The paper compares various interest rates valid in the nineties and at the beginning of the present decade in Poland and in certain European and non-European countries: the Euro Zone countries, Switzerland, The Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, the Baltic countries, the USA, Japan, South Korea, South Africa and others. The subject of the analysis is the interest rates set by a central bank and this effective on a financial market, namely the main interest rate set by a central bank, the main interest rate of a monetary market, deposit rate and credit rate. The paper was to determine the degree of similarity between the Polish finance market and finance markets in other countries - both these with well-established markets and those where the markets had developed at the same time as that in Poland. A huge amount of statistical data fed into conclusions.

The research showed considerable similarity between interest rates in Poland and in other countries. The final conclusions were based on annual data. Had a shorter period been analysed, the conclusions would not always have been the same. Yet, contrary to the popular opinion, in the long-term, Poland's situation in this respect has not been much different from that of other countries, not even from those where better efficiency in monetary policy might have been expected.