Active Labour Market Policies and Unemployment Convergence in Transition

In this paper we approach the issue of social cohesion across NUTS4 regions in Poland. We analyse regional dynamics of unemployment rates and try to evaluate the impact of Active Labour Market Policies (ALMPs) in observed trends. Using data for 1999 till 2008 we employ tools typically applied to income convergence analyses to test the stability of unemployment distribution - both unconditionally and taking into account explanatory power of unemployment structure and ALMPs in Polish regions. Our findings suggest no unconditional convergence understood both in terms of levels and in terms of dispersion, while the latter seems to suggest "convergence of clubs" within a group highest unemploy- ment regions. The analysis comprised as well accounting for potential impact of ALMPs, controlling for dierentiated unemployment structure. We find no evidence that cohesion eorts contribute to the convergence or less of the divergence phenomena.