The article provides an overview of the supranational bank resolution regime established under the Single Resolution Mechanism framework. Both the substantive rules governing the resolution process and its procedural requirements are explained. The main focus of the article is the decision-making practice of the Single Resolution Board (SRB), an EU agency responsible for the execution of the resolution framework, which has already intervened in a number of cases in which banks were considered “failing or likely to fail” by the European Central Bank. The article analyses the existing decisions on resolution action in order to establish how the substantive rules on resolution are interpreted by the SRB in its decision-making practice.

After the banking crisis, the European Union (EU) introduced a framework for the restructuring and orderly liquidation of credit institutions. The overarching goal of the new rules is to manage severe banking crisis more efficiently. One of the main pillars of the European bank resolution regime are the powers of the resolution authorities to use resolution tools (sale of business, bridge bank, bad bank and bail-in). However, the question arises whether the implemented toolkit will be sufficient to effectively contain systemic banking crisis. The literature regarding empirical research on the effectiveness of the BRRD tools provides ambiguous conclusions. Therefore, the newly established resolution authorities in the EU were asked to express their opinion about their readiness to combat systemic crisis and the usefulness of the accessible toolkit. The evaluation of the effectiveness of the resolution tools in a systemic crises by the resolution authorities showed that the most effective resolution tool seems to be the bad bank, while bank liquidation was rated as the least appropriate. Nevertheless, the resolution authorities also identified many barriers for all resolution tools that may limit the ability of their implementation and possibly translate into the lower effectiveness of the resolution framework.

One more time we would like to pay attention of especially of the hydraulic engineer audience to bankfull stage and discharge. Along the paper we show commonly accepted definitions of it and ways of calculations. It is difficult to determine the size of the bankfull flow level, that is why the authors are presenting many selected methods. Some of the methods allow the determination of biotic bankfull flow through the occurrence of zones of vegetation characteristic and based on the observation of the occurrence of ground beetles (e.g. the Woodyer and the Radecki-Pawlik and Skalski methods). Some of the methods – most popular- are using morphometric parameters (e.g. the Williams, the Hey and Thorne, the Gauckler-Manning and finally the Lambor methods).

We believe that the value of bankfull discharge would be accepted as a supporting tool for designers, hydraulics engineers and managers, especially those who care about river channel environment and cooperate with fluvial geomorphologists- and biologists as well as environmental agencies.

The paper aims at the empirical evaluation of the impact of bank size (as measured by median total assets) on the value relevance of two key accounting variables, i.e. book values of equity and net earnings, in terms of their joint explanatory power in the regression model and the relative responsiveness of bank market values to the changes in those variables. The research is based on the multiple linear regression analysis after controlling for the presence of fixed and random effects. The examined sample covers all domestically-based commercial banks listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange over the period 1998–2017. The final pooled sample comprises 18 banks and 271 bank-year observations. The findings of the study suggest that the equity investors perceive the joint informational content of book values and earnings of larger banks as more value relevant in comparison to the accounting numbers reported by their smaller peers. The responsiveness of banks’ market values to the changes in each of the explanatory variables seems, however, to be affected by their size in a different way. As expected, book values of equity have turned out to be significantly more informative for smaller banks, whereas the evidence regarding the impact of size on the responsiveness of bank market values to the changes in net earnings is ambiguous. Although larger banks appear to exhibit a higher sensitivity of stock prices to variations in net earnings per share than their smaller peers, the difference between the examined subsamples is not statistically significant.

Inflation targeting is nowadays used by around 40 countries, with each of them tailoring some features of the strategy to its own needs. This holdse specially for deciding on the level of inflation targets. The analysis conducted in the paper aims at identifying factors affecting the choice of the target levels, with macroeconomic, structural and institutional characteristics of the reviewed economies being investigated. The main conclusion is that both backward- and forward-looking models can help to explain how inflation targets are set. Evidently inflation and GDP growth (past and forecast) together within formation on a possibly on going disinflation process are of key importance,but – especially for emerging market economies – also inflation variance and the level of economic development seem to influence the target levels. Moreover,many of the institutional features related, among others, to transparency and accountability of the reviewed central banks, were found significant in the analysis.

