Around the Bloc: Latvia Asks for Help to Sanitize Banking Sector
Time is running out to ease fears of our international partners, prime minister warns.
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Time is running out to ease fears of our international partners, prime minister warns.
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Warsaw pledges to spend billions on cleaner homes and vehicles.
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Moscow is bucking the world trend toward higher arms spending, but hold that Nobel Peace Prize nomination.
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The aim of the paper is to use soft modelling and TOPSIS method in order to divide voivodeships in terms of the competitiveness level of companies. The paper verifies the hypothesis implying that the usage of two various research methods does not have considerable impact on the position of objects depending on the analyzed characteristic. The concluding part of the paper includes the comparison of the results of grouping objects obtained using the selected methods. The elaboration makes use of data from the year 2014. The results obtained on the basis of these two methods enabled the presentation of the competitiveness level of companies in urban functional areas in Poland as well as the possibilities of achieving competitive advantage by means of using additional funds from the European Union for the improvement of the conditions of their functioning.
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The identification and estimation of the extent of fiscal illusion in the public finance system seems neces¬sary to ensure the transparency of government activity. A lack of transparency of all the operations using public funds decreases budget revenues, may adversely affect the balance of state budgets or even lead to increasing the fiscal burdens on all taxpayers. Furthermore, making expenditures outside the budget process is related to a lack of control, which is particularly important from the point of view of the efficiency and effectiveness of these expenditures. Tax expenditures, being an equivalent of direct public expenditures, serve as an example of this type of activity undertaken by the government. The lack of effective control of expenditures in this category may constitute an incentive to use these instruments in order to escape from conventional spending, which is considerably more transparent. Tax expenditures enable increasing expenses on public programs even when the government officially attempts to reduce them - all the more so that programs which have been accepted once do not require formal annual approval. In addition, the procedure of introducing them into the tax system is less complicated than in the case of direct expenditures. The study includes an analysis of the relationship between tax expenditures and direct public expenditures, using the example of the United States of America in the years 1999-2015. Data analysis has shown that the rate of growth of tax expenditures was considerably higher than in the case of direct public spending, thus creating the illusion that public finances are more stable than they are in reality.
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he continuing problematic management of the 2010 European economic crisis is the cause and the result of the two contrasting philosophies within the European Union regarding its institutional architecture. The first approach highlights key assumptions about the tradition of German Ordoliberalism, such as the emphasis on respect for rules, on fiscal accountability, on financial solvency and on economic austerity policies. The second approach combines Neo-Keynesian theories, with common features such as flexible and adaptive rules, solidarity, and credit expansion policies. The paper approaches the European Union's crisis of the crisis management in the light of these two competitive philosophies.
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The main aim of the paper is to perform an analysis of those indicators of sustainable development which are relevant for economic governance and to develop a ranking of the European Union countries according to the value of these indicators in the years 2010 and 2014. In the research, 28 member states of the European Union are analysed, using Hellwig's method and cluster analysis. The outcome of the research is a ranking EU countries in terms of their sustainable development under the framework of economic governance for the years 2010 and 2014 and an analysis of the indicators which influence the positions of individual states in the presented rankings. As part of the conducted data cluster analysis, the similarities and differences of the EU states are described on the basis of twenty-three studied attributes.
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This paper addresses a general vision of the science of equity and sustainability, which could be called ecosocionomics. The conflict between economies, ecosystems, and social justice could be reconciled on a consensual platform constructed on the scientific basis. Concurring with Wilson’s reasoning, it is argued in this paper that a proposed new platform of knowledge should confirm all the indisputable facts of all branches of science. We definitely reject any form of a win-win, or even win-win- win hypotheses. The three goals: economic efficiency, ecosystem protection, and social fairness are not compatible, they stand rather in opposition one to another. As far as human race occupies and reshapes the only World, there is no choice but to sit down and jointly solve our common problems. Mother Earth feeds humans generously, but only to certain limits of her carrying capacity , which cannot be exceeded. This paper represents a step in the ongoing process of looking for a way how to live within the natural limits, and the limits that were created by humans.
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This paper examines the impact of outsourcing materials and services on labour costs in two groups: industrial and construction enterprises, and services enterprises in Poland during the period 2005-2013. The analysis of this dependency was conducted on the basic of aggregated data coming from Polish enterprises classified in these two groups according to the GDP20071. The preliminary analysis showed that Polish industrial and construction, and service enterprises applied both types of outsourcing, but outsourcing services had more important effect on labour costs than outsourcing materials. Econometric analysis confirmed that only outsourcing services had a positive but differential impact on labour cost per 1 worker in two groups, while outsourcing materials was responsible for negative, however weak, impact on these costs.
