Fiscal rules are an idea that has been getting more attention lately due to the recent economic crisis. Fiscal rules has been tested for many properties, including countercyclical behavior. The present paper focuses on the Swiss fiscal rule and investigates the impact of a modified HP filter, used in the rule, on countercyclical behavior of the rule. The paper uses real GDP time series for over a hundred countries and applies the rule to each time series in two variants, with a standard HP filter and a modified HP filter. For each result procyclicality indices are calculated. It is found that the modification of HP filter, used in the Swiss fiscal rule, increases countercyclical behavior of the rule.

Inflation expectations, both their median and dispersion, are of great importance to the effectiveness of monetary policy. The goal of this paper is to examine the impact of the global financial crisis on dispersion of inflation expectations in the European Union. Using European Commission’s survey data, we find that in the early phase of the crisis the dispersion dropped rapidly but then, after Lehman Brothers’ collapse, the trend reversed and these fluctuations cannot be explained by movements of inflation rates and other commonly used factors. We also observe that, in the new European Union member states, the initial drop of the dispersion was weaker whereas the subsequent rise was stronger as compared to the old member states.

The purpose of the paper is to properly define the economic sectors of strategic importance to the national security and to evaluate the state’s tools which protect this security. The paper’s methodology is based on two analyses; the former focusing on instruments which are applied by the state in order to control certain fields of the economy, and the latter investigating economic sectors in terms of concentration, impact on the state security and integration with other sectors. The paper also defines the criteria which helped to identify sectors which have strategic importance to the national security, i.e. production and supply of electric energy; extraction and supply of natural gas; extraction, distribution and storage of liquid propellants, telecommunications, banking industry; banknotes and documents’ production (together with related IT solutions) and military industry. The article leads to the conclusion that these sectors are strategically important to the national security. However, there is still a lack of coherent and complete legal regulations that would protect the national security interest related to the part of the economy represented by the analyzed sectors and companies.

Recent years see intense reforming of funded pensions sub-system in Poland. Actually, what are the policy objectives at which change in design introduced in 2013 (mandatory funding) and projected in 2014 (voluntary funding) is oriented? The article briefly reports what contemporary re-designing of the pension system at different stages was about, and reconstructs the objectives of reforming at each stage. It finds that interlocking streams of change aimed at two goals in fact which are i) relief to public finance ii) expanding pension funding by financial intermediaries. It argues that the two are in contradiction to each other, and this makes a paradox of pension reforming. The review of 2013- and 2014- design, unexpectedly enough, results in conclusion that at present reforming is focused on pension funding revitalization, which may cause a recurring distress to public finance. Thus, the article identifies one of dilemmas of institutional-order development in Poland, which can be probably also experienced in other countries where pension funding has been introduced.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate IPO developments across five CEE countries between 2003 and 2012. Using a wider range of methods and different data sets we intend to complement the previous research. Applying descriptive statistics, relevant local developments are analysed first before being compared with leading European markets (London Stock Exchange and Deutsche Börse). We also investigated the assumption that a growing market has an explanatory power for the accelerating IPO activity. For this purpose we performed a Spearman correlation analysis. The data were evaluated at the significance level of α = 5 %. All CEE capital markets recorded strong dynamism over the observed period. All fundamental capital market parameters increase the attractiveness of individual capital markets, although their values lag behind developed European capital countries. The sole leader in the region is Poland with a flourishing IPO market. Our assumption that a growing market has a positive impact on IPO activities could not be supported by empirical evidence.

It is hard to imagine that after Japan’s miracle post-war growth it would go on to suffer more than two decades of stagnation. Although there have been some short-lived periods of recovery, such as in 1995-96, the average growth rate over the period of 1991-2014 was a mere 1%. Despite historically low interest rates and a series of fiscal stimuli, the growth has not revived. Despite the long economic stagnation, Japan still retains its strength in many areas. Its human and physical capital formations are among the highest in the world. The volume it spends on research and development is equally impressive. It still has world-leading firms and modern technologies. The methodology to be followed here is derived from the aims of the study and comparisons of international statistics provide the main means of addressing the research questions and the objectives of this paper. The study concludes that the neoliberal ‘market-centred’ policies have brought inequality, stagnation, and fiscal crisis to the state. Therefore, a radical critical political economy is required to analyse the situation more objectively, one which would mean increased levels of welfare and people-led measures.