This study examines whether the lowering interest-rate environment in CEE countries since the early 2000’s increased bank risk-taking behaviour. We employ 6,979 annual observations from the Bankscope database over the period 1997‒2011 and find a positive relationship between bank risk-taking, measured by risk assets, and interest rates. On the contrary, there is a negative relationsh ipbetween non-performing loans and interest rates. These results are robust across a number of different specifications that account,inter alia, for the potential endogeneity of interest rates and/or the dynamics of bank risk. Moreover, we provide evidence that these findings are mainly driven by the banking sector of the Russian Federation rather than that of the rest CEE countries.

We consider fiscal and monetary policy interactions in a monetary unionunder monetary leadership, when the common central bank is concerned with theaverage fiscal stance of the union. We use a static two-country monetary unionmodel to investigate the policy-mix problem under different regimes of non-cooperation, cooperation, and enforced cooperation among fiscal authorities.We find that fiscal policy is unambiguously countercyclical, a feature that ismore pronounced under fiscal policy cooperation. Monetary policy can be eithercountercyclical or procyclical. A central bank concerned about the aggregatefiscal stance is effective in stabilizing output and central budget, but at theexpense of inflation stabilization.

The correlations and the influence of the monetary policy pursued by the central banks of developed countries, primarily by the Federal Reserve System (the central bank of the United States), on the economies of developing countries is a subject of research, especially since the outbreak of the last financial crisis. Decisions concerning shifts in attitudes in the monetary policy taken by the monetary authorities of the largest economies, influence investors’ behaviour. Due to globalization and financialization, short-term capital flows occur very quickly and on a significant scale. Argentina is an illustration of the consequences of monetary policy tapering by the FRS for the economy of a developing country. Argentina was supported during the period of disturbances by the International Monetary Fund. Nevertheless, it seems that this solution is insufficient in view of the globalization of the effects of the monetary policy pursued by the economically strongest countries.

Large-scale stone-banked lobes and terraces are distributed over an area of 1 km2 of gentle slope on Rink Plateau in the northern part of James Ross Island, Antarctic Peninsula region. Topographically, there are two main features: relatively high risers up to 5 m high and distinct frontal ridges. In order to understand the processes responsible for these lobes and terraces, the authors have monitored air and ground temperatures and movement of stones on the surface over the period 1995-2005. In February 2005, the subsurface structures were surveyed by ground penetrating radar and drilling. The ground penetrating radar profiles identified the bedrock surface. The surface morphology of the lobes corresponds closely with that of the bedrock. The relatively high risers of these lobes are presumed to be due to a cessation of frontal advance.

The main objective of this paper is to produce an applications-oriented review covering infrared techniques and devices. At the beginning infrared systems fundamentals are presented with emphasis on thermal emission, scene radiation and contrast, cooling techniques, and optics. Special attention is focused on night vision and thermal imaging concepts. Next section concentrates shortly on selected infrared systems and is arranged in order to increase complexity; from image intensifier systems, thermal imaging systems, to space-based systems. In this section are also described active and passive smart weapon seekers. Finally, other important infrared techniques and devices are shortly described, among them being: non-contact thermometers, radiometers, LIDAR, and infrared gas sensors.

A traditional frequency analysis is not appropriate for observation of properties of non-stationary signals. This stems from the fact that the time resolution is not defined in the Fourier spectrum. Thus, there is a need for methods implementing joint time-frequency analysis (t/f) algorithms. Practical aspects of some representative methods of time-frequency analysis, including Short Time Fourier Transform, Gabor Transform, Wigner-Ville Transform and Cone-Shaped Transform are described in this paper. Unfortunately, there is no correlation between the width of the time-frequency window and its frequency content in the t/f analysis. This property is not valid in the case of a wavelet transform. A wavelet is a wave-like oscillation, which forms its own “wavelet window”. Compression of the wavelet narrows the window, and vice versa. Individual wavelet functions are well localized in time and simultaneously in scale (the equivalent of frequency). The wavelet analysis owes its effectiveness to the pyramid algorithm described by Mallat, which enables fast decomposition of a signal into wavelet components.