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The study deals with challenging questions of long-term future of global economy and the mankind. Focusing not only on what happens in the economic sphere but also on cultural, social, political, demographic, technological, and ecological processes. It employs a holistic approach to answer fundamental questions about the course of the future.

The paper criticizes neo-liberal ideology as responsible for the recent crisis faced by the world economy. The author analyzes possibilities of forecasting the crisis and shows that modern economic views and values are inadequate for overcoming the crisis and preventing such problems in the future. An alternative system of economic values is proposed which could ensure sustainable economic development.

The process of systemic transformation to market economy has evolved more by chance than by design, and has beared mixed fruit. The diversity of current conditions is a result of both the legacy of the past and different strategies/policies executed in particular countries afterwards. These polices have been based on different assumptions and followed the advices from alternative schools of economic thought. In the paper written from the comparative perspective, with the use of counterfactual history principles, the multiple-path process of post-communist transformations during the last two decades is examined, some forecasts and propositions for the next generations are provided.

Despite the main attention being given within the economic activity to the issues of efficiency and competitiveness, one shouldn't oversee the ethical aspects of business and economic policy. Quite important are also the matters of truth and false in economic research. Several phenomena and processes - subsidies, dumping, weapons trading, fiscal system and policy - do have also their moral dimension, not just the economic one. Hence, the issues of ethics should be considered and discussed in a wider context. From this perspective there is still a lot to be done, especially in the countries with weak market institutions and relatively lower quality of market culture, including post-socialist countries in transition to market system.

Growth factors and the causes of disparities between the potential and actual growth rates are considered in the article. Issues pertaining to the interaction between the structure and functioning of market economy institutions as well as the policy followed within their framework with an accent on the experience of the transition economies are analyzed. The necessity of learning in the process of mastering new institutions is stressed. Special attention is paid to the analysis of gray sector in politics. Requirements to effective economic policy accounting for consequences for long-term production dynamics are formulated.

János Kornai was the most outstanding economist of socialist and postsocialist countries in the last fifty years. He was a world-renowned scholar who left behind an immense legacy of works published in over twenty languages. His theory of systemic disequilibrium in a centrally planned economy, concept of hard and soft budget constraints and the economics of shortage were of revolutionary importance to the scientific interpretation of the processes of production, distribution and capital accumulation in state socialist economies. Also of note is the author's work on political economy of socialism, which he taught at the Harvard University. When analysing the socialist system Kornai essentially contented himself with a descriptive approach, whereas in works published post-1989 he focused his attention on normative economics suggesting directions of structural reform, institution-building and economic policy in post-socialist transition. Of great importance is also Kornai's last book comparing the disequilibrium characterised by shortage in socialism with the disequilibrium typical of the surplus in capitalism. The article analyses the evolution of this outstanding economist's theoretical thought and its impact on real economic processes. Polemic comments are also made on the interpretation of economic and social processes taking place in China.

The crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic has prompted governments and central banks to take unorthodox measures aimed at protecting the standard of living of people and sustaining the production and service activities of companies. The policy of aggressively rising the supply of money has entailed a significant increase in the budget deficit and public debt. It is important to consider the extent of its impact on the escalation of inflation processes and to formulate suggestions regarding the economic policy. Inflation is already higher than the official indicators show it, because it is partly suppressed. The increase in the general price level does not fully reflect the actual inflation rate. We are dealing with shortageflation — the simultaneous occurrence of price inflation and repressed inflation accompanied by shortages. It is methodologically interesting to compare this current phenomenon, 3.0, with the suppression of inflation in the war economy, 1.0, and in the economies of state socialism, 2.0. Such comparisons highlight not only the similarities of these processes but also the differences resulting from the specificity of responses of households and businesses. This article discusses five channels of unloading excessive savings, indicating the most beneficial ones from the point of view of sustainable economic development in the post-pandemic future. It is particularly important to prompt the conversion of compulsory savings into voluntary ones and at the same time to stimulate the transformation of inflationary monetary reserves into the effective demand expanding the use of existing production capacities and investments in creating new capacities.

For years, the view has been repeated that Asia's age is coming, and thus the position of both Europe and the United States is declining. The main factor behind these tectonic shifts in relative economic power and the associated geopolitical situation is the nearly four decades of rapid growth of Chinese economy. The achievements of other Southeast Asian countries, especially India, with robust growth are also meaningful with this regard. The article verifies these views and analyzes the different aspects of China's confrontation with Europe and North America. The Asian dominance era is not coming, yet a relatively stronger position of the East at the cost of a weakening position of the West is emerging. Hence, a new multi-polar arrangement of forces in the global economy, without a hegemon, is being created.

Aside from the United Kingdom, which is withdrawing from the European Union, only Denmark has the option of staying outside the single European currency area. All other member states which have not adopted euro as their currency have the right and obligations to do so under the Treaty of Accession. The condition to join the Eurozone is to meet all five nominal Maastricht convergence criteria and to ensure compliance of national legislation with acquis communautaire, or the EU legal order. What poses special difficulties to candidate countries is the fiscal criterion relating to the maximum allowed budget deficit. If it's not met, the European Commission launches the Excessive Deficit Procedure, EDP. Currently, this procedure is in place for France, Spain and the United Kingdom. In 2015, EDP for Poland was lifted, but there is no certainty it won't be imposed again at the end of the decade due to the risk of exceeding once more the threshold of public sector deficit, which stands at 3 percent GDP. It is to be expected that in the 2020s the European Monetary Union will be joined by all the countries that are still using their national currencies, including Denmark, and that the EU will be extended to include new member states, enlarging the euro area, too. Although the issue is not absolutely certain, it needs to be assumed that euro will overcome the present difficulties and come out stronger, though the economically unjustified euroskepticism of some countries, especially Poland, is not helping.

The results of Poland's stabilisation programme have surprised observers. Industrial production in 1990 fell by 25% with a 'point to point' inflation index of 580%. Incomes policy was never binding and there was an increase in nominal wages of 430%. The main problem has been an effective demand barrier. (SJK)