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The aim of this study is to understand the determinants of relationship between banks and nonfinancial corporations within Poland (which are considered relationship banking from this point onward).

The main sources of data used in the study are the large credit database (credit register of the National Bank of Poland (NBP)) and other aggregated data, including data from the Warsaw Stock Exchange and the NBP. Econometric panel logit methods have been used to test how different factors affect bank–firm relationships. Three main groups of factors have been investigated: the characteristics of the firm (i.e., size, ownership type, and R&D activity); the characteristics of the financial sector (i.e., competition in the banking sector); and macroeconomic conditions.

The findings demonstrate that Polish firms readily establish single-bank relationships, and firms with the highest quality of credit portfolios borrow often from multiple creditors. All conducted estimations demonstrated that the relationship between financing from a single bank and from foreign capital had a positive sign. Also, a decrease in concentration in the banking sector, which may be identified with an increase in competition, supports the establishment of relationship banking.

The study was performed using the data from large exposure database collected for supervisory purposes. Exposures (credits, derivatives, etc.) larger than 500 thousand PLN (approx. 120 thousand EUR) were only considered. Future research on bank–firm relationships should focus on the influence of financing costs, maintaining relationships when the borrower is in a difficult financial position, and other unique features of banks using the strategy of relationship financing.

The understanding of the characteristics of bank–firm relationships can help to improve banking practice and supervisory policy in Poland.

This study makes a noticeable contribution to the understanding of the banking sector and its relationships with nonfinancial corporations in Poland. It is the first empirical study on such a large sample of panel data from Polish banking sector and industries, too.

Recent academic studies, as well as media reporting, have devoted substantial attention to the ongoing “crisis of democracy.” Democratic “backsliding” of Central and Eastern Europe – sometimes referred to as an effort to establish a new system of “illiberal democracy” – is one of the most visible symptoms of this crisis. This narrative is supported by the quantitative metrics of democratic quality, reflecting professional community views on the appropriate criteria to define and assess democracy. However, once general public views expressed in the survey item of “satisfaction with democracy” are taken into account, the picture changes markedly. This chapter analyzes quantitative metrics reflecting expert community consensus and the general public assessment of the quality of democracy in the 27 EU members over the period 2010–2019. It documents substantial divergence between the perspectives of the experts and the general public – while expert-based indexes portray Central and Eastern European backsliding as the most significant trend in the EU democratic landscape, public opinion identifies a very different set of democracy's successes and failures. As experts and the general public fail to arrive at mutually accepted criteria of democratic performance evaluation, public debate has become futile. Meaningful discussion and systemic corrections have become unlikely, creating conditions easily exploitable by the populists, eager to frame it as an example of “elite” detachment from the “ordinary people”.