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Despite the significant attention that financial capability has received in the last 20 years, many of its aspects are poorly understood, and the term itself is ambiguously defined. Consequently, different measures of financial capability are used in empirical research creating a tendency to let the data dictate the conceptualization of the financial capability itself. This creates concerns about the reliability of the general findings for countries in Eastern Europe such as Poland. Therefore, the following study is carried out to address these limitations and contribute to the advancement of the literature on financial capability, first, by extending the mainstream of the theoretical work on financial capability with the conceptual proposition framed within Sen’s Capability Approach; second, by proposing the measurement model of financial capability; and third, by using data from the Polish household panel study, Social Diagnosis (SD), to identify factors which predict a positive change in consumer’s financial capability over time. Across these three aims, we found that higher income was a key predictor and substantially improved financial capability in Poland. We also showed the strong and positive link between financial capability and all included psychological variables. Our findings also highlighted the differential impact of demographic variables on financial capability. The findings of this study yield implications for scholars who would like to analyze financial capability in transition or developing countries, but are constrained by limited financial resources to create their own database or have no access to national financial capability studies.

Celem artykułu jest przedstawienie argumentów teoretycznych wspierających następującą tezę badawczą: „Brak oszczędzania w gospodarstwach domowych o niskich dochodach wynika m.in. z braku instytucjonalnego wsparcia tych gospodarstw w realizowaniu zarówno krótko-, jak i długoterminowych planów oszczędnościowych”. Artykuł ma charakter metodyczny i przeglądowy. Zastosowano w nim metodę analizy krytycznej źródeł literaturowych. Wnioski formułują kryteria, jakie muszą spełniać rozwiązania instytucjonalne, aby skutecznie wspierały gospodarstwa domowe o niskich dochodach w realizacji ich celów oszczędnościowych.

The paper investigates the price determinants, risk/return characteristics and investment performances of the Polish art market. Special attention is given to cultural and historical determinants underlying the creation of the Polish art market after 1989 and the dynamics of changes in the first two decades after the system transition. Data from auction annuals during the years from 1991 to 2012 and repeat-sales regression (RSR) method are used to create the index of 28,951 art transactions. Based on the art index values, we observe that the art index for the Polish auction market exhibits similar returns to the ones on treasury bonds and much lower returns than the ones on the Polish stock and gold prices. The volatility of the art index is, what is striking, much lower than the volatility of stocks, comparable to gold prices and much higher than the volatility of treasury bonds. Moreover, high correlation between art and money market instruments suggests a limited portfolio diversification opportunity.

Celem artykułu jest ocena poziomu świadomości ryzyka, jak również określenie siły i kierunku wpływu wyniku w teście oceniającym jej poziom na wybrane skutki decyzji finansowych i postawy finansowe, wśród gospodarstw domowych o niskich dochodach z terenów wiejskich województwa podkarpackiego. Wyniki badań wskazują, że znacząca część respondentów ma bardzo niski poziom świadomości ryzyka. Wyższy poziom tej świadomości przejawiają osoby młodsze, o wyższym poziomie wykształcenia, z wyższym poziomem dochodów, prezentujące wyższy poziom wiedzy finansowej, jak również lepiej rozumiejące swoją sytuację finansową.

The article aims at answering the following research question: is the Polish art market mature enough to look at art investment as an important element of portfolio diversification? To provide an answer, the Authors analyzed auctions in Poland from the period 1991-2010, which were published by Art&Business magazine. The number of the analyzed records amounted to 28951. The conclusions may be valuable for researchers specializing in art economics, investors dealing with wealth transfer, financial advisors offering financial products as well as for policy makers responsible for providing institutional infrastructure essential for development of the Polish art market.

Prace Naukowe Wydzialu Ekonomii Uniwersytetu Rzeszowskiego, Seria: Monografie i Opracowania nr 24.

The recent financial crisis has shown a very low level or even lack of financial capabilities in most countries, but especially among low educated, low income and rural regions populations. Developing financial capabilities, which may lead to responsible financial decisions, is a part of growing responsibility of financial sector as well as financial supervision authorities. The topic, which is hotly debated by the World Bank, G20, European Commission, OECD, has also become a vital point of national strategies (i.e. Canada, UK, US, Australia, New Zealand) in the context of poverty alleviation and decreasing income distribution. Moreover, The importance of financial capabilities development is even more important in the face of overwhelming financialization, which led to an enormous increase of complexity of financial products, and showed that financial inclusion may not be the best solution to fight against social exclusion and poverty The article is a part of the discussion focused on CR, especially the so-called CSR 2.0 (see: Visser, The age of responsibility. CSR 2.0 and the new DNA of business, Chichester, Wiley, 2011), with moral philosophy and business ethics as a part of development economics research (compare with, Nussbaum and Sen, The quality of life, Clarendon Press, 1993; Sen, On ethics and economics, Blackwell, 1987, Inequality reexamined, Russell Sage and Harvard University Press, 1992; Development as freedom, Knopf, 1999a; Commodities and capabilities. Oxford India Paperbacks, Oxford University Press, 1999b; Nussbaum, Creating capabilities. The human development approach, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2011), as well as Ecological Rationality in developing effective decision heuristics (Gigerenzer and Todd, Simple heuristics that make us smart, Oxford University Press, 2000; Gigerenzer et al. Heuristics: The foundations of adaptive behavior, Oxford University Press, 2011; Todd and Gigerenzer, Ecological rationality, Oxford University Press, 2012). In this paper I explore financial capabilities concept, position that in the discussion about responsible financial decisions, explain its important role in poverty alleviation, and present possible institutional approach to financial capabilities building. This approach is based on three key processes’: economic socialization, financial education and financial instruments which are extensively discussed in the chapter. The central point in discussed Institutional approach is heuristics (decision’s rules). Heuristics which are a vital point of ecological rationality approach to effective financial decision building. The analysis carried out by the Author focuses mainly on Poland, however the conclusions may be also of great significance for societies which have recently experienced radical socio-economic transformation.

