Transportation networks respond differently to applied policies. The Tehran Metropolitan Area has one of the most complex networks with complex users, which has experienced many of these policies change within the past decades. In this study, some of these policies and their effect on air pollution is investigated. The goal is to pinpoint the variables which have the most effect on various transportation models and investigate how new policies should be focused. In order to do so, long-term variations of air pollution monitoring stations were analyzed. Results show that the most significant parameter that may affect air pollution is users' behavior due to the lack of a public transportation network and its level of comfort. The results of this study will be useful in developing new policies and evaluating their long-term consequences in appropriate models.

The goal of presented paper is to show growing importance of active public policy for socio-economic development of Polish regions. There is a description of general context of programming socio-economic development in Poland. After accession to EU in 2004 Poland developed set of programming documents on central level. Last document Responsible Development Strategy until 2030 was approved in 2017. In following part of that study there are presented issues of voivodeship development strategies and regional innovation strategies. Intraregional policy managed by self-governments in context of innovativeness is also tackled. In fi nal part conclusions and recommendations concerning regional policy are proposed.

Today’s cities tend to “pour out” beyond their administrative boundaries. This phenomenon is related to the settlement of people “from the city” in neighboring municipalities, or taking up jobs in cities by people living in neighboring municipalities. This has been recognized in the European Union, which has introduced appropriate legal instruments for cohesion policy. Integrated Territorial Investments were introduced to the EU cohesion policy for the fi rst time in the 2014-2020 fi nancial perspective. Their goal was to intensify cooperation between cities and their functional areas. Unfortunately, the emerging information about diffi culties in implementing ITIs often become the basis for considering this idea ineff ective. The purpose of the work is qualitative and quantitative verifi cation of the operation of ITU based on selected data, so that it is possible to answer the question about the validity of the existence of this instrument.

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.

We consider a monetary DSGE model featuring a borrowing constraint such that the amount of debt cannot be larger than a fraction - the debt-to-income (DTI) limit - of borrowers' labor income and the DTI limit is endogenous. The coexistence of financial amplification mechanisms warranted by this model provides a role for a specific macroprudential tool: a countercyclical DTI limit. Conditional on the pre-crisis sample and in a more recent out-of-sample period, our ex-post normative analysis shows that when this policy is implemented the cooperation between central bank and macroprudential authority in pursuing the “two instruments for two goals” strategy delivers an efficient performance in terms of macroeconomic stabilization, significantly outperforming the central bank's policy of “leaning against the wind”. This implies that a central bank should only be focused on its standard objectives (inflation and output stabilization) while financial stability be monitored by a macroprudential authority.

The research is devoted to the organization of the energy policy objectives implementation

through programs. A country’s energy policy can be monitored in many ways. The article proposes

to consider the implementation of energy policy objectives with the budget programs maintenance

on the example of Ukraine. Budget programs make it possible to trace the dynamics of changes in

the aim and directions of the authorities’ energy policy, implemented for budgetary funds. With the

budget programs since 2002 in Ukraine, it was possible to trace the increase in spending on the coal

industry, highlight the funding forced of negative consequences in the energy sector and separate

the steps to develop an energy strategy. Changes in the totality of energy policy budget programs

are shown, their contents are considered. The decrease in the budget programs number associated

both with the enlargement of their aim and with the withdrawal expenses for reconstruction and

social protection of those affected by the previous energy activities from the budget funding. To

assess budget programs planning and implementation uniformity the author’s integrated indicator is

proposed. It takes the funding level and the quality indicator implementation on assignment directions

into account. The calculation of the indicator showed that the expenditures for the general

management of the energy policy and for scientific development are planned in the programs more

evenly than the expenses for the energy strategy implementation.

