Safe assets are recognized as being the cornerstone of contemporary financial systems. Due to financial globalization and massive international capital flows, they transformed into global safe assets, meaning that both demand and supply sides can be created by international investors. The article consists of two main parts. The first one concentrates on the theoretical issues of safe assets: definitions, attributes, categories of investors who search for them, as well as categories of suppliers. The theoretical considerations lead to the conclusions that only debt instruments can be used as safe assets, and due to limited substitutability between private and public issues, only the latter can perform this function properly, especially in times of stress. In the context of global safe asset considerations, it seems reasonable that only countries issuing reserve currencies can become public issuers of safe assets. The empirical analysis presented in the second part of the article confirms the theoretical predictions. A study of sovereign bond yield differentials conducted for two groups of countries (issuers of reserve currency and non‑issuers but possessing the highest credit ratings) shows that in the period 2005-2017, the spreads in the first group were depressed by the mere fact they held the status of a reserve currency issuer.

Risk plays a significant role in various aspects of financial decision throughout the world financial markets. Beta parameter is one of the commonly used coefficient to estimate the systematic risk associated with stocks. Beta is mostly calculated using single index market model by W. Sharpe. This study examined the beta parameter under bull and bear market conditions on the Warsaw Stock Exchange (WSE). This paper analyses the beta responses for bad and good news for 44 stocks (14 stocks from the WIG20 index and 30 stocks from the mWIG40 index) over the last six years of trading at the WSE. Beta was calculated using monthly returns over the period 2005-2011, separately for the bull and the bear market. Our analysis finds strong evidence that beta is different in bull and bear market phase.

Streszczenie: Tematem artykułu są aktywa bezpieczne (safe assets), definiowane jako płynne instrumenty finansowe, głównie dłużne, które gwarantują inwestorom zachowanie wartości w trakcie niekorzystnych zjawisk gospodarczych. Celem artykułu jest ocena kształtowania się podstawowych determinant podaży aktywów bezpiecznych, tj.: relacji długu publicznego do PKB, PKB per capita, stopy inflacji, salda na rachunku obrotów bieżących, rozwoju rynku finansowego oraz stabilności politycznej kraju w kontekście podmiotowej struktury globalnej podaży publicznych safe assets. Analizę czynników przeprowadzono w okresie 1989-2018 (30 lat) dla Stanów Zjednoczonych, Japonii, Wielkiej Brytanii, Niemiec i Szwajcarii. Wybrane kraje posiadają najwyższe oceny ratingowe oraz status emitenta waluty rezerwowej zgodnie z klasyfikacją Międzynarodowego Funduszu Walutowego. Na podstawie przeprowadzo

Beta parameter is one of the commonly used measurements of individual stockor portfolio investment risk and plays a crucial role in modern portfolio theoryparticularly in management of financial investment portfolios. Many studieshave been done in this field, particularly on its properties such as stability in thecontext of the stock market cycle phases, measuring frequency of rate of return,length of sample period. However, the number of studies concerning beta parameterin the counties of Central and Eastern Europe that have undergone systemictransformation at the end of the previous century is much lower. Therefore wedecided to study the changes of behavior of the beta parameter in those countries.The main aim of this article is to examine the beta parameter stability over bulland bear market conditions on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. The paper presentsan analysis of betas stability for 134 stocks of the largest companies listed at theWSE during years 2005–2013.