Digitalisation of Poland’s post-COVID economy – how to make the best use of the EU Recovery Fund?

Publications

5 Jan 2021

Trade & Macro

CASE Reports

Karolina Zubel

Jan Hagemejer

Karolina Zubel

Environment, Energy and Climate Change Director
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Author’s articles
Jan Hagemejer

President of CASE Management Board
Jan Hagemejer’s areas of expertise are international trade as well as macroeconomic and structural issues. He graduated from University of Warsaw where he also obtained his PhD and habilitation, as well as from Purdue University (MA in Economics). He works as an associate professor at the Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw. Prior to … <a href="https://case-research.eu/publications/digitalisation-of-polands-post-covid-economy-how-to-make-the-best-use-of-the-eu-recovery-fund-2/">Continued</a>

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- VAT gap in Europe. Edition 2025
  The report provides an updated analysis of the VAT compliance gap and the VAT policy gap across EU Member States, as well as selected EU candidate and potential candidate countries, covering trends over the period 2019-2023 and, for the first time, including selected EU candidate and potential candidate countries. It examines the discrepancy between the theoretical VAT Total Tax Liability (VTTL) and actual VAT revenues, offering insights into inefficiencies in tax compliance and revenue losses driven by policy choices.
- Future outlook of EU-Moldova trade and investment relations
  This study explores the evolution and prospects of economic relations between the European Union and the Republic of Moldova.
- Shortening and simplifying EU anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigations with a view to practices favourable for SMEs
Author’s articles

In this report, we show that the level of digitalisation of the Polish economy as a whole is behind European benchmarks and that it is insufficient. This has two dimensions – one is the overall low digital literacy of Polish society and the low demand for digital services, while the other is the insufficient digitalisation of business activities which stems from inefficient programmes and incentives in this respect. These dimensions overlap – human capital deficiencies reduce the benefits from digitalisation efforts on the part of enterprises while digitalisation itself is performed in an inefficient way.We analyse digitisation in several sectoral dimensions to understand the challenges facing specific segments of the Polish economy.

We show that the deficiencies in digitalisation are uneven: small firms are lagging behind large firms, while manufacturing firms use existing digital solutions in inefficient ways, lacking integration and strategic vision. Given the existing empirical evidence, improvements in these areas can positively contribute to the costs of running a business and to the way a business is organised as well as improve the allocative efficiency. Improving the degree of the use of digital technology in manufacturing can contribute to maintaining the cost-competitiveness of the sector while digital process innovations can shift it towards non-price competitiveness. Improvements in the digitisation (and digitalisation) of the services sector will help with consumer outreach and facilitate entering foreign markets, in particular for small firms.

digitalization

Last but not least, in light of the identified list of needed improvements, we comment on the potential use of the EU Recovery Fund which was agreed in July 2020 to mitigate the social and economic damage of the COVID-19 pandemic in EU MS. Thanks to this earmarked budget, the European Commission (EC) will be able to borrow EUR 750 billion from capital markets and redistribute it among MS as grants and loans between 2021 and 2027.Authors: Jan Hagemejer, Karolina Zubel

This report has been co-financed by the European Commission Representation in Poland. The European Commission, or any person acting on its behalf, is not responsible for the use of the information contained in this report. This report reflects the views only of the authors, and the European Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

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Digitalisation of Poland’s post-COVID economy – how to make the best use of the EU Recovery Fund?

Karolina Zubel

Articles from this author:

Jan Hagemejer

Articles from this author:

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