Considering the increasing role of cities throughout the world and in Europe, the European Union regulations on cohesion policy that are binding in the 2014–2020 programme period have foreseen the need to introduce a separate intervention dedicated to cities and their functional areas. However, the implementation of these solutions did not come without certain problems. They referred both to the process of institutionalising co-operation and to the realisation of projects. Also in Poland, Integrated Territorial Investments have not gone beyond co-operation for the absorption of EU funding so far, which demonstrates doubtlessly that their potential still remains unexploited. Thus, a discussion on both the positive and negative aspects of the implementation of ITIs is necessary. Poland, as the largest beneficiary of the Cohesion Policy, has a wide experience, which might provide valuable information on that matter. The aim of the paper is to present these experiences and to provide conclusions for the regional policy.

The article contains preliminary considerations on the principles of the standardization of geographical names in Poland, in particular the names of physiographic objects. The notion of a country’s language policy has been referred to as one of its tools is the standardization of geographical names. The general objectives of the Polish language policy were listed as such: the assertion of legal status of the Polish language as the first language in Poland; the assertion of conditions for the development of national and ethnic minority languages in the country; the construction of a Polish- language national and state community. Legal acts concerning Polish language and geographical nomenclature were indicated. It was stated that the assumed effect of political and linguistic actions should be to develop a nomenclature in correct Polish, one which is pragmatically effective, rooted in tradition and, as a result of this study, one should expect to achieve an optimal course of the language communication process in each communicative community. Then, the criteria of the linguistic correctness of geographical names applied to date were discussed and similarities indicated in the standardization procedure with regards to geonyms and specialist terms. The rules of the detailed standardization procedure will be presented in the second part of the article

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.

During the last decades we observe growing importance of cities for socio-economic development, what concern especially larger cities. Currently patterns of socio-economic processes are very diff erent from those registered at the end of XX century. An important role in revival of cities played cohesion policy of European Union. Poland is an example of very well structured settlement system what could be used as an asset to avoid medium development trap for polish economy. In Poland issues of urban policy formulation are much better addressed in last generation of development strategies on central and regional levels.

The paper aims to consider the available policies for biomass output as a feedstock for further bioenergy production in post-war Ukraine in order to draw conclusions and learn lessons for the further deployment of bioenergy in Ukraine, and to define the number of jobs that bioenergy has enabled and could contribute in both Poland and Ukraine in the future. Poland has significant biomass potential, the lion’s share of which is agricultural crop waste, corn, and dedicated energy crops. Ukraine has a significant potential for the production and use of biogas and biomethane due to available feedstock and a developed gas supply system. The employment factor method was used to estimate the number of jobs in bioenergy in Poland and Ukraine. Assessments, which are the main result of the work, indicate that the number of jobs in agriculture for feedstock production for energy purposes may reach thirty-three thousand by 2030 in Poland and thirteen thousand in Ukraine. Agribiomass crop production for energy purposes in Poland is supported by the Common Agriculture Policy of the EU. Energy producers from biomass have priority access to the grid and qualify for feed-in tariffs, premiums and auctions, and special financial programs. In Ukraine, biomass energy producers may have a feed-in tariff for biomass and biogas and a 10% lower tariff for heat from biomass than the tariff for heat from natural gas. Despite the benefits of biomass, the installed capacities for its utilization remain insufficient due to the existing barriers in both countries.
In the future, Ukraine will need to develop its agricultural biomass sector more actively than before in order to substitute natural gas and other energy carriers.

