Tom 35 (2017): Zeszyt 1 (December 2017)
STATE AND ECONOMY

In the period of the Second Polish Republic, social policy became an important field of activity for public authorities. It was distinguished by a high level of awareness of the prevalent social problems, progressive legislation, and advanced management. The only missing element was sufficient financing. In the budgetary policy of the Second Polish Republic, social expenses were of minor importance. For the most part of the period, they amounted to approximately 3% of all expenses. The Ministry of Social Care was underfunded, which was evident in nearly every aspect of its activity. Hence, if one wonders if the origins of the Polish welfare state can be traced back to the Second Polish Republic, the answer must be “no”. Although extra funds (spent on tackling unemployment, pensions, or disability benefits) were found outside of the ministerial budget, the arguments presented in this article only confirm the hypothesis presented above.

As Poland regained independence in 1918, it immediately had to deal with the question of how to shape its political and economic system. One important but at the same time controversial issue was the level of the state’s involvement in the economic life of the country and the measures used. In numerous debates among economists, the dominant topics included problems in the industry - in particular issues such as statism, monopolization, policy towards cartels and, in the later period, economic planning. The article presents the course of the discussion on the role of the state in the economy that took place in Poland in the years 1918-1939, as well as a review of arguments put forward by the proponents and opponents of state’s economic interventionism. For the purpose of this article, three groups that were most active in the debate were selected: the Kraków School, the Leviathan organization and the First Economic Brigade.

The bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers had a strong impact on the whole financial system and started the worst recession since the Great Depression. However, it was not the first crisis in the history of the USA. The purpose of this article is to present the history of investment banking during the main crises in the US history and their impact on the American economy. The article presents the following: a definition of investment banking, theoretical aspects of crises, changes in banking system regulations, and the history of the most important American investment banks, including the infamous Lehman Brothers.

Several years after the war, a revolution started in the Polish agriculture - even though until 1948, the authorities claimed that farms in Poland would not be collectivized. The new stage meant that things accelerated quickly. Central party authorities determined the number of cooperatives to be established per year in a top-down manner. The Poznań region was considered particularly opposed to the system, hence the pressure to establish cooperative farms was particularly intense. The quick pace of the operation and accountability of the party officials for its results meant that they often resorted to prohibited methods of forcing resistant individuals to enter into cooperatives. Though party guidelines emphasized that the process was voluntary, and formally banned any form of pressure, various forms of power abuse were tolerated in practice. Only when the situation rapidly escalated into scandals, the authorities stigmatized the illegal methods. However, after a while, the situation returned to normal, and the anomalies reoccurred. The problem was that the principles of the operation were flawed. One of the party activists claimed that establishing cooperatives according to the guidelines would have taken 200 years to complete. Farmers had to be coerced, otherwise they would never have joined cooperatives. Most cooperative farms established this way collapsed in 1956.

In post-war Poland, rationing was introduced on three occasions: right after the war in 1945, then in 1951, and at the turn of the 1980s. In 1976, rationing cards for sugar were introduced, in 1981 - for meat, fats, cereal products, cleaning products and many other goods. Fuels were the last product added to this list. This article describes the process of introducing a rationing system for petrol in the Polish People’s Republic. Though the supply system crashed as early as 1981, it took several years to organize a rationing system for petrol. Its evolution did not end until 1984. This delay was caused by the long discussions on how the system should be built. This forced the authorities to introduce a whole range of temporary solutions which limited the demand in the short run, but had no soothing effect whatsoever on the society. To the contrary - the chaos they created intensified negative tendencies (such as speculation), led to market insecurity, and increased mistrust of state regulations.

The subject of the article are currency reforms that were carried out after the Second World War in the Polish state. The first legal regulations from 1944 - 45 concerned the unification of the money circulation, which in practice meant the exchange of occupation money for the new currency. However, the repayment of financial claims made before the outbreak of the war was regulated by a decree of 1949. Another monetary reform concerned the new, socialist economic policy of the Polish state. The basis for it was the Act of October 28, 1950 on the change of the monetary system. After this reform, periodic changes in prices and wages were introduced, which were not based on strictly legislative solutions. In practice, these ordinances were in the nature of new monetary reforms. The Act of 1950 was repealed by the Act of 7 July 1994 on the denomination of the zloty.

In the history of Poland, it is very clear that the year 1989 is one of the most distinctive turning points - a final break with the political, social, and economic system built in the period of the Polish People’s Republic, and reinstatement of democracy and free market economy upon the will of the nation. The world had never witnessed a transformation process as large as the one that occurred in Poland after the year 1989. Importantly, this transformation could not be programmed. Therefore, economic policy implemented by governments of the time was constantly amended as problems arose. The course of ownership transformation was monitored. It was observed that the so-called Privatization Act of July 13, 1990 lacked regulations concerning environment protection. Freedom to establish truck transport companies resulted with many anomalies, as it enabled, for instance, the use of trucks in poor technical condition. New regulations in insurance law, which lifted mandatory insurance of production assets against damage from natural disasters, meant that many entrepreneurs decided not to have this insurance. Such was the shape of the economic reality in the first years of the transition, between 1989 and 1995. The state did not want to regulate all aspects of economic life. However, as time went by, politicians and MPs received information from the free market, indicating a need for solutions regulating some sectors of the economy. This article discusses the three aspects of economic life mentioned above, and points out how the governmental and parliamentary strategies towards these aspects of economic life changed in the first years of transformation (1989-1995).

The article is based on an analysis of Polish and international legal acts, government programs and literature, and aims at presenting the concept and the scope of consumer policy in the period of systemic transformation in Poland. The publication features an analysis of the major factors shaping consumer policy in Poland in the years 1989-2004. Selected international legal acts affecting consumer protection in the years 1989-1997 were also analyzed. Elements of consumer policy present in selected governmental economic programs in the period of transformation were synthesized. It was assumed that consumer policy in the period of systemic transformation indirectly resulted from the economic policy of the government. Its shape was primarily affected by the social and economic transformation occurring since 1989 and the birth of free market economy. The process of adjusting the Polish legislation to the European Union standards, which began in 1991, and subsequent accession to the European Union in 2004 also played an important role.

Over the past forty years, stock exchanges have undergone a number of transformations (legal, organizational and technological). They resulted both from general external conditions (including technological progress) as well as were the expression of various economic (structural) policies. Two of which seem to be basic. The first implemented in France, based on optimal centralization of stock exchange trading. The second one, implemented in Germany and Spain, expressing the concept of a complementary and effective combination of the potentials of the main trading floor and regional exchanges. Promisingly, especially in this latter dimension of experience together with the Edinburgh ‘stock market experiment’ that has just begun, they may reveal yet another not yet fully recognized characteristics of the stock market - the institutional exemplification of the market economy.

The article presents how DEA is used to develop agricultural production efficiency rankings in the EU member states, which can be used as the starting point for evaluating the performance of currently used instruments of economic policy. In the article, statistical data from the FADN were used. Agricultural production was compared for three types of output and four types of input involved. The performed study demonstrated that in 18 out of 28 states, agricultural production had been run efficiently on a macro level. The applied approach also allowed for identifying the causes of inefficiency in the remaining ten states, providing indications for recommended changes in in the way economic instruments are used.