This study uses a large, individual-level, linked administrative panel dataset (Admin3) to examine the early labour market success of Hungarian higher education graduates who graduated between 2011 and 214, compared to their peers who graduated with incomplete degrees (only ‘absolutorium’ and no degree). We focus on the first 36 months of the early labour market careers of the two groups. The analyses provide further evidence for the few studies on the economic value of incomplete diplomas in a European context. The results confirm the role of the diploma signal early in the labour market career. Those without a degree take longer to find a full-time job and earn less than those with a degree at the beginning of their career, and in their first job, they are working at a somewhat lower skill level job than degree holders. There is no difference in the probability of occupational mobility between the two groups, with the likelihood of mobility within a given occupation being slightly lower for those with a degree. The results on wage and skill level changes due to occupational mobility are consistent with the U-shaped theory of occupational mobility.

This study investigates the patterns and determinants of occupation mobility among young workers with medium-level qualifications in Hungary during their first 4-8 years in the labor market. Utilizing linked employer-employee panel data augmented with standardized test scores from grade 10, we examine the relationship between occupation mobility, wages, and skills. Our findings indicate that wages are generally negatively associated with occupation mobility, both within broad occupation categories and specific occupations. However, occupation mobility shows little correlation with test scores. High-wage workers are less likely to change occupations, but when they do, they tend to move to higher positions within the occupational hierarchy, similar to high-skill workers. These results suggest that while wages and occupation mobility are interconnected, the role of direct skill measures in explaining mobility patterns is limited. The study contributes to the understanding of early career dynamics and the factors influencing occupational transitions.

In recent decades, one of the most significant advancements in empirical labor economics was the emergence of longitudinal linked employer-employee datasets. This paper aims to provide a snapshot of this data revolution. With LEE panels now available in over 30 countries, we survey their general availability and key characteristics. Beyond common features, we highlight the more complex aspects of these datasets, which enable rigorous, large-scale research across diverse subfields. Finally, we explore emerging directions in LEE-based research, with the goal of engaging researchers, policymakers, and data providers.

The Dunning-Kruger effect (DKE) states that people with lower levels of the ability tend to self-assess their ability less accurately than people with relatively higher levels of the ability. Thus, the correlation between one’s objective cognitive abilities and self-assessed abilities is higher at higher levels of objective cognitive abilities. There has been much debate as to whether this effect actually exists or is a statistical artefact. This paper replicates and extends Gignac and Zajenkowski (2020) and Dunkel, Nedelec, and van der Linden (2023) to test whether the DKE exists using several measures of ability and nationally representative data from a British birth cohort study. To do this, we construct a measure of objective cognitive abilities using 18 tests conducted at ages 5, 10, and 16, and a measure of subjective self-assessed abilities using estimates of school performance and being clever at ages 10 and 16. We replicate their models and show that the DKE exists in our secondary data. Importantly, we are the first to look at whether this relationship is heterogeneous by gender and find that while the self-assessment bias is gender specific, the DKE is not. The DKE comes from men relatively overestimating and women relatively underestimating their abilities.

Social innovation (SI) research still struggles with problems of definition (Edwards-Schachter and Wallace 2017) and lacks a shared analytical framework and measurement methods. This lack of coherence is reflected in two bold, diametrically opposing views on SI research. „SI is an eclectic area, since differences still prevail also within the same research communities, revealing some intra-group fragmentation.” (van der Have and Rubalcaba 2016: 1932) In contrast, other authors propose that SI can – and should – be the main building block of a new, comprehensive innovation paradigm. (Howaldt 2019) The sheer number of SI definitions tends to confirm the former view: 252 definitions are identified in Edwards-Schachter and Wallace (2017). This paper argues that despite this plethora of SI definitions there is a need for a new SI definition for two major reasons. First, most of the extant definitions suffer from conceptual flaws: (i) the purpose and the nature of innovation is conflated; (ii) diffusion of SI is ‘required’; (iii) positive impacts of SI is stipulated in most SI definitions; (iv) the unit of analysis is also part of these definitions. Second, SI definitions seek to capture the essential features of SI. However, there are as many types of ‘essence’ as angles to analyse SI purposes, processes, and impacts. The abundance of SI definitions forcefully illustrates that it is impossible to construct a generic and essentialist SI definition. Therefore, the paper proposes a generic and nominal (non-essentialist) definition.

This report compares the economic performance of four Central European countries, namely Czechia, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia (henceforth: CE4 countries). Many authors emphasise the similarities between the V4 countries – sometimes even the former planned economies of CEE –, i.e., the former ‘bloc approach’ is still dominant. However, key economic indicators – GDP, productivity, unemployment, inflation, budget deficit, trade balance, and the structure of export – paint a different picture. From a Hungarian perspective, the better performance of the other three countries – also reflected in their ranking in international scoreboards – is particularly noteworthy.

