Special issue of "Bank i Kredyt" on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Szkoła Główna Handlowa w Warszawie (Warsaw School of Economics)

In October 2006, Szkoła Główna Handlowa w Warszawie celebrates its 100th anniversary of uninterrupted operations. Its beginnings date back to the period of partitions of Poland, when Russian authorities expressed consent to the establishment of August Zieliński Private Trade Courses for Men. The School acquired its full academic rights, a modern campus and the name Szkoła Główna Handlowa w Warszawie in the interwar period, which was especially owing to its rector, Bolesław Miklaszewski. During World War II the Warsaw School of Economics acted underground, under the management of an outstanding economist Edward Lipiński. After the war, as a result of imposing the system of centrally planned economy, the School was nationalized and made subject to indoctrination, and its name was changed into Szkoła Główna Planowania i Statystyki (Central School of Planning and Statistics). However, the university did not lose its liaisons with the world economic research, which was mainly due to the distinguished professors, among others, Jan Drewnowski, Michał Kalecki, Oskar Lange, Edward Lipiński, Paweł Sulmicki and Aleksy Wakar. In the teaching techniques, apart from the obligatory Marxism, the elements of macro and microeconomics were also present, the knowledge on international economic relations and quantitative methods was passed and the teaching of western languages was expanded. The graduates not only managed state's enterprises and institutions of centrally planned economy but they also had liaisons with the market economy and worked in international economic organisations. The School's academic staff took part in preparing economic reforms which could be introduced only after political changes in Central and Eastern Europe. The system transformation in Poland after 1989, in which a special role was played by its graduate and professor Leszek Balcerowicz, allowed to carry out a fundamental reconstruction of structures and programmes, in their adjustment to the market economy requirements and return to its historical name - Szkoła Główna Handlowa w Warszawie (its official English name is - Warsaw School of Economics).

A special issue of "Bank i Kredyt", edited by Janusz Kaliński and Zbigniew Polański, includes the articles and materials on the School's 100-year history prepared by the rector, its professors and graduates. Some texts present the School's academic and scholarly achievements in individual fields, others - reflections related to the studies, work in the Warsaw School of Economics and the role of School in the preparation to professional career. The School alumni: an EU commissar Danuta Hübner, the president of the National Bank of Poland Leszek Balcerowicz and a former president of the National Bank of Poland Grzegorz Wójtowicz (the latter one in a separate educational insert) presented the issues related to the connection of economic science with economics, the quality of money and the role of the National Bank of Poland in the market economy.

Editors would like to express thanks to the authors of featured texts and the management of the National Bank of Poland for making the journal available for the purpose of outlining a 100-year history of Szkoła Główna Handlowa w Warszawie. The School graduates are, among others, presidents of the NBP: Edward Drożniak, Witold Bień, Grzegorz Wójtowicz and Leszek Balcerowicz.