Our paper focuses on the renewable energy and EU 2020 target for energy efficiency in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. We study the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in these two EU Member States through the prism of the Europe 2020 strategy and the 3 × 20 climate and energy package and economic growth (represented by the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) that allows to measure the national dynamics and provide cross-country comparisons) without attributing specific attention to issues such as the electrification of transport or heating, and thence leaving them outside the scope of this paper. Both Czech Republic and Slovakia are two post-Communist countries that still face the consequences of economic transformation and struggle with the optimal management of natural resources. Both countries encountered profound system transformation after 1989 that are apparent in all three measures of sustainable development used in our study. We show that it is unlikely that the planned increase in renewable energy in the Czech Republic and Slovakia will reach its targets, but they might succeed in reducing their energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. Our findings show that the energy intensity of Czech and Slovak economies increased in the early 2000s and then stabilized at a level about twice of the EU average. It appears that this value is likely to remain the same in the forthcoming years. However, implementation of GHG emissions in the Czech Republic and Slovakia may be at risk in case the proper energy policy is not maintained. Moreover, our results show how the increase in the share of renewable energy and improvement in energy efficiency go hand-in-hand with mining and exploiting the energy sources that is notorious for the transition economies. We also demonstrate that a proper energy policy is required for effectively reducing energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. There is a need for commitments made by relevant stakeholders and policymakers targeted at achieving sustainable economic growth and energy efficiency. In addition, we demonstrate that there is a need for maintaining a proper balance between economic development and environmental protection, which is a must for the EU sustainable energy development agenda and all its accompanying targets for all its Member States.

An important element of everyday financial decisions is to assess the scale of the risk of investing in various financial products. Knowledge on the degree of risk of the activities undertaken in this field allows a certain predictability about the negative effects that may occur. This is of great importance in the context of aversion to risk, and thus a better allocation of resources. A multitude of market risk measures is substantial and in addition they provide information about the risk of investment considered in a different perspective and form. A very interesting issue is the scale compatibility of these measures. It is important whether such measures to the same extent define the scale of risk and whether any signals about the dangers overlap in time. The above considerations based on the value at risk and so-caled RiskGrade have become a contribution to the creation of this publication.

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The present publication constitutes an attempt at evaluation of the effectiveness of investment fund deposits at Polish market in the years 2000-2015. In the paper, a distinction is made between two subperiods, namely, the years before the economic crisis, meaning 2000-2006, and the years of the socalled crisis, meaning 2007-2015. This approach had the goal mainly of evaluating the effectiveness of investment fund deposits in the years of economic slowdown. Conclusions concerning the investment funds are based on a broad range of coefficients and measures used in literature on the subject matter. The multitude of quantitative evaluation criteria of investment funds taken into account in the publication should enable a more precise evaluation of the discussed issue. At the same time, besides the temporal subdivision mentioned above, the authors consider it important to confirm or deny any possible rules or similarities in the indications of the discussed measures. Grouping of the investment funds based on investment effectiveness can be a further advantage.

Climate change and awareness of the need to care for the environment have resulted in a global increase in the interest in renewable energy sources. The European Union (EU) is active in this respect and requires Member States to fulfill specific plans in the transformation of their energy systems. We employed hierarchical cluster analysis in an attempt to distinguish those countries among the new EU Member States that increased their electrical capacity from renewable energy sources to the greatest extent while paying attention to their energy intensity. The analyses were conducted in two scenarios for both 2004 and 2016. The first scenario assumed an analysis of all known renewable energy sources, whereas in the second scenario, only renewable energy sources from wind and solar power plants were included. The division of analyses into these two variants showed the importance of the differences in the energy assessment of individual countries, depending on classification of renewable energy sources. We identified groups of countries where electrical capacity from renewable energy sources increased the most. Conducting analyses using two variants allowed distinguishing countries that based most of their renewable energy on modern renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind power plants. The inclusion of gross domestic product in the analyses allowed us to identify countries with the worst energy efficiency value.