BICEPS/SSE Riga Research Seminar: Lights along the frontier – convergence of economic activity in the proximity of the Polish-German border, 1992-2012

Abstract: This paper studies regional economic development on the municipality-level in Poland and Germany along the Oder-Neisse border. We use high-quality
satellite night-time light intensity data as an innovative, comparable and
reliable measure to proxy for economic activity on both sides of the border
consistently over a long period of time (1992-2012). We use descriptive heat
maps as well as regression analysis to investigate two aspects: first, how
far is the economic convergence across and within municipalities along the
Polish-German border? Second, what effect does the distance to the border
have on economic activity as measured with light emissions? Our findings
suggest that - somewhat surprisingly - convergence across the border has
been almost complete. Polish towns that used to be economically much weaker
have caught up with German towns. Also, we show that the patterns of
economic activity related to distance vary greatly for Germany and Poland.

Michal Myck is Director of the Centre for Economic Analysis, CenEA, in Szczecin (PL). He previously worked at the Institute for Fiscal Studies (1999-2004) and at the DIW-Berlin (2005-2010). Between 2005-2017 he was the Polish Country Team Leader for the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). 
He received his B.A. (First Class) in Philosophy, Politics and Economics at the University of Oxford (1997) and an M.Phil. degree in Economics at the University of Oxford (1999). In March 2006 he received his Ph.D. degree at the University of Warsaw and in June 2015 completed his habilitation at the Free University Berlin. He is currently affiliated as Privatdozent at the University of Griefswald. 
His work has been focused on modelling of labour market behaviour, the relationship between health and employment, the effectiveness of welfare to work programmes, and the structure of personal taxes and benefits. He published in such journals as American Economic Jounal - Economic Policy, Journal of Health Economics, Labour Economics, Social Science and Medicine, and Review of Economics of the Household.