Projekty badawcze

Use of remote sensing for management of blue-green infrastructure in urban climate change adaptation (LIFECOOLCITY)

LIFE21-CCA-PL-LIFECOOLCITY/101074553 - LIFE

The ambition of the "Use of remote sensing for management of blue-green infrastructure in urban climate change adaptation” (LIFECOOLCITY) project is to support the management of blue-green infrastructure (BGI) in 10,000 cities in the European Union. It will be met by implementing innovative systems that utilize Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and remote sensing (satellite and aerial imagery). The goal is to enhance the adaptive capacity of cities to the effects of anthropogenic climate change and bring them closer to the model of smart cities of the future.

As a result, city administrators and residents will have access to four informational products grouped into two computer systems. These will help identify the most significant adaptive needs of their urbanized areas, develop a BGI management strategy to minimize climate-related risks, and monitor the effectiveness of their interventions.

The EUROPE system, based on satellite data, will identify areas with intensified environmental challenges in European cities and include two products:

• "EU cities Ranking of BGI": a free report published periodically from 2025 until the end of the project, providing an assessment of the state of BGI in at least 10,000 cities in the European Union. It will offer insights into the trends in BGI conditions in cities, allowing for a comparison of the scale of problems and adaptive needs in different locations.
• "BGI SAT-MONITORING Report for city": a paid report containing more detailed information on the spatial variability of specific city's environmental issues. Orders for this report will be possible starting from 2025. It will include maps illustrating the spatial distribution of environmental problems within the city and highlight areas with the highest intensity of such issues. Ordered periodically, it will provide knowledge about the change in the range and severity of environmental problems within the city.

The CITY system will operate based on information obtained from aerial surveys and will serve as a decision-support tool for implementing specific Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) at the city level. Within the CITY system, it will be possible to order two paid products:

• "BGI AUDIT Report for city": This report will identify key intervention areas for BGI within the city and propose the most beneficial nature-based solutions. The BGI audit will also identify ecologically valuable areas that should be protected due to their positive contribution to climate change adaptation.
• "BGI AIR-MONITORING Report for city": This report will assess the state of implemented BGI solutions and their effectiveness.

The first city for which a BGI reconstruction concept will be developed based on the project's products is Wrocław. By utilizing aerial data and remote sensing informational products, the city's needs will be identified. Subsequently, actions will be implemented, including BGI reconstruction, changes in the maintenance of green areas, and the protection of particularly valuable locations in terms of climate change adaptation. The effectiveness of the implemented changes will then be evaluated.

During the project, an informational and educational platform called "Life in Cool City" will be created, providing direct access to the developed informational products. It will serve as a knowledge base regarding the utilization of remote sensing in urban climate change adaptation.

The project involves seven organizations:

• MGGP Aero (lead organization)
• Wrocław City
• University of Łódź, Faculty of Biology and Environmental Protection, UNESCO Chair of Ecohydrology and Applied Ecology
• University of Warsaw, Faculty of Economic Sciences
• Ingenieurgesellschaft Prof. Dr. Sieker mbH
• Space Research Centre, Polish Academy of Sciences
• UNEP/GRID Warsaw at the National Fund for Environmental Protection

The project activities are planned for the years 2023-2029.

Behavioral anomalies in non-market valuation – New solutions based onbehavioral welfare economics

UMO-2023/51/D/HS4/00598 - SONATA

Public goods, such as clean water in rivers and public safety, bring benefits to society, but providing public goods also generates costs. To figure out the appropriate amount of spending on their provision, it is essential to calculate the benefits they bring in monetary terms. The monetary benefits associated with public goods can be compared against the costs of their provision in benefit -cost analysis to assess which goods it pays off to provide —that is, which ones bring larger benefits than costs.

The challenge lies in calculating the monetary benefits of public goods. The benefits can be expressed by how much people value these goods. Economists approximate values of goods with the amount s that people are willing to pay for them. But public goods are not bought or sold in markets and so lack prices that could indicate their value. This makes the measurement of the benefits that people derive from public goods challenging. Economists have proposed several methods for assessing the value of goods that are not traded in markets.

One of the commonly used techniques is stated preference (SP) methods. SP methods rely on data collected from specially designed surveys, in which respondents are asked about their preferences toward public goods. The querying about the preferences always involves some monetary trade-offs (e.g., providing a good with specific characteristics at a given cost), which helps researchers calculate the monetary value (implicit price) of the goods. 

