The scope of the paper refers to long- and medium-run trends of labour supply in Poland. The main purpose is to determine current trends in the labour supply and its projections till the year 2050. In the theoretical part of the paper determinants of labour supply are considered. The projections are based on the population forecasts till 2050 made by the Central Statistical Office of Poland (CSO) and by the authors’ own simulations. Several variants of upper limit of working age and activity rates are taken into account. The population forecasts by the CSO indicate it will occur big decrease of working age population till 2050. The biggest decrease will refer to the group of working age 18–59/64 years and the lowest decrease in the age group 18–66 years. The analysis shows that the declines in labour supply in the years 2020–2050 will occur in all variants of working age population, the biggest decline in the variant assuming the age group 18–59/64 and the smallest decline – in the group 15–74 years. Retirement age is of big importance for the size of labour supply. This is why it is recommended to encourage older people to prolong their economic activity. It is also necessary to increase activity rates in the working age population.

In many research studies it is argued that it is possible to extract useful information about future real economic activity from the performance of financial markets. However, this study goes further and shows that it is not only possible to use expectations derived from financial markets to forecast future economic activity, but that data about the financial system can be used for this purpose as well. This paper sheds light on the ability to forecast real economic activity, based on additional and different financial variables than what have been presented so far.

The research is conducted for the Polish emerging economy on the basis of monthly data. The results suggest that, based purely on the data from the financial system, it is possible to construct reasonable measures that can, even for an emerging economy, effectively forecast future real economic activity. The outcomes are proved by two different econometric methods, namely, by a time series analysis and by a probit model. All presented models are tested in-sample and out-of-sample.

Business ethics is a complex issue that has been studied a lot. This paper discusses just one of its aspects and presents the assumptions of ethics of economic activity arising from Christian anthropology. They include respect for the dignity of the human person, taking into consideration the social dimension of human life and the affrmation of man’s integral development. All those are particulars of the general principle that man is the creator, the centre and the goal of the whole life and economic activity. These assumptions are in no way unrealistic and idealized expectations in relation to economic and business activity, they rather prove that the economic sphere of life is not ethically neutral, neither is it inhuman nor antisocial. As a dimension of man’s activity it is subject to a moral assessment. Since all stages of economic activity deal with man, his behaviour and needs, they involve moral implications. Even if in certain circumstances unethical behaviour may lead, though temporarily, to economic success, the economic and moral facets are intertwined. J. Messner was right when he stressed that in one’s striving for economic goals immoral means are at the same time uneconomic. The present fnancial and economic crisis proves his thesis.