In this paper we have assessed the impact of the European Union’s Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) on the level of the carbon premium. The aim of the study is to determine whether there is a stable carbon premium in energy-intensive sectors. Unlike other studies, our research sample included not only companies in the energy sector, but also entities classified as energy-intensive. In the research, we used our own criterion for allocating companies to a clean and dirty portfolio, which made it possible to make the estimation of the carbon premium more resistant to changes in the rules for allocation of emission allowances. We detected a positive, statistically significant carbon premium in the years 2003–2012 and a negative one in the years 2013–2015, but we did not detect a statistically significant carbon premium in the period 2016–2019. This means that there are no grounds for concluding that there is a stable, positive carbon premium for energy-intensive companies subject to the EU ETS over time. We have also noticed that a significant problem in studying the impact of the EU ETS on the carbon premium is the use of static portfolios of clean and dirty companies.

In the last decade the number of independent fiscal institutions (known also as fiscal councils) has tripled. They play an important oversight role over fiscal policy-making in democratic societies, especially as they seek to restore public finance stability in the wake of the recent financial crisis. Although common functions of such institutions include a role in analysis of fiscal policy, forecasting, monitoring compliance with fiscal rules or costing of spending proposals, their roles, resources and structures vary considerably across countries. The aim of the article is to determine the degree of independence of such institutions based on the analysis of the independence index of independent fiscal institutions. The analysis of this index values may be useful to determine the relations between the degree of independence of fiscal councils and fiscal performance of particular countries. The data used to calculate the index values will be derived from European Commission and IMF, which collect sets of information about characteristics of activity of fiscal councils.

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Theoretical background: The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has caused violent reactions from the governments of almost all countries in the world. The attempt to contain a pandemic by restricting the mobility of society has had a huge impact on people and some businesses. As a result of COVID-19 restrictions, it became necessary to introduce special state aid programs for those businesses that were most affected by these restrictions. This was also the case in Poland. We based our analysis on welfare economics (Harberger, 1971), in which government support for enterprises is legitimized when their situation would have been worse without these interventions. Purpose of the article:The aim of this article is to assess the impact of public aid granted to large companies in Poland on their financial condition. The research problem is to answer the question whether the companies that received the aid needed it. In assessing the appropriateness of aid, liquidity, debt level and profitability indices were used, which directly resulted from the objectives of COVID-19 aid granted in Poland. The added value of the study is combining the analysis of data from financial statements with information on state aid published by the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection (UOKiK). Research methods:The research sample consisted of 1,201 large Polish enterprises from the non-financial sector. The study used non-parametric statistical tests and quartile analysis. Main findings:The results show that the aid went to entities that were already in a worse financial situation before the pandemic. At the same time, it was demonstrated that the aid did not distort the market mechanism, i.e. it neither excessively improved the situation of supported entities nor significantly worsened the situation of entities that did not benefit from the aid.

Purpose: The organization of this article was subordinated to the connections between the govern ment program documentation related to the state social objectives and their implementation at the budgetary level. The article shows the necessity of perceiving fiscal policy as an instrument to implement government programming objectives. The aim of the article is to assess the degree of implementation of social objectives on the basis of information resulting from the experience gained in the area of performance budgeting in Poland. Methodology:To assess the scale of financing of social objectives in Poland in comparison with other European countries, the author used Eurostat data from COFOG (Classification of the Functions of Government). To assess the effectiveness of state operations related to the achievement of social objectives, the author used information from the implementation of the performanceoriented state budget. It was assumed that the performanceoriented system linking the clear structure of public expenditure with the objectives and measures assigned to them to assess the effectiveness of fiscal policy in particular areas of government intervention. Findings:The relations between individual strategic documents related to social objectives and performanceoriented budgetary structure are presented. The results indicate that the scale of financing of social tasks in Poland is at a lower level than the average for European countries. The author points out the functions related to the achievement of social objectives whose effectiveness could be improved.Originality: Using information from the implementation of the performanceoriented budget to compare the individual budget functions of social character on the basis of the evaluation of the degree to which the measures for these functions' operations have been implemented.