The key objective of the project is to propose new practical measures and tools for SP studies —guided by insights from behavioral welfare economics —to improve the validity of SP-based

value estimates in the face of anomalous behaviors. Behavioral welfare economics has put forth various ways to measure values that take into account that people might not always make rational decisions to maximize their utility. Surprisingly, SP studies have not used these insights to address issues with non-standard behaviors in SP surveys. Our goal is to apply the approaches grounded in behavioral welfare economics to SP research and examine how well they work in practice. We aim to study if incorporating these approaches can improve the validity of SP value estimates.

Impact of Globalization, financial development and economic structures on energy diversification: Implications for European Green Deal

UMO-2024/53/B/HS4/01399 - OPUS

Global energy markets have been significantly affected by the Russia-Ukraine war and has exposed the risks faced by European nations that source their energy from Russia. This crisis points to the fact that Europe must move to reduce its reliance on Russian energy in order to meet the goals of the European Green Deal. The goal of the proposed project is to investigate and compare the energy diversification strategies of European countries through the lens of globalization, financial development, economic structure and European green deal. Therefore, through the analysis of these factors, we propose a course of action aimed at endeavoring a safer and more stable energy future for Europe. The specific research questions that guide this research include; first, what kind of policy frameworks exist across Europe to diversify their energy sources? Second, how does globalization, financial development, and economic structure affect energy diversification? Third, what is the relationship between energy diversification and environmental sustainability in the presence of other determinants like globalization, financial development, natural capital, structural changes and economic growth? 

This project is based on mixed methodology: qualitative method that will consist of literature, policy desk reviews; interviews with key policy and academic experts, secondary data sources whereby we will check interconnections and impact of independent variables on energy diversification and environmental sustainability in the European countries.

The European Green Deal is a package of strategic initiatives presented by the European Commission to achieve environmental objectives by 2050. Our work aims to respond to current energy security challenges while supporting the long-term objectives of environmental protection and climate change mitigation, thus paving the way for meaningful advancements in the development of a more secure, sustainable, and resilient energy future for Europe.

Exploring the Accuracy of Travel Cost Method for Nonmarket Valuation: Econometric Challenges and the Impact of Behavioral Factors on Self-Reported Data Quality

UMO-2024/53/N/HS4/04303 - PRELUDIUM

The need to assign "prices" to public goods, the value of which cannot be determined through demand and supply relationships, is not new. Although the benefits derived from goods such as a clean lake, a forest clearing from which one can watch sunsets or a playground can be described as priceless, the costs associated with their creation and maintenance are usually clearly defined and must be regularly incurred. Therefore, it is important to estimate what portion of public funds should be allocated for this purpose. Economists have developed various methods for valuing non-market goods, many of which are based on surveys. Over the years, non-market valuation methods have been extensively studied for their accuracy, but little attention has been paid to revealed preference methods. One of these methods is the travel cost method, which is the focus of this project. The method allows for the estimation of the benefits that non-market goods provide to society based on people's past choices (the number of trips to certain places and their costs). The project aims to make the travel cost method more reliable and accurate by addressing problems related to
the quality of data reported by respondents, examining the stability of estimates over time, and proposing new ways to incorporate the value of time into modeling. The improved method will help decision-makers and researchers better understand the value of public goods and better allocate public funds. The quality of data reported by respondents can depend on many factors, such as memory. People often do not remember the exact number of trips and overestimate them, leading to an overvaluation of the public goods. Various tools, such as reminders of previously given answers and scripts encouraging the use of calendars or photos, will be tested in the study to improve memory. The study will also focus on previously unexamined factors that may affect the quality of data reported in surveys, such as behavioral factors related to motivation. Currently, the travel cost method studies assume that respondents try to provide the most accurate and truthful answers, but this might not always be true. Surveys can be tiring, leading respondents to rush through them or give less thoughtful answers, a behavior known as “satisficing."