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Public-private partnership (PPP) is one of the models of financing public investment. It is a form of cooperation of the public and private sectors in the implementation of projects, which until recently was exclusively the domain of public authorities. PPP should result in lower costs of projects and higher quality of services in comparison to those funded solely from public resources. This form of cooperation helps to fill the gap between investment needs and financial possibilities of public budgets. The European Commission has supported PPP as a form of investment for several years already, and highlights its importance especially for the countries of Central Europe. However, if success in practical implementation of PPP is to be achieved, appropriate conditions must be created. This paper aims to identify the determinants of PPP and the characteristics of its development in the EU. Analysis of the literature has made it possible to determine the critical factors of successful PPP and classify them into four groups: economic and financial, political and legal, technical, and social. The examination of the development of the partnership in the EU confirms that economic factors such as stable macroeconomic conditions, economic and political support of the government, availability of financing, and the resulting economic policy of the state's legal system, may intensify the implementation of PPP projects in various areas of public activity.
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The aim of the paper is to assess the effectiveness of reuniting of the regions of the former Democratic Republic Germany with the western part of the country through the acceleration of the development of the eastern lands. The realization of that goal required ingenuity in obtaining financial resources and their rational use in key areas of economic and social life. The present analysis concerns the overall positive results of the adopted concept of interventionist policy, but also emphasizes the need for its continuation and improvement.
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A number of studies assert that during critical events cross-market correlations change substantially. The main focus of this paper is to explicitly test two research hypotheses concerning the effect of increasing cross-market correlations in the 2007-2009 Global Financial Crisis (GFC) compared to the pre-crisis period. These hypotheses state that there was no contagion and no integration effects among the U.S., the U.K., and selected African stock markets (South Africa, Namibia, Egypt, Nigeria, Morocco and Kenya) during the GFC. The crisis periods are formally detected using a statistical method of dividing market states into bullish and bearish markets. The sample period begins in January 2003 and ends in December 2013, and it includes the 2007 U.S. subprime crisis. Obtained results indicate that there is no reason to reject both research hypotheses. Moreover, the results confirm a heterogeneity of the African equity markets in the context of the influence of the recent global crisis.
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With a growing dependency on the private participation across the globe, India also implemented the economic reforms process but these reforms have not been supported by any major amendments in the labour Laws though privatization of public enterprises, is one of the key issues in the ongoing economic reforms and India has a major workforce employed in the PEs. Global experiences in privatization appear to suggest that there should be a clear-cut privatization law, which will sustain the logic of what to privatize, how to privatize and for whom to privatize, but till today India has not even considered enacting such a law. The presence of old labour laws and the absence of a privatization law present a complex situation at the time of the second generation of economic reforms undertaken by India. This paper tries to investigate how the Indian Labour law is helpless in helping the labour and in protecting the larger interest of the PE’s reforms.
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In the era of progressive economic and trade cooperation at a national and international level, the number of disputes related to them is increasing. Statistics overviewing the activity of Polish courts dealing with proceedings in commercial cases confirm the fact. The development of alternative disputes resolution instruments, in particular regarding arbitration and mediation, gives rise to hope for remedying the situation. At the moment their scope is of little significance related to the entirety of legal transactions. Moreover, there are areas virtually devoid of them. The Podlaskie region is one of such areas. Recently, collaboration of the Chamber of Industry and Commerce in Bialystok and the Faculty of Law of University of Bialystok resulted in the launch of the Arbitration and Mediation Center of the Podlaskie region. As a part of the project, mediation services were commenced and further steps to launch the Eastern Court of Arbitration were taken. It seems that the undertaking can bring satisfactory results for socio-economic trading. The assumption will be possible to be verified in practice in the nearest future.
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This paper presents the results of a comparative analysis of environmentally related taxes existing in Poland and other EU countries which have recently become obliged to introduce a uniform statistical reporting system in this field for the needs of Eurostat. The research examines the quantity of revenues from environmental taxes and the forms of `ecological taxation´ in Poland and selected New Union countries with similar levels of economic development, as well as in some of the countries of the Old Union, generally considered leaders in ´ecological fiscalism´. Apart from Poland, the authors take into account the following countries: Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Romania, Slovakia, Finland, Sweden, and Norway (which although does not belong to EU, is included in the Eurostat statistics). The analysis consists in investigating the indicators that reflect the amount of monetary resources from ecological taxes expressed as a share of total revenue from taxes as well as the amount of monetary resources from ecological taxes relative to GDP. Moreover, a comparative analysis of specific tax solutions in Poland and selected countries is conducted.
