Vol. 12 No. 3 (2026)

The simplest model of an economy, presented to first-year students to explain why various methods of calculating GDP should yield similar results, consists of only two types of actors: households and firms. These actors are connected by four arrows that highlight the different ways in which they are interconnected. This issue of Economics and Business Review serves as a reminder of how useful such approximations remain despite their simplicity. It contains five articles written by fourteen authors working in Hungary, Japan, Poland, and Romania. The issue examines households’ savings, which are used to finance firms’ development, as well as household debt, which is incurred to purchase companies’ products. The analysis then goes deeper, exploring how households can make more informed decisions about their savings, either by focusing on the fundamentals of publicly listed companies or by paying attention to narratives in the mass media. Finally, the issue asks how corporate welfare should be defined and how it relates to consumer welfare. As the Editors, we hope that this issue of Economics and Business Review will be well received by its readers and stimulate further discussion of the interdependencies within the economy. (Joanna Lizińska, Paweł Niszczota Michał Pilc)