This article diagnoses the use of instruments supporting entrepreneurship by the Podkarpackie Province communes. The main research problem was formulated as follows: Do the instruments of supporting entrepreneurship used by self-government affect the development of economic initiatives in the area of the surveyed communes? We analyzed it in two areas. The first one focuses on the present state, analyzing the quality and directions of actions taken by commune authorities in supporting economic initiatives as well as their results. The second one attempts at pointing the solutions conducive to enterprise development and instruments ensuring their stimulation. The results of the conducted analyses allowed us to assess the effectiveness of the instruments supporting entrepreneurship used by local government units. The main conclusion derived from the research is that the use of fiscal instruments does not constitute the strongest factor in determining the location of economic activity. The use of tax forms of support dependant on the economic situation turns out to be much less important than the use of solutions such as improvement of infrastructure conditions, selection of areas for investment, lease of commune facilities for economic activities, creation of capital back-up comprised of loan funds, as well as implementation of organizational changes aiming at better efficiency of the office. ARTICLE INFO

The article is dedicated to research on relations between size of general government sector and the economy. The aim of this article is determination of the most important values that are used to identify relations between size of the sector and the economy, as well as determination of how frequently they appear in relation to pair of the variables that are being researched. In exploration of relations between the variables that describe size of general government sector and the economy, the authors used methodology that bases on Bayes networks. The object of the analyses was the economies of EU member states and their public finances systems. The period that was selected for the research has covered the years 2000-2013 (inclusive). In order to describe economies, the authors selected 18 variables, whereas to describe general government sector 15 variables. All variables were sourced from databases of Eurostat, OECD and World Bank. Among economy's measures and general government sector's measures, there were also some benchmarks found as standard ones (classical ones) as well as measures proposed by the authors, which were not used in the scientific descriptions that were dedicated to researches on sizes of general government sector. Ipso facto, this article fits in the discussion on, general government sector and optimization of its size, and at the same time it provides starting point for further research on sector's size and its influence on economy.

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The issue of the relationship between financial literacy and entrepreneurship is still not a fully explored research area. On the one hand, there are common views that financial literacy and education in finance are necessary in every individual’s life, and that an insufficient level of financial literacy may result in erroneous economic decisions. On the other hand, research on the impact of narrowly defined financial literacy on business start-up decisions is still rare. As a result, there are no clear indications regarding the need for education in the area of finance in order to stimulate entrepreneurial decisions, including the survival of launched economic undertakings. This article deals with the relationship between financial literacy and chosen entrepreneurial aspects such as 1) Phases of Entrepreneurial Activity; 2) Entrepreneurial potential; 3) Motivation; 4) Involvement in the technology sector; and 5) Business exit reasons. All of the above aspects are embedded in the context of financial literacy. The article sheds light on the relationship between financial literacy and entrepreneurship and creates a background for further attempts to deepen understanding of this issue.

The aim of the paper is to build a ranking of municipalities due to their level of efficiency from the development point of view. According to the aim, it is possible to find out which indicators are crucial for the efficiency of municipalities in terms of sustainability. The research study involved DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis) approach. Conducted research study covered 2044 Polish municipalities in the year 2016. The ranking of Polish municipalities was prepared with the use of the DEA model. The DEA method made it possible to set goals for inefficient municipalities, which should follow and regularly evaluate the progress in the implementation of their aims. Inefficient municipalities can improve their efficiency following the technological example of chosen benchmarks.

JEL classification: E62, H11, H20, H50, H60 Keywords: economy, central government, general government sector, economy, public finance, relationship between economy and general government sector size Received: 17.07.2015 Accepted: 13.10.2015 www.e-finanse.com This article is dedicated to a study of the relations between the economy and the size of the general government sector. The main aim of the article is an identification of the most important variables that are used to determine relations between the economy and size of the sector, as well as to identify frequency of their occurrences in relations to pairs of variables which describe an economy and the size of the sector. In order to explore these relations, the authors used Bayes networks. The economies of EU member states and their public finance systems were the object of analyses in this article. The period that was selected for the research covered the years 2000-2013 (inclusive). In order to describe economies, the authors selected 18 variables, whereas to describe the general government sector -15 variables. These variables were sourced from databases of Eurostat, OECD and the World Bank. Among an economy's measures and general government sector measures, there were also some benchmarks found (standard and classic) as well as measures proposed by the authors, which had not been used in the scientific descriptions that were dedicated to research on size of the general government sector. Ipso facto, this article fits in the discussion on not only the size of the general government sector, but also attempts to answer the question of whether the economy determines the size of the sector. To date, the research questions on the impact of the size of the general government sector on the economy of a particular country have been common. This article inverts the investigated dependence and its content concentrates on the attempt to determine if the size of the sector in a particular country is a function of its economy expressed by ratios adopted in conducted the research.

Abstract The issue of the size of public administration is commonly researched. Most of the times this topic is tackled from a macroeconomic perspective, considering local and central administration together. That is why this paper uniquely takes on the local perspective only, analysing the size of local government (i.e. size of public administration at the local level) in Polish regions during the period of 2009-2013. Based on the existing literature, we chose five variables of the size of local administration at the commune level connected with employment and reflecting costs related to the functioning of local administration structures. All indicators were expressed per capita. With the usage of ANOVA, we proved significant differences in the size of public administration across regions for all variables. To compare the size of local governments across regions, we ranked all variables individually, and then we calculated the average ranking for all variables. Our findings have clear implications for policy makers, providing information about the regions with the biggest/smallest size of public administration at the local level. Our study suggests simple and accessible tool for continuous reporting on the size of public administration in order to monitor costs also in the upcoming years. The results of the monitoring could also be used for the establishment of an incentive program for regional policy representatives.

An assessment of the financial condition of local government units (LGUs) is usually carried out in a manner referring to traditional tools and methods based on financial analysis. However, it turns out that this approach is unreliable. There are known examples of LGUs, which, despite current reporting concerning their financial situation to the authorities controlling their financial economy, not only did not avoid financial problems (see Rewal, Dziwnów, Byczyna communes), but as a result of the improper management of public funds they were liquidated (e.g., Ostrowice commune). The finding presented above raises pertinent questions about the effectiveness of the current way of assessing the financial condition of local government units and on this basis arriving at conclusions and estimations relating to the possible consequences of the situation in local finance for the future of LGUs. Given the above, attempts to develop new solutions to assess the financial situation of LGUs are becoming more frequent. The aim of this article is to build a synthetic measure for the assessment of the financial condition of communes with regard to all basic statistics describing local government finances and making use of the TOPSIS methodology. The constructed measure does not focus on the estimation of individual financial measures but rather takes into account their interrelationships and interactions. It eliminates the problem of the lack of relationships between the analyzed result values, which may be responsible for the incorrect interpretation of the financial conditions of local government units. The value of the obtained measure allows for an objective assessment of the condition of LGUs finances, providing synthetic information concerning the multi-sectional assessment of the condition of local government finances.