Volume 29 (2010): Issue 2 (June 2010)

The article presents notions and issues concerning socio-economic development in an axiological perspective. Their presentation is limited to those the present author considers valid, and ignores their wider context as expounded in the various theories of socio-economic development.

Underlying the axiological approach to socio-economic development is the opinion that the character of and research on socio-economic development are not neutral axiologically because values are an inherent component of human activity; they stimulate it and give it a direction. The knowledge concerning human activity makes use of evaluative concepts and judgements.

The article discusses: (1) the concept of socio-economic development, (2) basic axiological notions, and (3) axiological problems of socio-economic development.

The paper presents problems of spatial policy in Russia related to the formation of institutional conditions for regional development. Development institutions are characterised in terms of three functional groups. Distributive institutions reallocate funds between regions and they are the main subject of research on development factors. Problems of the redistribution sphere include losses of regions and municipalities in rental payments and household incomes. Transformational institutions contribute to the transformation of income into investment, and their effectiveness depends upon the quality of human capital and forms of relationships in local and regional communities. Organising institutions are usually formed by the state to arrange and stimulate the implementation of measures determined by the state regional development policy. The programme of economic and social development of Siberia is analysed as an example of institutional framework construction. The role of informal norms in institutional environment development is stressed.

The aim of the paper is to outline demand-driven multiplier mechanisms, the theory behind them, and applicable quantification methods (aggregate models and incremental methods). The authors discuss a number of key problems related to multiplier effects as fundamental mechanisms of local and regional development. The study of the magnitude, industry structure, spatial distribution, and key determinants of those effects can help understand growth mechanisms in local and regional economies and evaluate the advantages and disadvantages associated with new, e.g. foreign, investment. Furthermore, the results of earlier empirical studies of the magnitude, spatial distribution and determinants of multiplier effects are presented together with the outcomes of the authors' own study.

Historical factors are presented that have determined landed property belonging to churches and denominational associations in Poland. The article then moves to post-war times to discuss the size and structure of church property resources in 1950, before its appropriation by the State in 1952, and after its restoration to the ecclesiastical owners following the systemic transformation of 1989. The form and ways of recovery of church property are discussed, as well as its present size, structure and distribution.

The purpose of the present paper is to characterise the socio-economic potentials of the regions situated on both sides of the Polish-Russian, Polish-Belarusian and Polish-Ukrainian boundaries (against the background of historical conditions), as well as the economic interactions taking place within these regions. The analysis, carried out in a dynamic setting, sought to identify changes that have occurred owing to the enlargement of the European Union (including those associated with the absorption of the means from the pre-accession funds and from the structural funds). The territorial reach of the analysis encompasses four Polish units of the NUTS 2 level (voivodeships, or "voivodeships"), situated directly at the present outer boundary of the European Union: Warmia-Mazuria, Podlasie, Lublin and Subcarpathia. Besides, the analysis extends to the units located just outside of the eastern border of Poland: the District of Kaliningrad of the Russian Federation, the Belarusian districts of Hrodna and Brest, as well as the Ukrainian districts of Volyn, Lviv and Zakarpattya.

In the study of the competitiveness of the Wielkopolska region it is assumed that in modern times the foundation of a competitive advantage is a knowledge-based economy (KBE). The aim of the article is to analyse the competitiveness of the Wielkopolska region (voivodeship) in terms of KBE in comparison with the country's regional system. Four dimensions of the region's competitiveness are distinguished, representing factors of KBE development and effects of their operation in the economic sphere. With the help of principal components analysis, indices of the region's competitiveness are obtained.

The aim of this article is to analyse the effectiveness of interventions from the EU Structural Funds in Wielkopolska carried out for investments realised in the years 2004-2006, i.e. in the first period of implementing Community regional policy in Poland. The research procedure is composed of two fundamental stages. In the first, projects co-financed from the EU Structural Funds within the framework of the Regional Component of the Integrated Regional Operational Programme were systematised by the criterion of intervention direction within each of the three dimensions of cohesion: economic, social and territorial. In the second stage, selected diagnostic measures for each dimension of cohesion were subjected to effectiveness analysis. The procedure rested on a questions/methods-oriented model applied in line with the theory-driven evaluation approach, a quasiexperimental design and the difference-in-differences technique, as well as methods of econometric analysis. The results made it possible to assess public intervention in Poland in terms of its effectiveness, and to identify challenges that have to be faced very soon.