Against the backdrop of the Ukrainian Reconstruction Conference (URC 2026), which took place in Poland at the end of June, the discussion around the popular question of how to use the success of Polish economic reforms to our advantage has resumed. However, such a comparison and the belief that the experience of neighbors can be copied exactly as is are unlikely to be correct.<\/p>\n
The fact that the former socialist countries of Europe in general and Poland in particular have transitioned and adapted better to a market economy faster than Ukraine has several explanations. But these factors cannot become ready-made recipes for modern Ukraine for a number of reasons. Why? Vyacheslav Butko, economic advisor to the Kyiv Security Forum, managing partner of the Thomson&French investment project, told Mind specifically.<\/p>\n
First, it is worth making an extremely important historical digression.<\/p>\n
The Dispute over Methods<\/p>\n
At the end of the 19th century, a debate broke out between the Austrian economist Carl Menger (one of the founders of the famous \u201cAustrian School of Economics\u201d) and the German economist and historian Gustav Schmoller, known as the \u201cdispute over methods.\u201d<\/p>\n
Schmoller\u2019s position was that economic relations depend on time, place, history, and culture. This must be taken into account when implementing economic policy.<\/p>\n
Menger\u2019s position was that economic science is universal in nature, it is not related to history, social relations, and cultural characteristics of a particular country. That is, if equal rules and norms are established, the consequences will be the same for all countries.<\/p>\n
Considering what happened, starting from the second half of the 20th century, Menger won the debate\u2014more and more experts were inclined to believe that economic science is free from historical and socio-cultural characteristics. They believed that differences between nations and countries existed, but that these differences should be studied by other disciplines \u2013 sociology and anthropology, not economics, whose essence is that the laws of human behavior described by it are the same for everyone. This opinion has developed in most of the world’s leading economic universities and research centers.<\/p>\n
But since the 1990s, serious changes have occurred in the mainstream. “Cultural”, social and institutional economics have become increasingly important in the modern explanation of macroeconomic processes thanks to the works of Nobel laureates in economics Douglas North, Ronald Coase and others, who have returned to economic science the importance of theoretical ideas about social, institutional and cultural development (something that was obvious to economists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries).<\/p>\n
Differences that make it impossible to directly borrow experience<\/p>\n
Let’s return to the Polish-Ukrainian comparisons and the reasons for the lack of correctness. Why would direct copying of the experience of Polish reforms not bring Ukraine the same success?<\/p>\n
The first reason. Polish statehood, which led to the existence of appropriate political and public institutions, is several centuries old (albeit with interruptions). And Ukrainian statehood has existed for an order of magnitude less \u2013 35 years. This has led to a big difference in the level of development of institutions, civil society, and its ability to quickly converge with the West.<\/p>\n
In this, Poland had advantages compared to Ukraine \u2013 due to its greater geographical proximity to Western European countries, high penetration of representatives of more developed Western societies into their society, which has occurred over many centuries (as an example \u2013 the German colonists of the Sudetenland, who have lived there since the 12th century). Therefore, one cannot underestimate this factor \u2013 the ratio of formal and informal institutions, in particular their impact on economic growth.<\/p>\n
The second reason. Polish economic history is not identical to Ukrainian: in the socialist paradigm, the Polish economy functioned for much less time, and it was mentally focused on market relations.<\/p>\n
By the way, Western Poland was part of Germany until 1945 (it is interesting to look at the railway network that the Germans built on the territory of present-day Poland until 1918, on the one hand, and compare it with what the Russians built in Eastern Poland, on the other). This allowed the country to adapt to industrialization more easily after World War II, and to move more quickly to market relations after 1990.<\/p>\n
The third reason. From the works of the prominent sociologist Max Weber, it is known how important the religious affiliation of the nation is. Ukrainians are mostly Orthodox, Poles are Catholics. Other socio-cultural features, a different work ethic are important reasons why Poles reformed their country better than Ukrainians.<\/p>\n
As the classic of world economics, Adam Smith, wrote, capitalist development occurs mainly due to the actions of a large number of economic agents on the ground, who are guided by the desire for personal gain. And not so much due to the correct actions of governments.<\/p>\n
History confirms that representatives of societies of Protestant and Catholic cultures (European nations) surpass representatives of Orthodox culture in terms of per capita economic indicators.<\/p>\n
Eastern European countries, including Poland, have successfully transitioned to the market largely because the people of these countries have a better work ethic and are historically better adapted to the market than Ukraine. Incidentally, the weakest development among Eastern European countries is in Bulgaria, Serbia, and Romania, which are Orthodox.<\/p>\n
Economic historicism is indicative, but not conclusive<\/p>\n
Studying how Poland\u2019s current economic gap with Ukraine arose can help us understand theoretically possible ways to eliminate it. But practices that are implemented in some countries with high efficiency can be both successful and ineffective in others, and sometimes even completely destructive.<\/p>\n
People (and political and economic experts, let me remind you, are among them) very often judge decisions based on their final result instead of assessing the quality of decisions, taking into account the circumstances of the moment when they were made.<\/p>\n
All successful economic reforms were contextual (took place at a specific time and in specific circumstances that are unique) and ethnocentric (were carried out taking into account the strengths and weaknesses of the nations of those countries where the reforms were carried out). This is worth remembering when, based on the examples of other countries, certain decisions that affect the economy of Ukraine are promoted or adopted.<\/p>\n
Programs of imitation of successful economies are unlikely to give a positive result, since the initial conditions for the development of economies in these countries and Ukraine are very different. And also because of the fundamental differences in the socio-cultural characteristics of the peoples.<\/p>\n
Finally, about one more important thing – the quality of political leaders. When Leszek Balcerowicz carried out reforms in Poland, Ukraine was ruled by provincial Soviet bureaucrats, which was natural for our state at that time. As a result, when the guiding influence of the CPSU ceased, from 1990 to 2000 inclusive, the economy of Ukraine degraded, although not as much as it could have if the situation on world commodity markets had been completely weak at that time.<\/p>\n
In addition, even if individual reforms were started in our country, they rarely became systemic. Some of them were actually simulated without any real intention to implement them. This is also the difference from Poland, where the transformations were consistent and, no matter how painful they seemed at the beginning, the Polish authorities still brought them to the end.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Against the backdrop of the Ukrainian Reconstruction Conference (URC 2026), which took place in Poland at the end of June, the discussion around the popular question of how to use the success of Polish economic reforms to our advantage has resumed. However, such a comparison and the belief that the experience of neighbors can be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11503,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-actually","category-expert"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/corporativ.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/corporativ.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/corporativ.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/corporativ.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/corporativ.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11502"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/corporativ.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11507,"href":"https:\/\/corporativ.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11502\/revisions\/11507"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/corporativ.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/corporativ.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/corporativ.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/corporativ.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}