The project will examine how the order of questions, survey length, and rewards for participation in the survey influence this behavior. Techniques such as "trap questions" will be used to check respondents' attentiveness. Additionally, the study will try to differentiate between respondents who try to provide truthful answers and those who deliberately provide false information to maximize their gain. This problem arises because respondents are often materially rewarded for the time spent participating in surveys, provided they are in the group targeted by the survey. In travel cost method studies, this usually applies to people who have made trips to the surveyed places within a specified period (e.g., the last 12 months). Unfortunately, this may encourage some to lie about their past behavior, making the data they provide useless. The study will propose new tools to solve this problem, such as allowing respondents to skip some survey questions while still receiving full rewards. This practice will align respondents' motivations with the research objectives of scientists and ensure better data quality.
The project will also examine the stability of travel cost method estimates over time by comparing data collected at different times, controlling for time-varying factors that may influence people's travel (such as weather). This will help determine whether the method can be effectively used for long-term decision-making. Finally, the project will improve the way the value of travel time is considered in modeling, taking into account individual differences in how people value their time.
The research will be conducted in several phases: developing the project structure, developing and testing the survey, and then conducting it in collaboration with a research firm. The collected data will be analyzed using econometric models and statistical tests. The results and conclusions will be published in scientific articles in high-quality journals and presented at international conferences.

The economic value of health – scope effects and risk preferences in mortality and morbidity valuation

UMO-2023/49/B/HS4/01655 - OPUS

The research project aims to investigate the economic value of health by studying preferences and valuation methods in the context of mortality and morbidity. The project focuses on addressing scope sensitivity issues, which occur when respondents' stated preferences or willingness to pay (WTP) do not accurately reflect the true value they place on a specific attribute. Insufficient scope sensitivity can lead to biased estimates of economic values, potentially underestimating or overestimating the true value of the attribute.
The project proposes several strategies to mitigate the scope sensitivity problem, including range selection, attribute bundling, anchoring and calibration, sensitivity analysis, and accounting for other
factors such as experimental designs, cognitive and behavioral factors, and alternative elicitation formats. Additionally, the project aims to investigate the influence of risk preferences on valuation
and explore the heterogeneity and domain-specificity of risk preferences in relation to observed WTPs and health policy indicators.
The significance of the project lies in its potential to improve the reliability and validity of stated preference-based value estimates of health effects. It aims to bridge the gap between stated preference
methods used in health economics and state-of-the-art research in other fields, such as environmental economics and transport economics. The research findings could have implications for shaping efficient health-related public policies and may also be relevant for other fields like psychology or behavioral sciences.
The project proposes three empirical studies using discrete choice experiments (DCEs) to investigate scope effects in health effects valuation. The surveys will be designed based on state-of-the-art recommendations for stated preference studies and will include carefully chosen treatments to verify research hypotheses and gain insights into the research questions. The studies will cover important topics related to public health policies and involve representative samples of the target populations. Advanced models accounting for preference heterogeneity will be applied to the data.
The expected outcomes of the project include publishing at least five papers in leading journals, presenting results at international conferences, and establishing an integrated research group dedicated to this area of economics in Poland. The project aims to make a significant contribution to the validity of preference models and value estimates in health economics and improve the reliability of stated-preference valuation of health effects.

An agent-based integrated assessment of climate and social tipping points

UMO-2022/46/E/HS4/00023 - SONATA BIS

Recently, climate-economy models have intergated climate tipping points into the climate policy assessment. It has been shown that their inclusion increases the estimates of economic losses due to climate change. A climate tipping point is a critical value in the temperature or other environmental variable, after which it is crossed, the catastrophic event may occur. However, current models are still not well equipped to study multiple social tipping points. A social tipping point describes a critical number of adopters of a new technology, after which its further adoptions are driven by self-reinforcing positive feedback mechanisms. Such points can have synergic, complementary or antagonistic impacts on the carbon dioxide emissions, thus may slow down or accelerate climate tipping points. For instance, digitalization and electrification of transport, if adopted by a critical mass, would increase electricity use.

This would require massive investments in renewable energy to support the low carbon transition. However, investments in renewable energy will be mineral intensive. As a result, the process may be undermined by the scarcity of rare metals and minerals, unless a critical mass of rare metals embodied in consumer products is recycled. The net effect of these mechanisms has not been assessed quantitatively, which we will do in this project. Our goal is to identify the positive social tipping cascades so as to avoid negative tipping cascades in climate.

