Unemployment in Poland and Romania

OK. This Piotr (the teacher of Corporate Finance Management) has the upper hand on me, so to speak.

I’ve been reading and analyzing today’s information for more than 2 hours now.

I’ve been collecting some data like unemployment rate/real unemployment figures and the inflation rate in the last years for both Romania and Poland.

I don’t know how it works, maybe I’ve done some mistakes but it turns out that Poland has only 15 millions of active individuals (rough estimation) out of a total of 38 millions inhabitants.

Romania has 10 millions of active individuals out of 22 millions inhabitants. Doesn’t it sound weird?!

Corporate Finance Management

Piotr was talking today about Leshek Balcerowicz. (click on the link. We didn’t know who he was either :p )

He was proud of his shock therapy that turned Poland into the quickly developing country that is now.

But immediately, Piotr told us about the Phillips Curve, a concept that says the following: the lower the inflation rate, the higher unemployment rate.

And this turned on our curiosity. “So, ok… you have a very very low inflation rate, but what’s the unemployment rate in Poland?” Answer “It was around 20% in 2003″. WHAT???????????

So 1 in 5 Poles was unemployed???

Speachless!

* I already know that the Phillips Curve was empirical, and that nowadays it is not used by most economists ;) But there is a link between the two variables, even if the plot doesn’t follow the curve!

Musical background: Take That – Mancunian Way

Non-Corporate Finance Management

With all due respect, my Corporate Finance Management is more like my window into the Polish culture and vision, because so far I’ve got more feedback from Piotr (the teacher) than any other person or place.

First of all, during last week’s class, he told us about his last trip to Romania, around 1985. He told us how the bus stopped in some places and small children (maybe gipsy?!) where coming towards the Polish tourist group: “bombo, bombo!!..” (asking for candies or something).

And then he asked “Is Romania safe?” I got asked the same exact question by a French Erasmus student yesterday evening. I really wonder what does the Western and Central European think about Romania!

But anyway… so today Piotr told us some other things. Things like Poland incorporated Romania during its history. :o ?!?! What? And that Poland had the border at the Black Sea. Co, Piotr?! :)

Polish Messengers

OK. Yesterday I had another “Polish-style shock”.

Have you ever heard of national Instant Messengers? I didn’t. I mean, who the fuck would think to make a software for IM in only one language that is not widely-spread?!

Well ;) You guessed! Polish programmers!