Purpose: The study’s purpose was to examine the management of agri-food enterprises’ resource-saving development to minimize potential imperfections in managing material and human resources and improve data quality.

Materials and methods: A combined analysis was used to display the potential relationships between the agri-food sector achievements and basic indicators of natural resources’ sustainability and resilience to risks. The analysis covered Ukraine, Romania, and Poland. The analysis allowed for developing a general management scheme, including a management transformation comparative description in the economic growth context.

Results: The study revealed that Ukraine is clearly not on the path to progress in manufacturing enterprises and agriculture, as most of its indicators do not meet global nutrition goals. At the same time, Ukraine remains an export-oriented country. Its agri-food enterprises’ activities focus on external markets, corresponding to the priorities of the country’s agricultural policy and sustainable development goals of the United Nations organization.

Conclusion: The obtained results provide knowledge about and understanding of processes that occur in the agri-food enterprises’ organizational structure in countries with different development levels. The awareness of these processes is crucial for effective enterprise management in the resource conservation context.

Purpose: In order to make an informed choice of the most effective tools for ensuring the development of a competitive economy, it is important to take into account the links between macroeconomic indicators of progress and the most important components of knowledge management. In this regard, the aim of our study is to assess the relationship between knowledge management factors and economic growth in order to select the factors that most determine the positive changes in Gross national income per capita.

Methodology/results: As a result of the systematization of the main international indices, which use knowledge management factors and the authors’ correlation analysis of their relationships with GNI per capita, conclusions are made about the greatest effectiveness at the present stage of action, which results in skills development (such as the ability to work with new technologies and with people, flexibility and cooperation), innovative capacity, access to information and means of communication.

Findings: The perception of these factors as determinants of economic development and the appropriate direction of the levers of economic policy will result in achieving the greatest economic efficiency on the basis of the development of the knowledge economy.

Review of the book Piątkowski, M. (2018). Europe’s Growth Champion. Insights from the Economic Rise of Poland. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Purpose: The three goals of the article are: first, to show some arguments surrounding the notion of capitalism in theoretical perspective, and also somewhat bashful connotations since it was intro-duced in Poland after the fall of communism; second, to present some historical facts about the rise of capitalism in Poland in comparative perspective, mostly European; third, to look for cultural categories necessary for analysing the peculiarities of Polish socio-economic development as the part of so-called „the second Europe”.

Methodology: I go back to the history of European patterns of capitalist formation: Anglo-Saxon, French, German, Russian in order to show the Polish trajectory as strikingly different. Before enter-ing the Polish case, I present Mary Douglas and Aaron Widavsky’s proposal – how to analyze four cultures: individualist, egalitarian, hierarchical and fatalistic (authoritarian).

Implications: The main finding is that economic interests are always socio-cultural constructions, hence all definitions of the real life decisions (on public vs private, risk, externalities etc.) that the people make, must frame them within working life of given culture as the combination of universa-lism and particularism (of above-mentioned four cultures).

Purpose: Respective European Union member states’ interest in using spending reviews varies as there are no international mandatory regulations. The EU legislation contains general indications as to maintaining a rational fscal policy, from the provisions of the TFUE, expanded in the Pact for Stability and Growth, and elaborated in 2011.

Methodology: Adopting an interpretative research approach, this article elaborates a multiple explanatory case study design to discover how existing theories about public spending reviews are conceptualized by practitioners in their natural contexts.

Findings: The deteriorated state of many countries’ public fnances, as a result of the global fnancial crisis, has increased the interest in advanced innovative consolidation and fscal stabilization methods. Spending reviews are among the most developed and advanced methods. Such reviews were conducted both by countries that had applied this instrument before (Netherlands, Denmark, Finland, United Kingdom, Australia), and by those that introduced them for the frst time (Ireland, Canada, France). However, reviews are applied in countries characterized by signifcant economic advancement and mature public management systems.

Originality: This article analyses and draws conclusions from several selected countries’ experience to date in using spending reviews. The budget functions are compared using information from the implementation of the spending reviews. This article contributes to flling two main gaps identifed in the literature review.

Purpose: The theory of endogenous growth suggests a number of relations between income inequality and human capital. However, empirical evidence in this field is scarce. Therefore, in this paper we aim to demonstrate the existence of interdependencies between income inequality and human capital across OECD countries.

Methodology: We present findings of the endogenous growth theory on the mechanisms linking inequality with human capital. Subsequently, we attempt to verify these links empirically using the regression function estimated by means of the generalized method of moments (GMM). The empirical analysis is based on panel data from 1995–2010.

Findings: The results of the study reveal the existence of a negative relationship between income inequality and health indicators (infant mortality and maternal mortality). However, we did not reach an authoritative conclusion about the relationship between income inequality and quantitative indicators of educational achievement.

Research limitations: Research is limited to the sample of OECD countries. Interdependencies between income inequality and human capital could be captured more clearly using a broader sample.

Originality: This paper presents one of few studies testing the relation between human capital and income inequality. The use of high-quality empirical data on inequality (SWIID data) and the generalized method of moments made it possible to contribute new arguments to the discussion of empirical analyses of these economic categories.

Purpose: The aim of this study is to empirically understand whether Islamic banks have a positive
relationship to economic growth in Indonesia.

