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Solvency and Debt of Rural Communes vs. Their Residents’ Standards of Living: A Polish Case Study
The purpose of this paper is to present the multidimensional dependencies between the budgetary solvency and debt of Polish rural communes on one side, and the residents’ standards of living on the other. Local government units’ budgetary solvency and debt (one of the key components of their financial condition) are important determinants of their efficient functioning oriented at addressing the needs of local communities as much as possible. The literature on the subject reveals a cognitive gap in the research into the standards of living and ways of driving social well-being, which is manifested in the dearth of empirical studies on how the components of local governments’ financial standing impact residents’ standards of living. Due to the multifaceted nature of the categories under consideration, a canonical analysis procedure was carried out to identify the linkages between them, and three statistically significant canonical roots were identified. This study demonstrates that if the values of variables relating to budgetary solvency and the debt levels of Polish rural municipalities (communes) are known, they have the potential to explain over 29% of the variance in the set related to the residents’ living standards. Hence, the components of local governments’ financial conditions are important, yet not the sole determinants of the population’s standards of living. The findings from such analyses could be used indirectly, e.g., by local authorities in the context of creating their development strategies and selecting measures designed to transform the socioeconomic structure of territorial units in accordance with what their residents need.
Financial Situation of Local Government Units as a Determinant of the Standards of Living for the Polish Population
In this paper, the author intends to show the interaction between the living standards of the population and the financial situation of Polish local government units at the commune level. The first (theoretical) part of the paper provides a synthetic description of topics related to defining the economic terms and to the local government’s ability to impact the standards of living of the local population. In view of the multifaceted nature of terms covered by this analysis, the second part uses a canonical analysis (which means multiple linear regressions are generalized for two sets of variables) in order to identify the relationships between them. The analysis resulted in identifying a number of indicators, including canonical correlations, total redundancy and variances extracted, as well as six statistically significant canonical variates, which enabled the identification of multidimensional relationships between the categories considered. The greatest and the most statistically significant canonical correlation coefficient was over 0.93; for the last statistically significant canonical variate, it was over 0.57. The analysis provides grounds for concluding that when the values of variables representing the financial capacity of Polish rural communes are known, they can be used to explain over 32% of the variance in the set of variables relating to the population’s standards of living. The statistical data originated from the author’s own surveys carried out with presidents and vice-presidents of commune councils.
Organic Farming as a Driver of Environmental Benefits or the Other Way Around? Environmental Conditions vs. Organic Farming Development in the EU with Particular Focus on Poland
Organic farming takes on particular importance in the context of implementing the sustainable development concept as it combines environmentally safe farming methods with (as a general assumption) producing pollution-free food. Hence, environmental conditions might play a role in determining the development pace of that type of farming. The key objective of this paper is therefore to identify the scope and direction of multidimensional relationships between the development level of organic farming and environmental conditions. This was performed with the canonical analysis. The research process included the structuring of the authors’ own synthetic metrics used in assessing the condition of the environment and the development level of organic farming. The study covered European Union countries and all 380 Polish districts (Poland is one of the very few Union members where organic farming development is currently inconsistent with the expected trends adopted under the Common Agricultural Policy). It follows from the analyses that when the variables relating to environmental conditions are known, they can explain only less than 10% of variance in the set of variables used in describing the development level of Polish organic farming. In turn, the analysis at Union level suggests that a positive—but not stronger than moderate—correlation exists between the two phenomena.
Wielowymiarowe zależności między kondycją finansową gmin wiejskich a poziomem życia mieszkańców
Lokalne władze samorządowe odpowiedzialne są z jednej strony za prowadzenie racjonalnej polityki gospodarowania finansami, z drugiej zaś zobligowane są do realizowania działań prorozwojowych przyczyniających się m.in. do podnoszenia poziomu życia mieszkańców. Celem badań była identyfikacja wielowymiarowych zależności między kondycją finansową gmin wiejskich w Polsce a poziomem życia ich mieszkańców. W pierwszej części artykułu przybliżono pojęcie poziomu życia i kondycji finansowej JST. W drugiej części omówiono wybrane wyniki badań ankietowych przeprowadzonych wśród przewodniczących i wiceprzewodniczących rad gmin w styczniu i lutym 2022 r. W ramach realizowanych badań zastosowano analizę kanoniczną, a w jej zakresie zidentyfikowano cztery istotne statystycznie zmienne kanoniczne. Wartość największej i najbardziej istotnej statystycznie korelacji kanonicznej wyniosła blisko 0,90, a dla ostatniej istotnej statystycznie zmiennej kanonicznej wartość ta była równa ponad 0,75.