Volume 18 (2022): Issue 4 (December 2022)

The aim of the paper is to discuss one of the major topical and controversial issues in contemporary statistics, which is the separation of monetary and fiscal operations in national accounts. This issue revolves mainly around the operation of public financial institutions mandated to carry out monetary as well as fiscal transactions on behalf of governments. After discussing the methodological dimension of the point at issue, the paper numerically demonstrates the impact on final figures given the existing data constraints. Admittedly, substantial changes to the current recporting may modify the aggregates utilized in the analysis of the fiscal sustainability or the economic role of the government as such. The paper demonstrates that the statistical uncertainty about the size of the government sector is a fundamental issue. The impact on the level of government indebtedness may reach up to tens of percentage points.

The goal of the article is to examine the relationship between government expenditure and economic growth in the Visegrad Group in the period 2000-2020. Economic theory as well as published studies have suggested that government expenditure is an important factor in ensuring economic growth, which has been the subject of increased interest in recent years. The article focuses on development of government expenditure, changes in its composition in individual countries during the analyzed period, and also on the direction of influence between these variables. Real GDP time series were cyclically adjusted as well as annual data on government expenditure which were used in compliance with the COFOG international standard. The results suggest that government expenditure and their composition are similar in the Visegrad Group despite the existing differences in the size of the public sector. On the other hand, the cyclicality of government expenditure differs across the countries. Results suggest that countries of the Visegrad Group did not use government expenditure as a stabilizer in the monitored period. Government expenditure was acyclical in Slovakia and procyclical in other countries of the Vise-grad Group. Applied Granger causality methodology provides mixed conclusions about the relationship between government expenditure and economic growth. Nevertheless, unidirectional Granger causality from GDP growth to government expenditure and its divisions predominates, which means that economic growth comes first, followed by government expenditure.

The OECD project against BEPS has brought and initiated many changes – among others, in the OECD Transfer Pricing Guidelines. To react and respond to changes in the current business environment, a new chapter for transfer pricing in financial transactions has also been introduced (namely chapter X). This step can be considered beneficial. However, meeting all the requirements for setting a transfer price for financial transactions seems to remain a very demanding and expensive task. Furthermore, the OECD Transfer Pricing Guidelines have been of a general nature rather than providing responses to all potential problems and circumstances – they provide fundamental ideas and principles. Thus, the potential to apply a simplified procedure for setting a transfer price (even for financial transactions) can be viewed as desirable, both for taxpayers and tax authorities. The aim of the paper is linked to this idea – to present the results of a comparative study dealing with the rules for safe harbours for financial transactions (namely loans) as established worldwide, providing a summary of existing concepts and systematized criteria for a safe harbour to be considered.

Repeated payments create a certain habit in terms of the preferred payment method. Its formation stems from the simultaneous effect of a variety of factors, while its persistent character implies a difficulty in its change. The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has influenced the terms of how society functions, thus affecting multiple spheres of people’s lives, including making purchases and payments. The aim of this paper is to identify and present the multidimensional impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on payment method preferences of people in Poland. The results indicate that the COVID-19 pandemic has stimulated the shrinkage of cash exchanges while at the same time made the tendency to use cashless payment methods grow. Cash payments are a path for viral transmissions and, thus, a potential source of infection and viewing them as an unsafe payment method effected the turn to cashless forms of payment. It is important to note that this fact constitutes one of the most vital factors of the dynamic growth of the BLIK payment system - a multi-institutional cashless payment system, working independently of the present card-based systems in Poland. Based on the conducted study it can be stated that the COVID-19 pandemic significantly changed payment method preferences of the people in Poland, yet the permanence of those changes will only be possible to determine in a larger timeframe.

The aim of the article is to present and analyse the attitudes of Polish society and individual investors towards challenges of environmental protection. For the purposes of the study, the following hypothesis was formulated: environmental aspects are an important factor in making investment decisions by individual investors on the Polish capital market. In the article, various research methods were applied, with particular emphasis on empirical research, both external and own. The own research was carried out on a representative sample of the Polish society, as well as on a targeted sample of individual investors who invest in the Warsaw Stock Exchange. Unfortunately, on the basis of results from conducted research, it was found that environmental aspects are not an important factor in making investment decisions by individual investors on the Polish capital market.

The article analyses relationships between fiscalism indicators and the number of newly registered companies (i.e. a new business density index). The study covered the period from 2015 to 2020 (inclusive). Considering the timeframe, the purpose is to determine the impact of COVID-19 on new firm formation. Two principal research hypotheses are formulated. The first hypothesis assumes a negative impact of fiscal burden on the creation of new firms. The second hypothesis assumes that COVID-19 reduced interest in starting new business entities. The research results demonstrate that there is a negative relationship between fiscalism and new firm formation. Contrary to expectations, the research has shown that COVID-19 did not adversely affect the creation of new companies, as the new business density index remained stable in most of the analyzed countries.

In 1961, Miller and Modigliani (M–M) published a dividend irrelevance theory, which shows that the payment of dividends does not make any changes to the value of the company. The assumption about the existence of the perfect market made by M–M became the basis for a common criticism of the theory, and the critics also tried to empirically prove that dividend payments have a positive effect on future stock prices. A different interpretation was presented by Damodaran (2007), who stated that a dividend is a compensation for lost capital gains on the first day without a dividend. The aim of the article is to verify the M-M theory according to the Damodaran approach based on the data of companies listed on the WSE in 2019–2021. For this purpose the calculations of the total rate of return on investments consisting in the purchase of shares at the end of the cum-dividend day and the sale of these shares at the end of the ex-dividend day were carried out. Then, the average values of the total rates of return in each of the three years were calculated and using the Student’s t-test it was examined whether the average of one-session rate of return is insignificantly different from zero. If so, it would mean that the dividend irrelevance theory is correct. In 2019 and 2021, the average total rates of return turned out to be statistically insignificant, which supports the M—M theory. The negative significant value of the average in 2020 may result from the COVID-19. The M–M theory perceived in this way can be a warning to investors looking for “quick profits” and trying to apply the strategy of buying dividend stocks at the cum-dividend day and selling them at the ex-dividend day.

The issues related to the identification and assessment of risk in the automotive industry are particularly important from the point of view of functioning in a changing environment. The main purpose of the article is to present the basic definitions of risk and its types, as well as to identify the most important sources of industry risk for companies operating in the automotive industry in Poland. In addition, it is also crucial to assess the impact of identified risks on the activities of these enterprises. Two methods were used in the empirical part: a survey questionnaire (research conducted with the management staff) and an in-depth interview, which was conducted with an auditor in the automotive industry. The research results show that in companies from the automotive industry, the main risks are identified in individual areas: operational, legal and IT. One of the main challenges is the ability to adapt to changing conditions, but also the diversification of suppliers so that a key supplier does not shut down the entire production line.