One of the major conflicts between populist and non-populist forces (movements, parties, governments) as well as the European Union (EU) institutions has manifested in the area of immigration policy. This article investigates how the influx of migrants in 2015-2016 was subsequently used by populists as a policy conflict ground within the EU. In this context, it particularly looks at how the problem of migration was framed and map the policy responses in the selected EU Member States. The article covers the 2015-2018 period and includes the following countries: France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Hungary, and Poland.
The article observes that the 2015-2016 migration crisis and the response to it led to (or reinvigorated existing) politicisation of the topic across the EU, forcing the parties from all sides of the political spectrum to take a position on it. Simultaneously, one may also observe a process of securitisation of migration in the political debate in all analysed countries. Irregular migration was construed as a security threat by many political parties and leaders, requiring emergency measures and justifying actions outside the normal bounds of political and legal procedures. While the securitisation strategy was most visible in the discourse of the right-wing populist parties, its elements were progressively taken by the mainstream parties, arguably in response to increased salience of the issue.
The article also finds a correlation between the ideological profile of the parties and their approach to the migration crisis and the proposed EU response. All the parties located close to the right extreme tended to take a strong anti-immigration and anti-EU stance. All of them also ranked high in the populist index. On the other hand, the populist parties located on the left side or in the centre of the political spectrum took a moderate stance on this issue.

Adopting and developing a knowledge-based economy as the current stage of global economic development is an important stimulus to successful innovation. The transition to a knowledge-based economy and achieving economic convergence, especially in the case of emerging economies, requires the appreciation of science and technology coexistence on the one hand, and the development of innovation on the other, as well as the raising of human resource competences and skills for further development. Latin American countries, in search of an effective development strategy after moving away from the Washington Consensus, which set economic priorities through the last decade of the twentieth century, become increasingly aware of the importance of the development of STI policies. They try to identify the most important institutions and the capacities and resources needed to support economic development. Such policy generally includes at least three objectives: to create research and development opportunities in public research institutes and universities; to stimulate the demand of companies for scientific and technological knowledge by establishing close relationships between universities, business and government, and supporting and developing national innovation systems in each country. In this article the author analyzes the policies introduced and attempts to assess their effectiveness.

Observing the situation in the power industry it is easy to see that there are very deep changes in it. They rely primarily on moving away from conventional energy to renewable energy. This is particularly the case for energy in the European Union. Europe strives to be a forerunner in renewable technologies and a leader in the fight against global warming. The mining industry is being abolished and coal-fired power stations are being displaced by renewable energy sources. This situation is not only a result of EU directives but also of grassroots social initiatives inspired by environmental groups. The new lignite openings are being blocked, due to the lack of public acceptance, and the construction of conventional power plants. They do not help economic arguments for the development of energy based on coal, lignite, fuel that is significantly cheaper than the other, or to provide potential investors with the creation of new jobs. Also, coal investments are suspended in other regions of the world. CoalSwarm coal research shows that 2016 saw a dramatic fall in the amount of coal investment in the world. Even in China and India, where most of the coal industry has developed in recent years, about 100 investments have been suspended. The situation in the US is unclear. Although Barack Obama signed the Paris Agreement, current United States President Donal Trump has spoken out about this agreement and in numerous speeches and is eager to return to the dominant role of coal in the American economy. Poland still maintains the carbon structure of the power industry, but the Minister of Energy has announced that the new block at the Ostrołęka power plant will be the last coal-fired power plant to be built in Poland. This statement allows us to believe that there may be a return to Poland’s energy policy in the nearest future, and the long-awaited document, Poland’s energy policy until 2050, will determine the direction of change for the coming years.

This study examines the impact of monetary policy on economic growth in Ukraine between 2006 and 2019. After the stationarity and co-integration tests, a vector- autoregressive model (VAM) was used to estimate the impact of monetary factors on economic growth in Ukraine. The research results show that GDP changes are largely explained by its own earlier dynamics, but in the long-run real GDP quite strongly depends on the money supply, exchange rate against euro, and basic interest rate. At the same time GDP is weakly dependent on the exchange rate against US dollar, CPI and PPI, the volume of loans to business and external debt. The authors explain their findings and compare them with several other empirical studies on the subject concerning some other countries.

