PolakÂ’s writings are overwhelmingly policy oriented. The practical motivation for each paper or study is always readily apparent. A second characteristic of PolakÂ’s work is the continuing search for empirical regularities that can aid the policymaking process. Yet, a third characteristic of PolakÂ’s work is its innovative nature. And the fourth one is the attention paid to country circumstances. This may seem an odd thing to highlight, but its accounts along with the insistence on a rigorous theoretical framework, for a good part of quality control that one sees in all of PolakÂ’s writings.
This paper have eschewed any attempt to survey and to evaluate all of Jacques Polak’s writings, in large part because we are not confident we could do justice to the breadth and depth of that work in a single paper of a moderate length.