Methodology: This study examines the causal relationship amongst several selected variables: real
GDP (RY), total deposit (TD), the change in the Consumer Price Index as an inflation proxy (INF),
and the ratio of total imports and exports to nominal GDP (OE). In order to accomplish the research
objectives of this study, a time series quarterly data spanning from the first quarter of 2003 to the
last quarter of 2011 comprising of 36 data points has been used to perform an effective analysis.

Findings: The inference deduced here is twofold; First Islamic banks in Indonesia are still unable
to contribute significantly to Indonesia’s economic growth. Second, the relationship between Islamic
banks and economic growth in Indonesia is positively but weakly correlated.

Research Limitations: For this time series research, the researcher is limited by the small amount
of data (2003.Q1 to 2011.Q4).

Purpose: In this paper we evaluate both ex-ante and ex-post macroeconomic impact of EURO 2012TM on Polish regions.

Methodology: We start with modifying the Keynesian-style multiplier model to investigate the effects of Euro 2012-related spending on local economies. This specifi cation permits us, on the one hand, to easily investigate the impact on each demand component, and, on the other hand, to calculate the magnitudes of these multipliers in order to judge the credibility of potential regional welfare benefi ts. This analysis is strengthened by taking into account the regional supply constraints. The second part of our study is devoted to an econometric estimation of long-run macroeconomic impact.

Findings: Our study does not provide a strong evidence of EURO 2012 - specific effects. We fi nd the regional multipliers’ values ranging from 1,13 to 1,33 for four hosting regions. This translates into an uncommon statement of rather evenly developed regions. The ex-ante study also testifi es of an importance of public expenditure in convergence process. In case of ex-post analysis, the estimates of regional production function reveal a modest positive effect of EURO 2012-related infrastructure spending. However, this effect is small, and there is nostatistical evidence that hosting regions recorded an event-specific growth boost.

Research limitations: Both ex-ante and ex-post studies are sensitive to regional data, therefore, some calculations may suffer from disaggregation error. Additionally, ex-post analysis needs to be repeated in order to gain more insights from historical data. Finally, authors plan to complement the analysis by the Ukrainian study.

Originality: This is the fi rst paper to date addressing the EURO 2012 macroeconomic impact from the regional perspective.

Purpose: This study examines the determinants of ex-ante state capture in Poland.
Methodology: In order to establish the determinants of ex-ante state capture a logistic regression is estimated.

Findings: The study shows that in Poland the majority of legal acts were passed with the aim to satisfy the interest of particular groups. Furthermore, the regression analysis shows that the likelihood of state capture increases during the period of higher economic growth and local elections. The likelihood of state capture, however, declines during presidential elections. The results we attribute to different interests of political parties in the period of local and presidential elections. Finally, we fi nd that the state capture increased over the years in Poland. Additionally, we show that the EU accession did not prevent state capture in Poland. In contrast, the financial crisis of 2007 resulted in a wake-up effect and the likelihood of state capture declined in Poland.

Research limitations: In the study we employ proxies for state capture, yet we assume that corruption is a wide spread phenomenon in Poland. However, due to its nature corruption is very diffi cult to assess and measure.

Originality: The study uses a unique dataset on ex-ante state capture that was identifi ed in the legal acts that have been passed in the period 1990–2011 in Poland.

Purpose: The aim of the paper is to present the theoretical and empirical arguments for the causality between growing income inequality and increasing public debt within the capitalist economies.

Methodology: The paper consists of two major parts. The first part discusses the long-term changes in value of public debt and income inequality within countries, and presents the theoretical arguments for the causality between these two categories. The second part of the paper is an attempt to investigate the impact of inequality in the upper and lower parts of income distribution on an increase of public debt in a sample of OECD-countries in 1995–2010. The statistical analysis is based on calculations of: (a) correlation coefficients between income inequality and public debt; and (b) parameters of regression equations of the level and rate of growth of public debt in a sample of countries. The parameters of regression equations were calculated with ordinary least squares and fixed effects methods.

Findings: The results of the calculation illustrate that the growth of income inequality in the upper and lower parts of distribution stimulated an increase in value of public debt in the OECD countries between 1995 and 2010.

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.

Purpose: The main objective of the article is to assess the impact of new regulations introduced in the EU and the euro area in the face of the economic and financial crisis.

Methodology: Literature review related to the functioning of the euro area, roots of the global crisis and financial market integration. The critical literature review was focused on two issues: identification of the causes of fiscal and macroeconomic imbalances in the euro area and assessment of the implemented instruments designed to prevent them.

Findings: The basic feature of the six-pack measures and the European Semester, which complements them, is deeper coordination of macroeconomic, structural and competitiveness policies among Member States. Adopted measures are a big step towards strengthening the economic pillar of the monetary union. However, the progress and quality of their implementation will be critical in improving economic governance in the EU.

Research implications: identification of strengths and weaknesses of the adopted reforms allows for using these results in the assessment of the balance of costs and benefits of the future functioning of the euro area as well as the implications for macroeconomic policies in the countries intending to join the euro area.

Originality: The author tries to provide an overview of the roots of the crisis in the euro area with the assessment of the reforms aiming to prevent similar crises in the future. The arguments presented in the article are against the view that the main reason for the crisis was a weak fiscal policy of the euro area countries.