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ORIGINAL PAPER
Discretion as a policy tool - an analysis of the National Bank of Poland's role in intervention strategies during the economic crisis
 
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WSHIU Akademia Nauk Stosowanych
 
 
Submission date: 2024-11-30
 
 
Final revision date: 2025-06-24
 
 
Acceptance date: 2025-06-24
 
 
Publication date: 2025-07-17
 
 
Corresponding author
Konrad Trzonkowski   

WSHIU Akademia Nauk Stosowanych
 
 
JoMS 2025;62(2):722-738
 
KEYWORDS
TOPICS
ABSTRACT
Objectives:
The decision-making discretion of the National Bank of Poland (NBP) plays a key role in enhancing the country's economic stability during economic crises. The premise is that flexibility and the ability to respond quickly to changing economic conditions are essential for effective economic management in times of crisis. Decision-making discretion allows the National Bank of Poland to take non-standard actions that would not be possible under a rigid policy based on predetermined rules.

Material and methods:
Econometric models, such as Vector Autoregression (VAR) model, are often used to analyze the effects of central banks' monetary policies during crises.

Results:
The conducted analysis of time series data and VAR modeling, combined with Diebold and Yilmaz spillovers indexes, show that the decision-making discretion of the National Bank of Poland plays a key role in enhancing the country's economic stability during the economic crisis. The results of the analysis indicate that the NBP's interventions are effective in reducing the volatility of inflation, the unemployment rate and GDP growth, as well as in transmitting the effects of monetary policy between different sectors of the economy.

Conclusions:
1. NBP should implement a quarterly scenario-based stress testing framework to forecast the impact of extreme macroeconomic conditions on monetary stability. This framework should incorporate scenarios such as a 5% GDP contraction or inflation surging by 3% above target levels. 2. NBP could adopt a pre-emptive intervention cap set at 50 billion PLN for liquidity support operations over a six-month period. This limit would ensure timely and adequate responses to crises while maintaining financial system confidence and avoiding excessive fiscal burdens.
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ISSN:1734-2031
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