The paper discusses the idea of socialized market, developed among others by Karl Polanyi and German ordoliberalism and institutionalized in the framework of the welfare state. The idea is eroding since labour interests, backed by the capitalist state have come under pressure of global business. Under globalized competition the welfare state seems to submit the idea of socialized market on behalf of the idea of free market. The European Union which is an association of national welfare states, paradoxically, seems to follow the economic liberalism (neoliberalism). Poland in spite of constitutional declaration on behalf of social market economy actually seems to undertake the UE drift. A study of pension funds has been undertaken in order to illustrate the trend observed, namely the shrinking of socialized sphere on behalf of the expansion of private global interests. The study refers to operations of so called second pillar of the pension system in Poland.

Public-private partnership (PPP) is one of the methods of financing and satisfying the public needs, while limiting the public sector's role to an indispensable minimum. Prior to making decision on carrying out a public task by the PPP method, the public sector is due to prove higher effectiveness of this method compared to the traditional financing method. The necessary process of long-lasting analyses and negotiations can lead to generation of transaction costs higher than in the case of the traditional model of financing. Till now, in the pertinent literature little attention has been paid to transactional costs related to the establishment and maintenance of the public-private partnership; hence the attempt at revealing the determinants of transactional costs inherent in the contracts realized under the PPP formula. ekonomia

The paper's intention is to present the functionality of the scoring and rating models approved by the New Capital Agreement and the Capital Requirements Directive in the context of credit risk management. The know-how transfers initiated the process of superseding the traditional credit risk assessment methods by new methods. The scoring and rating models are being successfully used by foreign banking institutions. A synthesis of views on credit risk assessment methods (credit scoring and credit rating) also results from many advantages that occur as well on the side of the banking institutions as on the side of their clients. The credit scoring and credit rating models automatize the banking credit procedures by providing an objective assessment of all the credit applications. In addition, standardized scoring and rating models reduce the costs related to the credit applications analysis. The existing interest in modem methods of credit risk quantification in the period of implementing the NCA/CRD inspired the author to formulate the thesis that the scoring and rating models would continue to enjoy interest on the part of the domestic banking institutions (i.e. co-operative banks). The complicated procedures of determining the capital adequacy prescribed by the CRD will make a stimulus to implementation of the models in question by the financial institutions that have hitherto been using traditional creditworthiness assessment methods, because the new methods simplify and accelerate the analysis of credit applications and have been included in the framework of admitted credit risk quantification methods for internal ratings. The universal functionality of scoring and rating makes the models more and more popular and demanded. In the long run, automation of processes and an elastic offer adapted to the client's profile will decide on the financial institution's competitive position. Wherever there is need for automatism and maximum objectiveness, the scoring- and rating-based assessment win most probably find new advocates.

The globalization processes being at present an object of broad scientific research date from a dozen or so years. The beginning of the 1990-ies was the period during which the capital flows were beginning to trespass the state frontiers to a larger and larger degree. Like in the majority of economic processes, two purely financial problems have been connected with this phenomenon: the profit and the risk. The profit is linked to the capital owners' search after interest rates higher than those offered by their domestic financial market. Whereas the second problem, unseparable from the former, concerns the diversification of the assets portfolio in possession at the given moment. The phenomenon of the transfrontier capital flows is particularly noticeable because of its strong impact on local financial markets in the economies of countries of emerging markets. This impact has a two-way character:

• favourable—by strongly promoting the development based on the inflow of large quantities of lacking capital;
• negative—by increasing the dependence of the economic development on the foreign capital and, consequently, making this development dependent on the attained macroeconomic indices or, more exactly, on the assessment of such indices arbitrarily made by international financial markets. Such assessments are being compared with the expected ones, e.g. to the expected exchange rate level. Then, there is always risk that non-fulfilled expectations will lead to oscillations as a result of which the monetary authorities will not keep to the earlier planned exchange rate levels [Obstfeld, 1994, s. 211].

The subject of this paper will be the negative consequences that accompany the international capital flows or, more exactly, the exchange crises of 1994–1998 related to the globalization process (see section 1). In section 2, the Mexican exchange crisis of 1994 will be discussed (see section 2), its sources will be presented, as well as the political and economic situation. In section 3, the scale of the economy breakdown, the situation of the banking sector and the remedial measures undertaken will be discussed. The remaining part of the paper is organized as follows: in section 4, an answer will be presented to the question: is it possible do foresee a crisis? The section is divided into a practical and a theoretical concept. Finally, in section 5 conclusions of general character are presented.