The study begins eith introductory remarks concerning the 6-year history and organization of studies in the state of the households by means of business cycle test. In this part of the study the author announces changes in some questions of the questionnaire to harmonize a new set of questions and a shedule of sending the questionnaire to the respondents with a pattern used in the EU countries. A new questionnaire is to be introduced in the first quarter 1996. However, questions enabling to further compute a Polish barometer of the house condition, will be maintained. The next parts of the study (2-6) contain a description of the medium-term tendencies of changes in: households' income, prices, savings, food consumption including the share of animal nutrition, in the tendencies of seeing the future by the family. Studies in the medium-term tendencies of changes in these categories cover the period from the beginning of surveying (1990) till the end of this year, and include an analysis concerning both diagnosis and prognosis. Part 7 presents how a composite households' condition indicator, the so-called a barometer of condition, develops with time. The barometer is a weighed average of income and savings balances and optimism indicator of the households's members in relation to their families' future (Polish version). The final part presents principles of construction of the households' condition barometer, according to EU and demonsrates methodological differences between this barometer and its Polish version. Also, the values of these two barometers for the period between 1st and 2nd quarters '95, were compared.
Consumers' behavior reflects changes in the business situation in the country and has a reverse impact on it — it can strengthen or weaken it. These are the consumers who evaluate the business situation of the country either to see consumer impulses and prospects for satisfying their expectations and aspirations or to assess that: things are going in the wrong direction and conseąuently to weaken their behavior. The latter results in worsening consumers' sentiments, raising concerns about the future or declining willingness to make purchases. Consumer surveys which permit actually to answer the question: How is the State of a household formed and how does it change? Are quite new in Poland: tliey started after 1990 when the market economy was introduced in this country. Thanks to those changes the customers became sovereign, free but also more rational in making their choice. The purpose of the surveys which started in the Research Institute of Economic Development in the l'st quarter of 1990 was not to study the links between consumers' opinions and the generał economic situation of Poland, though since the very beginning such links have been evident.
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