The aim of this work was to show the possible impact of social capital on productivity of the economy. That impact can be measured by such indicators of productivity of the economy as used in our study: the GDP, the total value added of the economy (TVE), and the GNI per total labour force. Thus, this paper was organized as follows: its first part presents the relationship between the development of social capital and productivity growth of the country in the light of the economic development theory. In this context, it is pointed out that the significance of social capital as a component of the productivity potential of a given country increases when such country moves to the next stages of economic development. Therefore, social capital becomes a very important driver of the upgrading of national incomes in those countries, in which competitive advantages are based primarily on intellectual capital assets. The another part of the paper describes the methodology and the results of a research conducted on a group of 100 countries in the years 2012-2013 with an aim to illustrate the link between social capital and productivity of the economy as a whole referred to, or indicated, in the first part of the study. The results of the research allowed us to formulate a conclusion that without an appropriate ethical behaviour, not only in business, the productivity growth is hampered because it translates into a lower level of trust and unwillingness to cooperate. In other words, as, among others, W. Bartoszewski stressed, "it is worth to be decent".

Dividend payment policy is a significant issue of neoclassical theories of finance. One of the concepts which poses a challenge tothe neoclassical approach to dividend payment policy is behavioural finance, including a catering theory of dividends. The aim of the article is to examine whether and to what extent the catering theory of dividends is reflected in the behaviour of shareholders and managers on the WSE. The opportunity to accomplish the aim of this paper was conditioned by the empirical verification of research hypothesis stipulating that the number of dividend payers increases if the dividend payers are priced by the capital market higher that the nonpayers. The empirical verification of hypothesis was conducted basing on the equal- and value-weighted dividend premium as well as dividend payment ratios. Moreover, descriptive statistics, Spearman's rank correlation coefficient, linear regression and coefficient of determination were used. The study was carried out on the basis of companies operating in the electromechanical industry sector that were listed on the WSE in the period between 1999-2013. The figures were taken from the Stock Exchange Yearbooks, Notoria Serwis database and GPWInfostrefa platform. The preliminary results of empirical research in the range of the catering theory of dividends allow to draw a conclusion that this theory may be useful in explaining the dividend policy conducted by electromechanical industry companies listed on the WSE.

Currently, technological parks constitute the most organisational and conceptually developed type of innovation centres and entrepreneurship. This results in the fact that they can be encountered in all highly developed countries in the world. They are also formed in the catching-up countries. However, one should consider whether the stimulation of innovation in the countries, which are not based on knowledge through institutional solutions used in the developed countries will turn out to be effective. Because between these countries there is a technological gap. The aim of the article was therefore to determine, using the probit modelling, the direction and strength of technological parks on the innovation activity. The study covered two provinces: Silesian, which is one of the most developed regions in Poland and Pomeranian with the intermediate industrial system. The influence of technological parks on innovation was determined based on the survey conducted in 1453 industrial enterprises. The main conclusions are brought down to the following theses: (1) using the technological parks increases the chance for the implementation of new solutions by enterprises, (2) parks to a greater extent stimulate the innovation activity in the developed province, (3) enterprises entering in the cross-regional network relations favours the selection of the technological park as the catalyst for innovation processes.

The progressive ageing process concerns both Poland and other Member States of the European Union. In recent years, the share of workers of non-mobile and post-productive age in the total population has been rising, and according to forecasts, in 2035 people aged 45 years and over will represent two-thirds of our society. Since the year 2012, announced the Year of Active Ageing and Solidarity between Generations by the European Commission, more and more attention has been paid in the Polish public space to the issues of an ageing society, including its impact on the health of the economy. The article notes that the ageing process does not occur uniformly across all Polish regions, i.e. at the same pace and with the same intensity. The results of studies indicating the regions being most vulnerable to the ageing of the regional community and the negative consequences of this process in the next two decades are presented.