There are three forms of information efficiency of a market that may be verified. Testing weak form efficiency provides information on reflection of the historical values of share prices. Most research on the subject proves the validity of the hypothesis that the technical analysis does not allow the achievement of abnormal rates of return. In the case of the semi-strong form the empirical research does not provide explicit answers; however, most research weighs in favour of the hypothesis of the semi-strong form of market informational efficiency. According to the hypothesis, it is impossible to achieve above-average profits in the long run, based on technical and fundamental analysis. The strong form efficiency represents another type of market informational efficiency, which is most difficult to verify, as it requires the use of non-public information. The purpose of the following article is to verify the strong form of market informational efficiency, based on the assumption that the institutions issuing recommendations have access to information inaccessible to the community of investors. The research sample consists of 3,270 recommendations produced between 1 January 2005 and 31 March 2010 by 63 financial entities with reference to companies making up the WIG 20 index. In most cases the obtained results provide evidence for the hypothesis that the strong form efficiency is characteristic of the WIG 20 index shares listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange.

Jedna z glownych debat obecnych w ekonomii dotyczy pomiaru swiatowego bogactwa. Ekonomia staje sie wielodyscyplinarna nauka, ktora korzysta z osiagniec psychologii, neurologii, etyki czy nauk spolecznych. W rezultacie wskaznik PKB powinien byc wieloplaszczyznowym miernikiem. W ponizszym artykule autorzy podkreslaja znaczenie innych niz tylko ekonomiczne zmiennych tworzacych indywidualne bogactwo na swiecie, uwzgledniajac m.in. czynniki psychologiczne, poziom zdrowia, IQ, bezpieczenstwo jednostki czy aspekty spolecznej odpowiedzialnosci.

The following chapter focuses on theoretical and practical aspects of Corporate Responsibility in Poland. It describes the influence of systemic transformation on the definition and perception of CR, the role of social capital in CR’s creation and also main trends in developing the ethical infrastructure in Poland. What is important, the article reviews not only the Polish literature treating on CR in Poland, but also international papers treating on this subject. The practical dimension of the paper takes the form of implications presented in the end.

The following chapter focuses on theoretical and practical aspects of altruism, rationality and happiness from the perspective of CSR. It reflects on current multi-disciplinary approaches to altruism, presents results from various disciplines and delivers broad policy applications, as well as further research directions.

Today\’s enterprises are exposed to number of different systematic risks including natural disasters, frauds or information systems defects. These kind of risks may not only disturb company\’s operational activity but in extreme situations completely destroy reputation or lead to bankruptcy. Business continuity management is a process of uncertainty management, which supports restoring operational continuity and as a consequence protecting reputation. The goal of his paper is to propose BCM as an organizational tool and strategic framework within the context of reputation protection.

Most economic models are prescriptive and based on expected utility theory. Decisions taken on the basis of these models ought to be completely rational and consistent with axioms of the expected utility theory. Prospect theory (PT) is an alternative theory of choice under risk and increasingly used to explain deviations from the traditional paradigm of rational agents. It is important to understand the concept of the PT and its cumulative representation, as well as how it is measured and whether and to what extent PT supports real decisions under risk. This article explores these questions and deliver some axiomatic research review of Cumulative Prospect Theory (CPT) as a framework for decision under risk.

The article presents how the changes on the financial markets influence the choice of the appropriate segmentation strategy, how they support a personalized approach to the customer, and the accurate estimate of the customer’s financial capacity and to build lasting relationships with customers. The authors suggest the special importance of this process in the Wealth Management segment, where it becomes a key factor in the battle for the customer, and mitigation of the risk of losing the customer. In addition, the authors discuss and give arguments that the individualization of needs, preferences or behavior is not possible for each client individually, but through an effective design of the process of segmentation the bank is able to reduce the risk of missed sales activities by constructing groups of similar set of the analyzed components. In conclusion, attention is drawn to two very important, from the point of view of the segmentation, areas of the segmentation analysis. First, preparing and building new customer segmentation strategies Wealth Management, do not forget the cultural diversity of the regions of the world. Secondly—the emerging EU Directives on Basel II, MiFID and the Prevention ofMoney Laundering make that the way of the customer segmentation must be consistent with the construction law facing the EU directives for the local regulators.

The informative efficiency of the market is the issue verified considering its three different kinds. The tests of the weak form have a reflection in the prices of the shares in their historical value. The majority of the research proves that there is no possibility to achieve abnormal rate of return on the basics of technical analysis. Considering half-strong form, empirical investigation do not give one straight answer, however the majority of results leans towards supporting half-strong form of informative efficiency. Consequently, it is impossible to achieve unusual profits in a longer period of time based on the technical and fundamental analysis. The next means of the efficiency which is hard to be verified is its strong form. With regard for the need to consider this issue in the analysis of the unpublic information, it is the most difficult to examine. The aim of this article is to try to verify a strong form of the informative efficiency on the basics of assumption that recommending individuals have an access to the information which is not available to the wider group of investors. The investigation was carried out on the reports from 52 institutions, which recommendations (1925 events) concern the companies of index WIG 20 between 01.01.2005 and 03.06.2008. In most cases the results of the investigations lead towards the hypothesis that there is a strong informative efficiency in the Stock-Exchange in Warsaw.