Purpose: One of the regulatory responses to the 2008 financial crisis was to internalize the costs related to banks’ distress by introducing bank levies. More than 23 European banking sectors have been confronted with the new levy regime imposing the additional tax on banks’ balance sheet.

Methodology: This study analyzes the effect of the levy introduction on banks’ profitability, credit activity, and on their business models. More importantly, we confront two different levy regimes – one imposed on banks’ assets and the other on liabilities – to assess their differential impact. A generalized least squares regression with a random effect is performed on a data sample of Hungarian and German credit institutions from 2005 to 2015.

Results: The results show that levy introduction weakened banking sectors in terms of their profitability as well as their lending activity. Even though banks try to compensate for the cost of the levies by passing some of the costs on to the customers and restructuring their operations to limit the tax burden, we find that these activities are not sufficient to offset the whole tax burden. We also note that while the asset levy has a more severe effect on banks’ profits, the liability levy severely affects banks’ lending due to lower interest margin resulting from higher cost of funding.

Findings: Our research results provide important conclusions for regulators, especially during turbulent periods such as the COVID-19 pandemic to strengthen the banking sectors by considering the levy suspension.

Purpose: The article considers country-level governance factors (legal/regulatory system and financial development) and ownership concentration that impact the value of non-financial firms in Central European nations, specifically by describing a study done in Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Slovenia, and Switzerland.

Methodology: A fixed effect panel data regression analysis was applied to a strongly balanced panel data using a collection of six diverse Central European countries’ non-financial firms across the sample period of 2010–2020.

Results: According to regression analysis, the legal and regulatory system as well as financial development have a positive relationship with firm value. The firm’s value rises as the legal and regulatory system improves. Furthermore, the growth of financial markets adds to the firm’s value. However, our study reveals a negative relationship between ownership concentration and firm value, which indicates that ownership concentration is too high to allow for effective supervision, implying that more ownership concentration lowers firm value, as the expropriation theory suggests.

Originality: The study examines the value of a firm by incorporating both country- and firm-level factors, which broadens the current literature’s insight.
Implications: Overall, our findings add to the literature on the value of non-financial firms by providing new significant information. Some of the recommendations may be beneficial to the long-term success of non-financial companies.

Purpose: The article explores changes in the institutional autonomy and accountability resulting from university reforms carried out over a period of 28 years under the influence of the traditional public administration and new public management logic.

Design/methodology/approach: This qualitative study uses rich empirical material, which includes archival documents as well as 16 semi-structured, in-depth interviews with deans, professors, representatives of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, and HEI experts. For analysis, we used the general inductive approach. Institutional logic has been used as the theoretical framework to analyze changes in resource allocation, autonomy, and accountability of HEIs.

Findings: Following the idea of reform as routine, our study shows that the implemented reforms have proven ineffective in comprehensively increasing the autonomy and accountability of HEIs and that they tend to turn into a routine. However, over the past 30 years, a certain increase in autonomy, combined with accountability shifts from input toward output control mechanisms can be observed. An important finding of this research is also the limited understanding of the concept of accountability by the top management of universities and by the ministry’s representatives. Moreover, this illustrates that accountability is understood only as a formal obligation to report to the funding agency and is treated as an integral part of the Polish HE landscape, increasing from reform to reform.

Originality/Value: This article explores the evolution of the Polish state funding systems of universities and analyzes the development from a stable traditional funding model – that was in place before the collapse of the communist system – to a complex multi-tier system and to recent attempts at reforming the HE field, aimed at increasing the autonomy and accountability of Polish universities. More efforts should be made by policymakers to create a sustainable balance between autonomy and accountability in the HE field.

Purposes: The main goal of the paper is to determine the signifcance of selected sources of strategic information, used by Polish farmers in decision making. In addition, an attempt was made to determine the factors impacting the evaluation of those sources among the traits of the farmer and his farm.

Methodology: Data was gathered using the questionnaire method and analysed with standard tools of descriptive statistics.

Findings: The farmers deemed personalised sources of strategic information the most important, especially agricultural advisers, input suppliers and buyers of agricultural products. From among institutional (non-personalised) sources, local government and the chamber of agriculture were signifcant. Business information agencies and survey companies are the least important sources for farmers. The characteristics of the surroundings of the farm – specifcally, its geographic location and the size of settlement where it is located proved to have the widest impact on the evaluation of the sources included in the study. From among the organisational factors, only farm size has a signifcant impact.

Research limitations/implications: The study was confned to a representative group of farmers in Poland. A closed list of sources of strategic information was used.

Originality/value: The study results contribute to the knowledge on the functioning of Polish agriculture and may also be used in comparative studies, characterising this sector’s diversity within Europe. They can in turn contribute to properly focusing on supporting the policy of balanced agriculture development in the EU.

Purpose: The objective of the research was an assessment of the experiences of Polish owners of family companies in organizing family meetings as mechanisms of family governance as well as evaluating the usefulness of solutions developed in this sphere for both family and company.

Methodology: The character of the conducted research was qualitative. The main technique used to gather data involved interviews. A total of thirty nine respondents from twenty companies were questioned. Nineteen were representatives of the older generation while twenty represented the younger second generation of owners of family businesses.

Findings: Research results indicated the rather extensive use by the examined owner families of family meetings to discuss company matters. Depending on their needs, they developed various models ranging from the ad hoc bringing up of company matters to the transformation of such meetings into formal, family meetings of the management board organized in company offi ces. Regardless of organizational form, family meetings were an important forum for the exchange of information and views on the functioning of the company among family members. The experiences of the examined families of owners in building family governance systems, understood as a complex of structures and mechanisms making possible the maintenance of a balance between tensions stemming from economic and emotional ties among family members, both involved in the company and outside it, remain small.

Research limitations: The qualitative character of the research, including the size of the examined sample (twenty family companies represented by thirty nine representatives), means that the generalizations made for the purposes of this study refer only to the experiences and opinions of the interviewed respondents.

Originality: The research performed is the fi rst of its kind devoted to family meetings as a component of the system of family governance created in the family forum of owners of family companies. At present, questions of family governance subject to Polish conditions are not a popular research fi eld undertaken with respect to family companies. This is dictated by the current phase of development of most domestic family ventures, where no
signifi cant diversifi cation of stakeholders on the family level has as yet occurred. However, this should in no way suggest that Polish family businesses are not acquiring their fi rst experiences in the sphere of family governance that, in the future, may prove useful in the forming of more complex structures.

Purpose: The purpose of the article is to find an answer to the question whether the European Union, and especially the countries that are full members of the Economic and Monetary Union, are able to reach a common solution in fiscal policy, which may result in a further deepening of integration processes.

Methodology: The article is based on literature, legislation and documents, reports and accounts of the institutions and bodies of the EU. The paper presents an analysis of the current situation within the European Union on fiscal consolidation, the theoretical format of the fiscal union and the range of possible functions of common bonds and consequences of the issue (in the context of sharing risk between the issuers, and thus – the impact on
fiscal discipline), and finally, the role of the disintegrative processes in the context of public finance.

Findings: So far, the common legislation to restore budgetary balance was broadly implemented, however, it is too early to say whether specific rules will translate into action of public authorities. When it comes to issues indicating the deepening of integration, it is difficult to note the political consensus in this regard. The proposal for creating a new budget only for the eurozone countries seems to be far-reaching.

Research implications: This paper may be a contribution to the further discussion on the future of the European Union, especially in the context of fiscal policy.

Originality: The author presents her findings and thoughts on current events in the financial integration within the European Union on the basis of documents of the European Commission, the Council of the European Union, the President of the European Council and the European Economic and Social Committee.

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.