Purpose: To analyse the issue of public debt in Poland and examine its effect on other areas of socio-economic life as well as government policy.
Approach: The question of public debt is placed in its historical context by looking at how it grew during the Communist system and influenced the transition period. The article draws on a range of secondary economic statistics and considers in detail a number of public policy issues, such as the reform of the pension system.

Findings: One result of the large debt incurred by the end of the 1970s was that Poland became indebted to creditors in the West. This dependency helped to shape its economic policy at the end of the 1980s. The transition to a market economy placed new burdens on the country’s public services, primarily due to the resulting large deactivation of labour. Furthermore, the creation of a compulsory private pension system at the end of the 1990s diverted significant funds out of the government’s budget and swelled the country’s public debt. Since the outbreak of the economic crisis, Poland has avoided a recession by increasing public investment by utilising available European Union funds. However, due to internal and external limits on the size of its public debt, the government is being pressured to reduce this spending. In order to create more fiscal room, the government has partly dismantled the compulsory private pension system as a short-term solution to the growing debt crisis.

Value: In the wake of the global financial crisis and economic turmoil in the European Union, the matter of public debt has taken on increased importance. This paper considers this question from a long-term perspective in a country that has been relatively successful during the international economic downturn. By examining public debt from this broad perspective, we can better understand the economic situation in Poland and the European Union, whilst also shedding light on some of the surrounding academic perspectives and public policy debates.

Purpose: The paper aims at identifying the major information gaps related to the financial sector that have emerged during the last years, including the explanation of the reasons and consequences of these gaps.

Methodology: The analysis is conducted using the descriptive methodology based on real developments in the financial sector. This analysis identifies substantial institutional changes within the financial sector combined with the introduction of new financial instruments that significantly increased information gaps related to financial developments.

Findings: We found that one of the main reasons for the breakdown in the financial liquidity market was the sudden buildup of a systemic risk caused, among other things, by substantial information gaps and limitations in the transparency of financial markets. The low transparency of the financial markets has been caused by institutional changes and new financial instruments introduced within the financial sector. They were introduced by the financial institutions themselves to facilitate very risky financial activities that were very profitable for them in the short term, but – as it occurred – very disruptive for the whole financial system and the whole economy in the longer term.

Research limitations: The analysis is limited only to the consideration of the causes and consequences of statistical gaps substantially reducing the transparency of the financial sector. A more comprehensive project should also explore and provide an appropriate proposal for remedy data and – even more important – a proposal to setup a macroprudential policy framework.

Originality: The original contribution of the paper is the link between specific institutional changes within the financial sector as well as new financial instruments and the emergence of particular information gaps.

Purpose: The goal of the text is to show a number of challenges which major central banks must face today. Impressive engagement of the central banks in counter-crisis policy leads to many controversial decisions and its results are not clear both for economic theory and for real economy. For now, one cannot show a full overview of the policy of central banks – on the one hand, thanks to the expansionary monetary policy, recession was quite shallow and the risk in financial markets has declined, but on the other hand, few side effects of this policy can be mentioned, which can jeopardize economic stability in the future.

Methodology: The paper has a theoretical character. The findings are based on a literature review and an analysis of the major macroeconomic data.

Findings: The text indicates the most important areas which have to be investigated by central banks. There are serious doubts about issues like: inflation targeting as a fundamental part of monetary policy, the efficiency of monetary policy instruments and the side effects of loose monetary policy.

Originality: The text presents quite a new approach in analyzing macroeconomic policy by indicating important gaps in contemporary economic knowledge according to which economic policy is conducted.

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to confirm the thesis that the amount of public funds expenditure has no impact on the effectiveness of state functioning, which – to a greater extent – is dependent on the efficiency of these funds. In the article, the author claims that in the case of the European Union there is no explicit evidence concerning the efficiency of public funds in Member States – both on the micro and macro level.

Methodology: A literature review conducted on the basis of collections of academic and scientific articles and an analysis of particular solutions implemented in the European Union and in OECD Member States as well as concerning the consolidation of public funds in the context of the effectiveness of state functioning.

Originality: The author of this work – on the basis of the (performed) analysis presented in the article, explains that the optimal fiscal policy should use appropriately selected tools allowing to achieve the best (optimal) method for the management of public funds, in particular the external and internal position of the economy of the given country. The key factors that decide on the effectiveness (excluding non-financial factors) are neither
universal (absolute) nor relative extent of public spending. The author concludes that the level of effectiveness is either dependent on the structure of this spending and procedures connected with public expenditure planning, executing, accounting and reporting processes, or the level (quality) of the effectiveness and efficiency evaluation system.

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to show the conditions of the EU against the realities of the global economy in the post-crisis era, an indication of which are the determinants of the development of the competitive advantage of the Community.

Methodology: An analysis of the determinants of growth at different stages of the process of EU integration with particular emphasis on optimum currency area criteria for the euro zone crisis, under asymmetric demand shock.

Findings: The last global crisis has highlighted the structural weaknesses of the EU, which in times of economic prosperity can be compensated by a system of transfers and the mechanism of credibility borrowing. With such a strong crisis Europe needs more growth.

Research limitations: The costs of this crisis affect the Community, significant for both public finances and the standard of life, but are also visible on a global scale, which is difficult to estimate.

Originality: An ex ante perspective on the determinants that will not only restore EU’s position in the world, but also did not miss an opportunity to play a significant role in the rapidly changing global economy, the twenty first century.