had a direct impact on households’ incomes since it increased real disposable incomes, on average, by 5.4%. Here, the households in the top income decile gained the most (9.2%). The lowest gains were found in the 3rd decile (3.4%). Moreover, the poorest 10% of households gained, on average, 5.7% from the introduction of the entire package.
The nature of these reforms had an interesting distribution in terms of age and family type with the highest gains going to working-age individuals, in particular to married couples with children (10.2%). On the other hand, single pension-age individuals saw their income fall slightly as a result of the reforms (-0.3%), and only small gains have been seen for pensioner couples (0.5%).

In the report, we set the implemented policies against promises and declarations made by the principal parties during electoral campaigns and government goals declared in the Prime Ministers’ exposé’s.

Out of the main policies implemented by the 2005-07 government, only the PIT reform of 2009 has been introduced in a form declared in the 2005 PiS electoral program. Its introduction was, however, legislated for 2009 and fell therefore under the current term of office. The introduced reductions in the rates of the SSC, one of the most costly reforms, were not mentioned in the electoral pledges.

Moreover, the declared form of the CTC in the electoral program of PiS, was very different from the one introduced in 2007. The introduced program centered on the theme of a “solidarity package”, whereas the declared CTC was to be focused on low-income families. The introduced policy, about 9 times as expensive as the declared one, transferred resources to low-income families but was most generous to high earners who pay enough tax to take advantage of the generous maximum amounts of the credit. The generosity of the CTC makes it the most costly “tax expenditure” item in the Polish system of direct taxes, with a value of 0.4% of GDP (Finance Ministry, 2010).

In terms of the PO’s program and the Prime Minister Tusk’s exposé’s, the report analyzes the focus on further reduction of taxes. In the midst of the financial crisis, the current coalition oversaw the introduction of the 2009 PIT reduction but withdrew from implementing a 15% flat tax, one of its flagship policies prior to 2007. However, despite a reduction in the basic rate of tax from 19% to 18%, income taxes grew on average among low and middle-income households (1-6th decile) because of the freezing of the tax credits. The net effect of income tax policies, in the current term of office, has meant gains for higher income households, with a substantial reduction in income taxes for those in the top decile group (on average 23%).

In light of the growing level of public debt, the current government implemented a VAT reform that raised indirect taxes by about 0.3% of GDP. The combination of an increased basic rate, with a reduction of lower rates on main food items, produced a proportional distribution of the tax burden.

Overall, the tax record of the current government is mixed. The implemented reductions were legislated already prior to its arrival, and the net result of the packages implemented in recent years hangs importantly on the level of households’ income. On average, only the top three deciles of households have seen their tax burden fall.

Each of the coalitions have their excuses for failing to deliver the promised policies. For the 2005-07 coalition, it is the early dissolution of Parliament. The current government, led by the Civic Platform, had to maneuver through the difficult years of the financial crisis and an economic slowdown. At the same time, one could interpret the policies implemented in the first two years of the 2005-07 Parliament as an expression of policy priorities, whereas the policies implemented during the current Parliament, can be confronted with their previous declarations to examine which groups of society they have prioritized.

In Poland, household income has grown fast in recent years. On the one hand, due to growing wages and earnings, on the other, due to introduced packages of tax and benefit reforms. Despite the financial crisis, the Polish economy has so far performed relatively well.

The reforms implemented in the last two terms of office, offer however little guidance to the credibility of electoral declarations on socio-economic policy. Even though the Law and Justice party (PiS), the leading party of the 2005-2007 government, legislated one of its key promises while in office (the PIT 2009 reform), it also implemented substantial reforms which were either not originally in their electoral program, or which took a very different shape and benefited other segments of the population. Even if the current government withdrew from the promises of further tax reductions when faced with the challenges of the financial crisis, it oversaw the implementation of significant tax cuts legislated in the 5th term of Parliament. Overall, however, the implemented policies increased taxes of lower income households.

To conclude, our results suggest that if Polish voters’ decisions are to be guided by declarations in the area of socio-economic policy, they will face a tricky choice on the 9th of October.

Figure 1. Changes in disposable incomes of Polish households as a result of tax and benefit policies implemented between 2006 and 2011, by income deciles.

Source: CenEA, Myck et al. (2011). Notes: average monthly values per household in a given decile group.

References

  • Finance Ministry (2010) “Tax Expenditures in Poland”, Polish Finance Ministry, Warsaw.
  • Morawski, L., and Myck, M. (2010) “‘Klin’-ing up: Effects of Polish Tax Reforms on Those In and on those Out”, Labour Economics, 17(3), str.556-566.
  • Myck, M., Morawski, L., Domitrz, A., Semeniuk, A. (2011) „Raport Przedwyborczy CenEA, część I. 2006-2011: kto zyskał, a kto stracił?” (CenEA’s pre-election report: 2006-2011 who gained and who lost? ), Microsimulation Report 01/11, Centre for Economic Analysis, Szczecin.

Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in policy briefs and other publications are those of the authors; they do not necessarily reflect those of the FREE Network and its research institutes.