This study seeks to show the impact of stock recommendation reports on the efficiency of investments in the Polish stock market. The study is carried out in two stages: the first takes place at the micro-level and is based on a behavioural experiment, while the second focuses on the verification of our results obtained on a real market. The main assertion is that stock recommendations create heuristic effects among investors near the publication date of the recommendation. The ambiguity of the recommendations hinders investors’ reliable and unequivocal evaluation in investment decisions. There are studies in this field for different stock markets and periods of time, but our research added significant new knowledge about the functioning of the Polish stock exchange. Our study fits into the mainstream analysis of outlining the behaviour of investors in the capital market. The research findings underpin our pessimism about the impact of stock recommendations on investors’ behaviour.

Celem tworzenia Specjalnych Stref Ekonomicznych (SSE) jest m.in. zapobieganie marginalizacji regionów słabiej rozwiniętych. Wyniki badań dotyczących oddziaływania SSE na gospodarkę są jednak niejednoznaczne. Celem niniejszego opracowania jest ocena wpływu Specjalnych Stref Ekonomicznych na rozwój gospodarki na poziomie regionalnym, na przykładzie województwa łódzkiego. Badanie przeprowadzono w oparciu o dane Głównego Urzędu Statystycznego za lata 2007–2013. Z przeprowadzonej analizy wynika, że SSE mają korzystny wpływ na rozwój przedsiębiorczości w regionie, mierzonej poziomem nakładów inwestycyjnych przedsiębiorstw oraz wartością produkcji sprzedanej.

Special Economic Zones (SEZ)

This paper deals with the phenomenon of excessive optimism in brokerage valuations, which is manifested by one-sided errors in the valuation of securities in reference to the real price achieved by the particular stock in the horizon of one year. The phenomenon of over-optimism is complex both from the perspective of the individual characteristics of stock market analysts as well as the psychological aspects of market functioning and the mechanisms that determine the volatility of stock prices. Due to the wide range of factors affecting the occurrence of the examined phenomenon, the authors focus only on the market aspects influencing the occurrence of excessive optimism in brokerage recommendations. The research examines over 10,000 recommendations for companies from the Warsaw Stock Exchange and from more than 40 financial institutions which evaluated companies in the period 2000-2014. For the purposes of analyzes, over-optimism in valuations is defined as an overestimation of the target price in the case of positive recommendations and as an underestimation of the price decline in the case of negative ones. The results confirmed the hypotheses of the heterogeneity of the phenomenon of excessive optimism both for different economic sectors and individual financial institutions. The authors see it as a good result considering the fact that regression uses only variables related to market characteristics of the recommendations issued, omitting other spheres influencing the occurrence of excessive optimism among analysts.

<p>This article deals with the subject of volatility of financial markets in relation to the US stock market and its volatility index, i.e. the VIX index. The authors analyzed previous studies on the VIX index and based on them, defined a research gap that relates to the problem of market response to emerging macroeconomic information about the US economy. The vast majority of research on the VIX index relates to its forecasting based on mathematical models not taking into account current market data. The authors attempted to assess the impact of emerging macro data on the variability of the VIX index, thus illustrating the magnitude of the impact of individual variables on the so-called US Stock Exchange fear index. The study analysed 80 macroeconomic variables in the period from January 2009 to June 2019 in order to check which of them cause the greatest market volatility. The study was based on correlation study and econometric modeling. The obtained results allowed to formulate conclusions indicating the most important macroeconomic parameters that affect the perception of the market by investors through the pricing of options valuation on the S&amp;P 500 index. The authors managed to filter the most important variables for predicting the change of VIX level. In the eyes of the authors, the added value of the article is to indicate the relationship between macro variables and market volatility illustrated by the VIX index, which has not been explored in previous studies. The analyzes carried out are part of the research trend on market information efficiency and broaden knowledge in the area of capital investments.</p>