Editorial: Special Edition of the Central European Economic Journal to Mark the 70th Birthday of Prof. Tomasz Żylicz

This special edition of the Central European Economic Journal is dedicated to Professor Tomasz Żylicz, to mark his 70th birthday this year – 2021.

Professor Żylicz is widely recognised as one of Poland's most distinguished economists. The focus of his scholarly work has been on the field of environmental economics, and while this classification seems natural today, it is worth noting that Professor Żylicz pioneered the development of this discipline in Poland and internationally at a time when environmental economics and ecological economics, as branches of neoclassical economics, were in their infancy.
Professor Żylicz's work gained international recognition in the early years of the post-Soviet transformation, which was almost unheard of for Polish economists at that time. The influence of his mathematical education can clearly be seen in his writings (a rigorous scientific apparatus), along with his familiarity with state-of-the-art scholarship, which was enhanced by his academic visits to the United States and Sweden. In his work, Professor Żylicz energetically espoused the latest themes in world literature, and his writings were perceived as an important voice from Central Europe. They signalled that this part of Europe was seeing the development of a strong academic centre that was devoted to researching the interface between economics and the environment, which would give the opportunity for the post-Soviet Bloc countries to manage their natural resources more rationally.