Europe’s growth champion. Insights from the economic rise of Poland

Summary:

Over the last twenty-five years Poland has transitioned from a perennially backward, poor, and peripheral country to unexpectedly join the ranks of the world's high income countries. This book is about the lessons learned from Poland's remarkable experience, the conditions that keep countries poor, and the challenges that countries need to face in order to grow. It defines a new growth model that Poland and its Eastern European peers need to adopt in order to continue to grow and catch up with their Western counterparts.

The author emphasizes the importance of the fundamental sources of growth – institutions, culture, ideas, and leaders – in economic development, arguing that a shift from an extractive society, where the few rule for the benefit of the few, to an inclusive society, where many rule for the benefit of many, was the key to Poland's success.

The book asserts that a newly emerged inclusive society will support further convergence of Poland and the rest of Central and Eastern Europe with the West, and help to sustain the region's Golden Age. It also acknowledges the future challenges that Poland faces, and that moving to the core of the European economy will require further reforms and changes in Poland's developmental character.

Table of contents:

1. Fundamental sources of growth: institutions, culture, and ideas
2. From Black Death to black hole
3. What the Black Death was to Western Europe, Communism was to Central and Eastern Europe
4. Poland's transition success story
5. Drivers of Poland's successful transition
6. Fundamental sources of Poland's growth: the role of institutions
7. The role of culture, ideas, and leadership
8. Will Poland's success continue? Projections, scenarios, and risks
9. The new growth model for Central and Eastern Europe: "The Warsaw Consensus"
10. Conclusions and the way forward