Growing interest in the situation of the rich and in changes in the upper tail of the income distribution entails search for specialized sources of data. The majority of available data come from surveys, which are burdened with the problem of the reluctance of the rich to reveal their income and assets. This is the incentive to look for alternative data sources. One of such sources are tax records. Irrespective of their credibility (limited by tax avoidance and tax evasion), the crucial feature of data collected by tax offices is its completeness for the population of taxpayers: refusal to file a tax return or providing false information is punishable by law.The paper compares the data gathered within the Household Budget Survey, which is commonly used for research and administrative purposes in Poland, with the complete dataset of tax records for Dolnośląskie province (over 2 million taxpayers). Analyses show large discrepancies in the results obtained for both datasets in the upper tail of the income distribution. The observed differences are important for the proper assessment of the actual situation of the rich.

The amount of income earned, wealth and position in the labor market are determined by many factors. Numerous analyses indicate that these characteristics depend on, among others, gender, education, type of work and place of residence. The indicated factors, however, describe individual areas, which significantly hinders the comprehensive analysis and identification of the real determinants. In this context, the purpose of our analysis is to identify and characterize the concept of economic resourcefulness as a key factor conditioning people's effectiveness functioning on the market, managing the resources they possess, and having the ability to guarantee the economic security of their families. The empirical part of the analysis was carried out on data from a dedicated study conducted in Poland in 2016. Due to the design of the sample, the data from the study will identify the level of resourcefulness for groups of people that differ with respect to the respondents' age and experiences related to Poland's political transformation.

Uncertainty associated with the future and the lack of full protection against the financial consequences of adverse events are the most important reasons of research on economic security of households. Literature distinguishes between two basic concepts: economic insecurity and economic security. Economic insecurity refers to the economic losses, whereas security is usually associated with certain conditions, the fulfillment of which is a guarantee of well-being of the individual. The proposed interpretation of economic security combines both elements, including risk factors and risk protection. They are included in the scenarios of possible changes of the household's situation in the future. These scenarios cover all permissible combinations of future events-both positive and negative-allowing for an assessment of their financial implications. Analyzes resented in the empirical part show that the main factor affecting the economic security of households, for which the work is the main source of income, is the stability of employment. Changes in the level of economic security to a large extent reflect the situation on the labor market. The impact of savings proved to be relatively small. It means that many households prefer current consumption, making economic security solely on job stability.

The article proposes a method to assess the level of economic security, based on the analysis of scenarios of future events. These scenarios cover realistically possible combinations of future events, both positive and negative, allowing for an assessment of their financial implications. The empirical part of the paper contains the results of applying the proposed method to the Polish data. In the scenarios considered, changes in the situation of individuals in the labour market and changes in the level of income and expenditure are taken into account.

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ABSTRACT. The main aim of the article is to examine intergenerational mobility in the context of relative assessments of financial situations. Using data from the dedicated survey and the mobility measure based on transition matrixes, we try to answer two questions concerning intergenerational mobility in Poland. The first one is whether this phenomenon was affected by the political transformations that took place in Poland in the early 1990s. And the second one is how economic transition affected the financial situation mobility among women. The results show the impact of economic transition on the level of intergenerational mobility and much better adaptation of younger cohorts to market requirements, particularly among women.

Most methods for the analysis of distributional change rely on the changes in the income of a particular group of people, taking either the situation of this group in the previous period, or the average change in the population, as reference point. By contrast, we propose a measure of distributional change based on the comparison of a group's wellbeing standard against a richer group, thereby capturing a notion of change in relative income, which embodies the influence of others' wellbeing on the judgment of the group's own situation. The indices, and related relative income change (RIC) curves, are based on ratios of generalized mean incomes between two groups, which render them closely related to Zenga's inequality measures and Lorenz curve comparisons, when arithmetic means are used. We consider both relative and absolute income cut-offs for the group partitions. Differences and similarities between our measures of RIC and the Growth Incidence Curve are also discussed. These are highlighted in an empirical illustration on European countries.

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