This article, through the prism of immigration policy models proposed by Stephen Castles (1995), Steven Weldon (2005) and Liah Greenfeld (1998), discusses those aspects of Norwegian immigration policy that refer directly to children. Areas such as employment, education, housing and health care influence the situation of an immigrant family, which in turn affects the wellbeing of a child. However, it is the education system and the work of Child Welfare Services that most directly influence a child’s position. Analysis presented in this article is based on the White Paper to the Norwegian Parliament, and data that were obtained in expert interviews and ethnographic observation in Akershus and Buskerud area in Norway, conducted between 2012 and 2014. The article raises the question whether the tools of im-migration policy used by social workers and teachers lead to integration understood as an outcome of a pluralist or individualistic-civic model of immigration policy or are rather aimed at assimilation into Norwegian society, attempting to impose the effect of assimilation or the collectivistic-civic policy model.

One of the major subjects that construct the emotional right-wing script is the history of the postwar Polish independence Underground and the related present-day politics and historical policy. The analysis of the right-wing press enables the distinction of four temporal categories to which specific toposes can be assigned as well as the moulded emotional elements: 1) the period of struggle, 2) the period of imprisonment and possible death, 3) the period of the Third Republic [of Poland], and 4) the period from the victory of the Law and Justice party (PiS) in the parliamentary elections until the present.

The aim of the article is to present Finland’s energy situation after Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and the related fact of this country’s accession to NATO structures. This situation is taking place for the first time in history and the analysis of this phenomenon is an important element of energy policy planning for other countries. The article shows how decisions that affect the country’s energy security can be made quickly and effectively.
Finland, due to its geographical location and historical circumstances, was closely economically linked with the Soviet Union and then with Russia. However, this situation changed dramatically after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This has resulted in a change in the thinking of politicians responsible for security, including energy security.
Finland is gradually increasing the share of RES in its energy mix due to the lack of energy resources and also to achieve climate neutrality. Nuclear energy, one of the most important domestic sources of electricity production, is also being developed. In 2021, it accounted for 33% of the total generation of electricity, and Finland’s two nuclear power plants have a combined installed capacity of 4.39 GW. Domestic production and imports from “safe” sources are the basis of Finland’s energy security, especially after the suspension of electricity and gas supplies from Russia in May 2022. Currently, electricity is mainly imported from Sweden and gas is imported by pipeline from Estonia and via three small LNG terminals. According to the Finnish government’s plans, Finland is expected to become an electricity exporter by 2030 due to increasing nuclear and renewable electricity production. It is also planned to use heat pumps and waste heat in heating to a greater extent.

Intensive modernization and reconstruction of the energy sector takes place throughout the

world. The EU climate and energy policy will have a huge impact on the development of the energy

sector in the coming years. The European Union has adopted ambitious goals of transforming

towards a low-carbon economy and the integration of the energy market. In June 2015, the G7 countries

announced that they will move away from coal fired energy generation. Germany, which

has adopted one of the most ambitious energy transformation programs among all industrialized

countries, is leading these transformations. The long-term strategy, which has been implemented

for many years, allowed for planning the fundamental transformation of the energy sector; after the

Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, Germany opted for a total withdrawal from nuclear energy and

coal in favor of renewable energy. The German energy transformation is mainly based on wind and

solar energy. Germany is the fifth economic power in the world and the largest economy in Europe.

Therefore, the German energy policy affects the energy policy of the neighboring countries. The

article presents the main assumptions of the German energy policy (referred to as Energiewende).

It also presents the impact of changes in the German energy sector on the development of energy

systems in selected European countries.

Regional-level authorities are increasingly involved in designing their own strategies to support and enhance innovative local dynamics and improve the performance of their regional innovation systems. The aim of the paper is to assess the role of regional authorities’ policy in building innovation capacity of Pomorskie Voivodeship. As research methods, the author used descriptive analysis, analysis of strategic documents and data analysis. The results show that local government authorities of Pomorskie Voivodeship are active in supporting innovativeness of the region. Cluster policy and bottom- up process of defining smart specialisations may be assessed positively. However, a lack of separate governance structures of the regional innovation system, such as planning, organization, motivation and monitoring should be recognized as unfavourable. Finally, it is still necessary to concentrate measures on meeting needs necessary for an effective commercialization of innovative solutions.

