Zmiany strukturalne przemysłu Polski w warunkach kryzysu gospodarczego
The global economic crisis which started in 2007 in the United States of America, at different times and to a different extent affected various sectors and national economies of the world. In Poland, its symptoms were noticeable later than in other countries. In the first phase of the crisis (2007- 2008), there was no direct effect, due to the fact that initially the turmoil on global financial markets had weaker effect on the national economy, and it was limited mainly to capital markets, affecting the sectors of agriculture, industry, and services to a lesser extent. However, as recession grew in force, the crisis gradually began to affect also the results of economic activity, including industry. In 2009, a significant decrease in the value of production sold, as compared to the previous year, was observed. The question is whether this had been reflected in changes of spatial industrial structure. The five-year period of the economic recession seems to be long enough to assess such changes. Therefore, the paper analyses the transformation of the spatial structure of Polish industry during crisis, based on the basic indicators of potential, such as employment and the value of production sold, as well as concentration coefficients. The year 2007 was adopted as the base year, treating it as a pre-crisis year. The conclusions of the detailed analysis indicated that the impact of crisis on the change of the spatial structure of the Polish industry is very limited and the observed trends of change did not differ substantially from the general industrial development trends in Poland, identified by previous studies. It should be noted, however, that the structure of industry is characterized by high “inertia” due to the complexity and size of the investment process. Therefore, in the following several years no deep and sudden transformation should be expected, even during economic recession.
Structural Changes in the Industry of Poland Aagainst the Background of Eastern European Union States
Structural Changes in the Industry of Poland Aagainst the Background of Eastern European Union States Industrial restructuring processes associated with the transformation of the system taking place in Poland and other countries of Central and Eastern Europe bring about structural changes in manufacturing intended to develop intellectually-intensive industries based on the implementation of the latest research and development (R&D) results. The purpose of this article is therefore to present changes in the role of industry in the economy of Poland based on its share in employment and gross value added in comparison with other eastern EU countries, as well as structural changes in the industrial sectors (NACE divisions). The comparison will assess the competitive position of Polish industry on international markets, particularly against the other states transforming their economies. The analysis will seek to establish to what extent the structural changes in Polish industry indicate positive effects of the country's economic transformation.
Strategy and Manipulation in Medieval Elections
There are many goals in developing electoral protocols, including a desire for a system which is transparent, in that it is clear what the rule or procedure to follow is; nonmanipulable, in that it is not in a person’s best interest to misrepresent their preferences; honest, in the sense that it elects the ‘right’ candidate; and not open to strategizing, i.e., bribery or collusion. However, these desiderata are in tension with each other: Often, transparent electoral procedures are the least strategy resistant, and many honest procedures encourage manipulation. Thus a balance between these different goals must be sought. In modern times, since the seminal result on vote manipulation, the Gibbard-Satterthwaite Theorem [5, 6], much attention has been devoted to developing voting rules where manipulation is never in the best interest of the voters [4] or which are computationally too complex for the average bounded agent to be able to manipulate [1]. This focus on computational aspects of electoral methods is one of the hallmarks of modern studies on voting. But pursuit of these goals is not restricted to modern times: Those participating in elections in the Middle Ages also sought transparency, non-manipulability, honesty, and strategyproofness in so far as these properties can be consistently expressed in a single procedure. However, given the lack of computational sophistication in the Middle Ages, alternate approaches were needed in order to promote honesty, discourage strategizing, etc. These approaches can be classified as either external (constraints introduced outside of the electoral procedure, such as incentives for coming to consensus quickly) or internal (constraints introduced within the electoral procedure, such as voting rules which cannot be manipulated without adverse effects, or which are too difficult for the average bounded agent to manipulate). Surveying examples of both approaches in the context of medieval ecclesiastical and secular elections provides an interesting comparison to modern electoral procedures. Elections in the Middle Ages were used for the same reasons that they are today: To select suitable candidate(s) for a particular office, duty, or obligation. However, it is important to note that the term electio was used in the Middle Ages in a broader sense than our modern ‘election’. Its primary sense was ‘selection’ or ‘choice’, and only secondarily ‘election’ in the modern sense. Thus, many records which purportedly discuss elections are not discussing elections of the type which interests us. We can identify four categories of medieval electoral processes: (1) Election by an external authority having no direct interest in the election; (2) Indirect election, where electors name other electors who then select or elect the officials; (3) Election by lot; and (4) Election by ballot. Elections of the first and third types are generally computationally uninteresting; the first type corresponds to dictatorial voting rules, and the third type collapses to probability theory. In general, interesting voting methods are found only in the fourth type, election by ballot, though they can also occur in indirect election.