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Although tax relief on pensions is a controversial area of government expenditure, this is the first study of the tax effects for a real-world defined benefit pension scheme. First, we estimate the tax and national insurance contribution (NIC) effects of the scheme's change from final salary to career average revalued earnings (CARE) in 2011 on the gross and net wealth of the sponsor, government, and 16 age cohorts of members, deferred pensioners, and pensioners. Second, we measure the size of the twelve income tax and NIC payments and reliefs for new members and the sponsor, before and after the rule changes. We find the total subsidy split is roughly 40% income tax subsidy and 60% NIC subsidy. If lower tax rates in retirement and the risk premium effect of the exempt-exempt-taxed (EET) system are not viewed as a tax subsidy, the tax subsidy to members largely disappears. Any remaining subsidy drops, as a proportion of pension benefits, for high earners, as does that for NICs.

The term ‘strategy’ is one of the most frequently used terms in business, and its application in marketing is particularly common. Company strategy, market strategy, marketing strategy, sales strategy, promotion strategy, distribution strategy, low pricing strategy – it would take a long time to list all of them. Although this term is so commonly in use, its definition is not as straightforward and it can be interpreted in different ways. In comparison with tactical decisions, strategy is much more significant for an organisation as it brings long-lasting consequences. It is implemented by higher level managers on a regular basis, and it is based on external, often subjective information, so decisions – especially at the time they are made – are difficult to evaluate.

Taking into consideration the fact that strategy refers to a long-term rather than a short-term period, strategic decisions serve as the basis for undertaking operational activities. However, marketing refers to the market and the competition. It is possible to claim that marketing strategy is trying to find an answer to the question to which path an organisation should follow in order to achieve its goals and objectives. If, for example, a company has a goal to generate a profit of PLN 1 million by selling 100,000 pieces of a product, the market strategy should answer at least the following two questions:

1. Who will be our target group, for example, who will purchase the 100,000 pieces of the product?

2. Why is it us from whom a potential buyer should purchase the product?

Who will be our target group, for example, who will purchase the 100,000 pieces of the product?

Why is it us from whom a potential buyer should purchase the product?

The target market will be defined if a reply to the first question is provided. The second question identifies the foundations of competitive advantage. These two issues, that is, target market and competitive advantage are the strategic marketing issues. You cannot change your target group unexpectedly while competitive advantage is the basis for changing decisions regarding prices, promotions and sales.

This chapter describes the measures of marketing activities which refer to strategic aspects and testify a company’s market position – the measures of the performance of target groups and competitive advantage. Readers’ attention should be also focused on the indices that are less popular in Poland and, therefore, may be underestimated. It seems that some of them, for example, the index of marketing resources allocation and the marketing risk index, provide a lot of valuable information and, at the same time, make it possible to show the value of marketing investments. Their wider use in the near future is only a matter of time.

The aim of this chapter is to develop a performance measurement framework for understanding the relationships among drivers of customer profitability in internet companies.

We recognize an opportunity to improve management control systems for internet companies, where performance measurement systems currently focus on measuring web data, such as number of customers, cost of service, cost of acquisition (CoA), and churn rate. However these indicators, taken separately, do not provide useful information to make decisions.

To fill this gap we developed a framework, which we designate as the Lifetime Value Scorecard, to investigate the relationships between customer data and financial data, providing an early indication as to whether or not the marketing strategies being implemented are successful. We then offer an application of the Lifetime Value Scorecard to the mobile value-added services industry, where content and services are provided to consumer cell phones, mainly using wireless networks.

The Greek sovereign debt crisis had a substantial impact on the real economy and the Greek banking sector. From a period of growth in the economy and high levels of profitability, Greek banks experience a major decrease in demand in the local market, and a large increase in non-performing loans. This had a negative effect on the financing of the Greek firms and households, especially after the PSI and the recapitalisations of the Greek Banks. The Greek banking system has been restructured into four large systemic banking groups and after a long time of depression, the efforts are now being directed into restarting the economy through the financing of firms and individuals. However, the recent and on-going experience with substantial volumes of non-performing loans and strategic defaults, poses many challenges. The same can be said for stricter regulation that was introduced in the aftermath of the financial crisis, business model transformation, developments in the fintech and IT arena, and most recently COVID-19 pandemic, all introducing challenges to bank managers. This chapter provides an overview of these issues.

Directors help determine the strategic direction of a corporation and are responsible for ensuring the institution has a good system of internal control. Banking institutions without a strategic direction emphasizing sound lending practices that promote the long-run financial health and viability of the institution will be sued more frequently than peer institutions. Institutions that do not have a good system of internal control will also be sued more frequently. Hence, legal expense is a bank corporate governance measure. We compare the performance of bank legal expense and a widely cited corporate governance index in a regression framework to determine which better predicts bank performance. The regressions indicate legal expense is a much better predictor, hence a better measure of bank corporate governance. Regulators should require legal expense reporting and rank institutions by the ratio of legal expense to assets to help identify institutions with weak governance. Seven case studies illustrate the role of legal expense in corporate governance.

Empirical studies show that years of schooling are positively correlated with good health. The implication may go from education to health, from health to education, or from factors that influence both variables. We formalize a model that determines an individual’s demand for knowledge and health based on the causal effects, and study the impacts on the individual’s decisions of policy instruments such as subsidies on medical care, subsidizing schooling, income tax reduction, lump-sum transfers, and improving health at young age. Our results indicate that income redistribution policies may be the best instrument to improve welfare, while a medical care subsidy is the best instrument for longevity. Subsidies to medical care or education would require large imperfections in these markets to be more welfare improving than distributional policies.