To this end, in this project, we will develop models for integrated assessment of climate change impacts using an agent-based modelling method. Agent-based models have been suggested as a new wave of climate change modelling. They offer a behavioural alternative to mainstream economic models. In particular, each aggregate equation in traditional economic models, e.g. describing capital accumulation or total consumer spending, is replaced by the network of interacting agents, namely: heterogeneous consumer, firms and investors. This allows for modelling diversity of behaviours, bounded rationality and social interactions. As a result, ABMs offer a better starting point for integrating social tipping points than traditional models. The project will results in novel agent based intergrated assessment models to study multiple social and climate tipping points.

Internal and external challenges to central bank independence

UMO-2023/49/B/HS4/03002 - OPUS

Since the late 1990s central bank independence is a widely accepted standard component of the institutional framework for monetary policy. The rationale for this general acceptance is well rooted in the economic science that shows how central bank independence makes it easier for central banks to maintain price stability, without which macroeconomic stability cannot exist.
This notwithstanding we observe that politicians in many countries have not fully accepted their lack of direct control over the important part of macroeconomic policy, i.e. over monetary policy. Therefore, we can often observe politicians’ attempts to influence de jure independent central banks. The most popular form of such a political pressure is to include into the process of appointing members of monetary policy committee or similar decision-making body of central bank some political criteria such as political sympathies or ideological beliefs of candidates.

Monetary policy requires sophisticated analytical tools, hence the legal requirements for members of central banks’ decision-making bodies usually define their desired professional experience and formal education. However, the importance of central bank and its position among other state agencies mean that its decision-making bodies are usually appointed by the highest authorities (the Crown, president of the country or parliament), working often in cooperation.

The research study we plan to conduct attempts to verify the existence of these political pressures: we will look whether personal characteristics of members of the Polish monetary policy council and governors of other central banks, including various forms of their relations with government and other political institutions, determine their decisions in the area of monetary policy and interactions between monetary policy and fiscal policy.
The second important part of our research focuses on the question, whether the so called unconventional monetary policy, which has been undertaken by many central banks, including the Narodowy Bank Polski, on a large scale during the great financial crisis of 2008+ and during the Covid-19 pandemic, has been a factor undermining central bank independence.

This unconventional policy has been making an unequal impact on various industry sectors and different groups of economic agents, that means that it has a quasi-fiscal nature. As the rationale for central bank independence is derived from central bank’s responsibility for monetary policy only, any central banks’ excursions beyond monetary policy justify, according to some politicians and economists, constraining central bank independence. Our research will attempt to study these issues by looking for the connection between the size of central bank balance sheet – as a measure of its engagement into unconventional monetary policy – and de jure indexes of central bank independence.

We also intend to conduct a survey among economists to find whether – if any – they see any dangers for central bank independence, that come from unconventional monetary policy.

Digital transformation and labor market inequalities: gender and parenthood perspectives (DiGiQUAL)

UMO-2023/51/B/HS4/01680 - OPUS

The world around us is changing faster than ever before and many of these changes are caused by rapidly developing digital technologies. Traditional human-performed job tasks are increasingly being automated, with some roles completely taken over by robots. The COVID-19 crisis has further ingrained remote work and online meetings as essential aspects of our lives, and these have now become standard practices in the professional world.
In this research project, we want to understand how the digital transformation is impacting the job market, especially for men and women with and without children. We are particularly interested in:
(i) How the changes in the labor demand (such as a decrease in the demand for routine jobs) affect women's careers after childbirth,
(ii) How much people are willing to pay for avoiding increased work demands due to the digitalization of work (such as spread all-day working hours, all-day availability), by gender and
parenthood,
(iii) Do the increased possibilities to participate in scientific conferences online lead to a higher participation of women in these meetings.
First, we want to understand how the digitalization of jobs affects women's careers after they become mothers.We will analyze whether women, who give birth, switch from more demanding and less routine jobs into routine ones. We will also examine whether this change affects their earnings and contributes to the so-called motherhood wage penalty. To do that we will use secondary data coming from the LabFam Individual Biographies (LIB), an open science project that harmonizes family and employment histories for a number of countries, which will be matched with measures of job characteristics derived from the O*NET dataset.
Second, we will explore gender differences in responding to increased work demands, which take a form of e.g. long and spread all-day working hours or being constantly connected to the job. Based on the collected data we will derive a measure reflecting the willingness to trade off increased work demands for pay. We will do that by gender and by parenthood status to see whether women, and mothers in particular, are more likely than men to avoid increased work demands.
Last, we will look at how participating in professional events online instead of in person affects the careers of men and women in academia. While online events can be helpful for those who can't attend in person, they might not provide the same networking and knowledge-sharing opportunities. It can be particularly important for women who may not be able to participate in international events due to family/care obligations. We will examine whether the growing availability of hybrid and online scientific conferences impacts the participation of men and women in these events. We will show whether hybrid/online conferences encourage conference participation of women (which could benefit their scientific development) or rather make them shift from onsite to remote participation (which may be harmful to their academic careers). To do that we will use a unique dataset that is currently being collected via web scraping.

