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The COVID-19 pandemic influenced many areas of human life, one of those areas is expenditure on food and food consumption in households. The paper aims to identify changes in household expenditure on food and food consumption in Poland in the span of the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis covers the period from 2015 to 2021 (2022 when available). Based on data from Statistics Poland, percentage changes of nominal and real values as well as shares were presented. The results show that from 2015 to 2020 in real terms the value of household total expenditures increased and decreased after 2020. Households in Poland in 2020 spent more than earlier on food and non-alcoholic beverages and less on eating outside the house. The consumption of selected food products also changed in 2020 regarding the previous periods (2015-2019), but the majority of those changes were only temporary turmoil. Only the consumption of some dairy products in households in Poland increased during the COVID-19 pandemic and stayed at a heightened level.

Objectives The main goal of this study is to identify and evaluate the level of good governance in European Union countries and to determine whether there is a relationship between good governance and economic growth. Material and methods Empirical materials are based on currently available statistical data from Eurostat. In case of unavailability of unit data in the studied year, they were replaced with data from the nearest period, i.e. 2020. Due to the complexity of the analyzed categories and the possibility of ordering objects from best to worst to achieve the goal, we used the TOPSIS method for multidimensional data analysis. Results The study found that the variable with the greatest impact on the ranking achieved by a given country in the GG range was the Corruption Perception Index, followed by the proportion of the population who trust EU institutions. In the presented comparison, three countries, Luxembourg, Germany, and Sweden, occupied the top positions in the GG scale, while Greece and Cyprus were at the bottom. Countries with very high GG accounted for 11% of the total number of EU countries. No countries were identified as belonging to the fourth class, which is characterized by a very low level of GG. The majority of countries, over 67%, were represented by those with medium to low levels of GG. Conclusions The analysis allowed for identifying a significant correlation between Good Governance and Economic Growth in European Union countries. It can be assumed that the higher the level of economic development (measured by many SDGs), the lower the level of corruption in state institutions, and the greater the trust of citizens in public institutions, which translates into a higher level of GG.

The aim of the paper is to identify changes in the food consumption of urban and rural households in Poland when it comes to sustainable consumption as well as evaluate if such changes are becoming more or less sustainable. Sustainable consumption is an element of sustainable development, which responds to the basic needs of people while not jeopardizing the needs of future generations. More sustainable food consumption is perceived to be a reduction of overconsumption, a decrease in the consumption of highly processed food and a shift in diet based less on animals and more on plants. The paper is mainly based on data from the Polish Central Statistical Office concerning meat, fruit and vegetable consumption. Some data about food waste were also used. The research shows that the food consumption pattern in rural households is less sustainable than in urban ones. Households living in rural areas consume more meat and less fruit and vegetables than urban ones. There is some evidence that the food consumption pattern in Poland is shifting towards a less sustainable one.

The aim of the study was to compare urban and rural households’ level of living. Definitions andmeasures of level of living were presented. Then level of living in rural and urban households as well as itschanges were evaluated using the data from Household Budget Surveys. Expenditures on health, transport,recreation and culture, education, restaurants and hotels and alkoholic beverages, tobacco and narcoticswere used as a measures. The results shows that the level and the share of consumption expenditures onrecreation and culture as well as on restaurants and hotel were higher in urban than in rural households.The level of living in rural households is lower than in urban ones but the difference is decreasing.

The purpose of the presented research is to assess pro-environmental behaviour (PEB) in European Union countries in 2009 and 2019. The study used a synthetic measure developed using the TOPSIS (Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to an Ideal Solution) benchmark method. This method enables distinguishing classes and ranks of countries depending on the adopted characteristics. Basic measures of descriptive statistics, i.e., average, standard deviation and the coefficient of variation, were used in the analysis of the data set. The main research question addressed in this study concerns the relationship between the level of PEB and economic, demographic, and educational factors—not only on a micro scale but also from the macroeconomic perspective. The research has revealed a wide variety throughout the European Union (EU-27) countries in terms of pro-environmental behaviour. Sweden, Finland, and Denmark top the ranking, while Malta, Greece, Spain, and Romania are at the bottom of it. Northern European countries can therefore be identified as a group that represents a positive benchmark in terms of PEB across the European Union (EU-27). The correlation between PEB and selected economic, demographic, and education-related variables was also investigated. Country-level PEB is correlated with demographic and economic variables, but it is not correlated with education-related variables.