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Ever since Poland joined the European Union, the citizens of Ukraine have been increasingly interested in permanent employment in Poland, and many of them have actually found jobs in our country. Until recently, workers from Central and Eastern Europe were seasonal employees, working in agriculture or performing other simple physical work that did not require qualifications or experience. Later, however, countries such as the United Kingdom, Sweden or Norway began to attract hardworking and well-qualified employees with high salaries. As a result of the migration of numerous Poles, the domestic labour market began to experience a chronic lack of staff. At the same time, migrants from the East started to manifest an increased interest in the Polish labour market. The largest ethnic group employed by Polish employers over the years are the Ukrainians. Because of the recent war, political tensions and the difficult economic situation in Ukraine in 2014, the number of Ukrainian migrants in Poland has been constantly growing. The main goal of the present paper is to analyze the importance of Ukrainian citizens' migration for the development of the Polish labour market. The main questions considered by the author are related to the causes of Ukrainian migration to Poland, the attractiveness of the Polish labour market for Ukrainians, with attention to regional differences. Moreover, the share of Ukrainians in the Polish labour market is analyzed in terms of gender, migration period, conditions of employment, and chosen survival strategies in foreign labour market.
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The presence of contemporary entities in the cyber-space shows that IT offers unlimited possibilities of running a business and developing an organisation. On the other hand, it involves a greater number of internal and external threats in the area of accounting information resources security. The objective of the paper is to diagnose the current level of accounting information resources security (AIRS) assurance in Polish business entities. The paper analyses two research hypothe-ses. In accordance with the first one, the AIRS assurance level in various entity groups may be different, even though all entities should have implemented the same requirements of the Accounting Act in the analyzed area. The identified differences may result from the effect of additional, industry-specific regulations. The other hypothesis claims that in the private business area, accounting and auditing companies adhere to AIRS regulations more strictly than other small and medium enterprises. The paper defines the fundamental factors affecting the functioning of corporate accounting systems in the three dimensions of the cyber-space. Subsequently, the author presents the results of empirical research on how corporate information security is ensured in the context of internal accounting control systems and the requirements of the Polish Accounting Act. The results of the empirical research show how the management of the analysed entities crafts the basic elements of their internal environment as well as internal com-munication and control processes connected with ensuring information resources security. The results also show the management’s approach to various aspects of risk management of accounting information resources security, as well as to ad-herence to organisational and administrative procedures, and to hardware and software safeguards in the IT environment of the accounting system. The issues analysed in the present paper open a scholarly discussion that should lead to the development of theoretical models, recommendation of efficient methods and tools, as well as indication of adequate legislative initiatives. Research methods used by the author include analysis of literature and legislation, analysis of sur-vey results, deduction and inference.
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In the 1950s, Polish accounting was strongly influenced by the accounting system of the Soviet Union. An expression of this state of affairs were, among others, the successive reforms of the Polish uniform chart of accounts, which was eventually replaced by the framework plans of accounts. The introduction of framework charts of accounts entailed a thorough reconstruction of financial reporting. The purpose of the article is characterization of financial reporting of state-owned industrial enterprises, which was in force in the 1950s. The background for the presentation of its basic features and selected elements is provided by a short description of the accounting system in the discussed period, including the framework charts of accounts. The article was written on the basis of a review of books and articles published mainly in the 1950s, in particular by authors such as Stanisław Skrzywan, Edward Wojciechowski and Eufemiusz Terebucha. Financial reporting documents formed the basis for exercising control over the use of state funds, performing planned tasks and the course and increase of accumulation taking place in a given economic unit.
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Suvorovo Municipality can be described as a disadvantaged area with its level of economic development, problems of depopulation, holdback and motivation factors and preconditions for development of new business activities. All this makes necessary to encourage greater support to the development of the municipality. The aim, set in the following paper, is to present the perspective economic development of the Municipality of Suvorovo, based on a study of different economic sectors states. The sectors of prospective development are outlined as well as the events and actions which are necessary to turn the municipal area into an active and attractive development zone. Proposals for development and improvement of the leading municipal sectors are set out in the article, namely: tourism and agriculture.
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