We estimate the impact of firm quality — primarily measured by firm productivity — on the health maintenance of employees. Using linked employer-employee administrative panel data from Hungary, we analyze the dynamics of healthcare use before and after moving to a new firm. We show that moving to a more productive firm leads to higher consumption of drugs for cardiovascular conditions and more physician visits, without evidence of deteriorating physical health, and, among older workers, to lower consumption of medications for mental health conditions. The results are robust to using alternative firm quality indicators based on firm-level wages and worker flows, and to controlling for firm size, individual wage and possible peer effects. The results suggest that more productive firms have a beneficial effect on the detection of previously undiagnosed chronic physical illnesses and on mental health. Plausible mechanisms include higher quality occupational health check-ups and less stressful working conditions.

This paper studies tax evasion and the contribution-benefit link in the context of maternity benefits in Hungary. Earnings and employment patterns suggest pre-pregnancy underreporting, followed by formalization of some earnings and employment during pregnancy to increase benefits. Reported earnings in small, domestic, and less productive firms bunch at the minimum wage before pregnancy and the benefit-maximizing threshold during pregnancy. Using a policy reform, the paper shows that the size of the reporting response tracks changing reporting incentives. Increases in pre-childbirth reported earnings are partially sticky after maternity leave. The results indicate that linking benefits to contributions can reduce tax evasion and improve formalization.

Rising inequalities and deprivation have been important drivers for social innovation (SI). We understand SIs as novel initiatives or novel combinations of known solutions, aimed at tackling a societal problem or creating new societal opportunities, applied in practice. SIs success requires enabling institutional framework that facilitate collaborative agency for its design and implementation. However, authoritarian governance undermines such framework conditions. Authoritarian regimes feed on social polarisation, centralisation of power, strengthening of hegemonic governance modes, weakening transparency, accountability, and the rules of law. Hungary has become a prime example of democratic backsliding with socio-spatial disparities intensified by perverse public policies and clientelist patterns of relations. By presenting two SI cases from Hungary, this paper illustrates different ways, in which ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ SI practitioners can interact with, and operate in, an authoritarian system. It discusses how agents’ different positions influence their SI practices and strategies and offers theoretical and practical implications.

This paper examines the effect of temperature on emergency department (ED) visits using administrative data covering 50% of the Hungarian population and 3.52 million ED visits from 2009 to 2017. The results show that ED visit rates increase when average temperatures exceed 10°C, primarily driven by mild cases that do not result in hospitalization. Higher humidity amplifies the heat effect, which is also stronger following consecutive hot days. The findings further indicate that the impacts of climate change – both present and future – are substantial. Between 2009 and 2017, 0.66% of the ED visits were attributed to temperature changes relative to the period 1950–1989. Furthermore, by the 2050s, compared to the first 15 years of the 21st century, the annual ED visit rate is projected to rise by 1.24%–1.70%, depending on the climate scenario. A heterogeneity analysis reveals that the effects of high temperatures and the future impacts of climate change are disproportionately greater in lower-income districts, areas with lower general practitioner density, and among younger adults.

By using Hungarian administrative data we evaluate the impact of a start-up subsidy programme on the labour market integration of the unemployed. When – following the generally accepted method – the control group included everyone who could have participated in the programme but did not, the effect of the support was positive and consistent with previous research. However, in contrast to numerous other active labour market programmes, a distinctive aspect of start-up support schemes is that the unemployed person leaves unemployment status immediately upon entry. Therefore, we also created a second control group, where only those members of the first control group were included, who exited unemployment at the same time as the treatment group. Although statistically significant positive effects were also found in the second control group, the effect size was only one-third to one-quarter of that in the first control group. Additionally, this second model is highly susceptible to unobserved heterogeneity. Thus, it seems that the strong positive effect is mainly due to the fact that a significant proportion of the members of the first control group perform worse than the members of the second control group in terms of the unobserved characteristic that is important for the labour market. Our results show that the support mostly helps groups with less favorable labor market prospects, so tightening the eligibility criteria could improve the efficiency of the programme.

This paper uses rich firm-level data from Hungary to present some stylized facts on services trade. We show that (i) services exporters are even more rare than goods exporters; (ii) services exports are highly concentrated; (iii) services exporters are more likely than goods exporters to be located in cities; (iv) services exports tend to be preceded by services imports; (v) manufacturing firms also export services with services exports following goods exports in terms of timing and destinations; and (vi) services exporters have comparable premia to goods exporters.