This paper applies a DSGE model to find whether the way of financing QE2 matters for the reaction of the economy. The model includes a segmented bond market structure, thus the large-scale asset purchases may successfully influence the economy. It is shown that the effects on macroeconomic variables are very similar regardless of whether the government finances the purchases by lump-sum taxes or by short-term debt which signifies that the quantitative deviation from Ricardian equivalence introduced by bond market segmentation is insignificant. The redistribution effects caused by financing are noticeable.

The article deals with issues concerning the pedagogical aims of studying traditional humanities in present realities of Polish society, which at the end of the 20th century overthrew communism. The new political and civilization conditions have caused major social changes that require a new approach to the humanities. Meanwhile, in Poland there is still a traditional and conservative cult of national identity and heritage, which prevents the development of an open society based on cultural tolerance and understanding of the differences that separate us from the West and other cultures. Humanities should be an academic tool for shaping an individual and creative personality and not for preserving national cultural and historical mythology. Such social pedagogy leads to a closed society oriented towards the past and not towards modernity. An educational policy that promotes this attitude treats cultural heritage as a tool of political control over society. In our times, humanities consist in discovering and interpreting the world around us and in forming an independent thinking. Literature, philosophy and other liberal arts cannot be just a sterile studying of a dead tradition.

The poor energy situation in most African countries manifests itself in very low access to energy and high energy poverty. To address these problems, and drive towards achieving universal energy access, African nations have, in recent time, directed attention to governance issues in energy resource development through building relevant institutions, strengthening legal frameworks, designing policies, ensuring cooperation, and harnessing investments. The concern for a governance approach to energy development is partly due to the submission that the core reason for poor energy delivery is ineffective energy governance. This study is based on Southern Africa and intends to examine the current energy access situation and explore the existing energy governance initiatives. The study used three measures of energy access (national, rural and urban) and energy consumption in order to examine the existing energy situation. The governance actions were examined by looking at national energy policies, energy partnerships (private sector, development partners), and sub-regional power pools. The study observes that the generally poor energy situation in Africa is evident in the Southern African countries. Governance actions are found to be multisource and multilevel. While these actions confirm the seriousness of the stakeholders in addressing the poor energy situation; results have been minimal. Thus, there is a need for more vigorous efforts in implementing the energy policies, engaging the private sector and creating productive cooperation among energy delivery stakeholders.

The public and, above all, scientists clearly emphasize that the cause of global climate change caused mainly by carbon dioxide emissions is, above all, human activity and its combined emission. It is associated with the processes of fuel combustion in the energy, industry and transport, as well as with poverty being the main cause of difficulties in meeting basic energy needs in households and the incorrect way of heating them. The public is often made aware that the climate should be protected and at the same time convinced that global warming has no impact on the everyday lives of Poles. Meanwhile, Poland, due to the high share of coal in the energy sector, is indicated as one of the main culprits of carbon dioxide emissions in the European Union and exposed as a significant shareholder of climate change causing global warming. The aim of the work is to show the opinions of young people aged 15–24, in terms of their awareness of the human impact on climate change and indication of desirable directions of the modern energy policy, defining the level of support for these directions, which will significantly contribute to the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions.

The research conducted among young people shows that it is aware of the consequences of climate change, especially on a global scale, and to a much lesser extent in Poland, and still less in the Podkarpackie province. The studied youth emphasizes that climate change is currently one of the greatest threats, but it is one of many threats.

The young people emphasize that the energy policy in Poland should aim at the better utilization and reduction of energy consumption as well as increasing the share of energy based on renewable energy sources, associated mainly with public health protection, reduction of air pollution, as well as the energy security of the country. Young people show a lack of determination regarding the use of nuclear power plants, where we see supporters and opponents of this source of electricity in a similar relationship.