Preferences and incentives, and the effective development of the human capital:economic and neuro-psychological approach

2021/42/E/HS4/00305 - SONATA BIS

Education is recognized as one of the most important factors determining the pace of economic development.

The resources and quality of the workforce affect economic performance, the rate of technological progress, and the entiresociety’s functioning. Research on the influence of human capital on the economy is well documented both in thetheoretical and empirical literature, hence the growing need to understand the processes and mechanisms behind it.This project aims to study cognitive and neuropsychological factors influencing the mutual relationship betweenstudents’ preferences and competencies development.

This is a particularly important topic for two main reasons. First,it allows for the understanding of factors influencing the motivation of students towards the learning process and futurecareers. Second, motivation towards learning (that results from preferences) is the key factor for educational success.To shed light on this issue data set will be collected where competences would be assessed using state-of-the-artpsychometric techniques, and at the same time, preferences would be revealed with hypothetical choices method (Discrete Choice Experiment).

The novelty of this project also lies in discovering the neuropsychological andneuropsychological background of human capital formation.  Based on the theoretical and empirical literature review,the main hypotheses are as follows:  1. There is a statistically significant relationship between the results obtained bystudents and their preferences.  2. Preferences and thus the effectiveness of learning can be shaped by non-invasivebrain stimulation.  

To assess the relationship between preferences and competences both need to be measured withinone quantitative study. To measure preferences Discrete Choice Experiment (DCE) will be applied. Utility functionparameters will be estimated using Random Parameter Logistic Models. To measure educational outputs(competences), we will use a state-of-the-art psychometric approach based on the IRT model. Both imputed individual-level parameters and IRT-scaled competencies will then be used to assess the mutual relationship of the preferencesand motivation factors with competences and educational outcomes. Besides, we will use well-established internationalbenchmarks by reporting results on the scale directly comparable to OECD’s PISA international scale. 

Preferences and willingness to pay for use and non-use values of artificial reefs inPoland considering distance decay, environmental attitudes and differentelicitation methods

UMO-2023/49/N/HS4/03424 - PRELUDIUM

Have you ever heard of artificial reefs? These man-made structures placed in marine environments can provide habitat for marine organisms and improve the overall biodiversity of the ecosystem. But how do people in Poland feel about them? That is where a new research project comes in!

A rtificial reefs have been proposed and deployed in areas such as the Pomeranian Bay, the Baltic Sea, to preserve and restore reefs due to pollution and anthropogenic pressure. These reefs have improved marine diversity, self-cleansing processes, habitat creation, and increased fish stocks.

The study aims to investigate preferences and willingness to pay for artificial reefs preservation in Poland and determining the factors that influence both using both discrete choice experiment and best-worst scaling methods.Researchers will also explore the impact of distance from the reef sites and its effect on preferences and willingness to pay for artificial preservation.

But what happens when the cost of preserving artificial reefs is high? The study will also look at the role of environmental attitudes in the preferences and willingness to preserve artificial reefs

in both low- and high- cost situations. Individuals are expected to be willing to pay for the preservation of artificial reefs.

Again, environmental attitudes will influence individual preferences and willingness to preserve artificial reefs under low-cost conditions and will have little or no effect under high-

cost conditions. Furthermore, it is anticipated that the decay distance, among other factors, will affect preferences and willingness for the preservation of artificial reefs.

The findings of this research will have important implications for the conservation and management of aquatic environments in Poland. Understanding attitudes and geographic distribution

of the public towards artificial reefs can help policymakers and stakeholders to develop effective strategies for their preservation.