Journal history

Ekonomista is one of Poland’s oldest scholarly journals devoted to economics. The title’s origins date back to 1865, when Antoni Nagórny founded a periodical covering economics, finance, statistics and administration, which appeared until 1883. The modern history of Ekonomista began in 1900, when Zenon Pietkiewicz revived the title as a weekly. In 1901, it became a quarterly, developing its scholarly profile.

From the outset, Ekonomista was closely associated with the development of Poland’s economics profession. In 1917, its editorial office hosted the founding meeting of the Society of Polish Economists and Statisticians in Warsaw. The Society adopted the journal as its official organ in 1921 and took over its publication in 1928. During the interwar period, the journal provided a forum for discussions of economic theory, statistics, money, business cycles and economic policy, as well as the challenges of rebuilding the Polish state.

After World War II, the revival of Ekonomista formed part of the reconstruction of Poland’s economic institutions through the activities of the Polish Economic Society. The journal remained an important scholarly forum, although it operated under political constraints and ideological pressure. Its articles addressed economic calculation under socialism, investment, employment, economic development and systemic reform.

Contributors to Ekonomista included Oskar Lange, Michał Kalecki and Edward Lipiński. Their publications connected Polish experience with international economic debates. As early as 1936, Michał Kalecki published a discussion of John Maynard Keynes’s theory in the journal. Oskar Lange addressed economic calculation and the scope and method of economics, while Edward Lipiński combined the history of economic thought with the analysis of contemporary economic systems.

After 1989, Ekonomista became a forum for debate on systemic transformation, the roles of markets and the state, institutional change, privatisation, inequality and European integration. These discussions continued the journal’s tradition of connecting economic theory with the analysis of economic and social change.

Today, Ekonomista is jointly published by the Polish Economic Society and the Institute of Economics of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Following a period of bimonthly publication from 1995 to 2021, it returned to a quarterly schedule in 2022. The journal publishes articles in Polish and English, fostering international scholarly cooperation and addressing issues relevant to Poland and Central and Eastern Europe. Its historical volumes provide a valuable record of Polish economic thought and are progressively being made available in digital form.

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