Working Papers

The WNE Working Papers series has been published by the Faculty of Economic Sciences at the University of Warsaw since 2008.

The WNE Working Papers series provides a fast, open channel for disseminating research conducted at the Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw. The papers hosted here are working versions (pre-prints) and may evolve as authors refine their analyses, incorporate feedback, or progress through formal peer-review. What you read is the current version released by the authors, timestamped and assigned DOI/ISSN identifiers to ensure precise citation and version tracking. Copyright remains with the authors, who may, at any time, upload a revised file or add a note directing readers to a later, peer-reviewed publication.

The Working Papers series accepts articles by research employees of the Faculty and publications from conferences organised at the Faculty of Economic Sciences at the University of Warsaw. Articles should be original research papers which have not been previously published, on the subject of economics.

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Number of Results 9

WP(17/2026)511. When Politics Enters the Family: Electoral Outcomes and Fertility in the United Kingdom

Authors: Baszczak Łukasz, Weychert Ewa
This paper examines the relationship between political outcomes and fertility behavior by linking electoral results with individual-level fertility outcomes in the United Kingdom. Drawing and the narrative decision-making framework (Vignoli et al., 2…

WP511. When Politics Enters the Family: Electoral Outcomes and Fertility in the United Kingdom

This paper examines the relationship between political outcomes and fertility behavior by linking electoral results with individual-level fertility outcomes in the United Kingdom. Drawing and the narrative decision-making framework (Vignoli et al., 2020; Johnson, Bilovich, & Tuckett, 2023) and the role of political polarization in fertility outcomes (Dahl et al. 2022) it considers how alignment between one’s political preferences and the actual party in power shapes fertility behaviour. Specifically, the study tests whether this alignment increases the probability of a first birth using longitudinal data from the UK Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS) over the period 1991–2020. We derive the month of conception from respondents’ birth histories and combine this information with measures of their political preferences (extrapolated to account for every month in the studied period). The results of a complementary log-log model indicate that the probability of conception is higher when an individual’s preferred party is in government.


DOI: https://doi.org/10.33138/2957-0506.2026.17.511
Baszczak Łukasz, Weychert Ewa
fertility uncertainty narrative decision theory voting behavior United Kingdom

WP(10/2022)386. Subjective Expectations and Uncertainty

Authors: Kocięcki Andrzej, Łyziak Tomasz, Stanisławska Ewa
Analysis of macroeconomic expectations of private sector agents reveals not only the path of expected macroeconomic developments and the mechanism of expectation formation, but also the degree of uncertainty faced by economic agents. Relying on this …

WP386. Subjective Expectations and Uncertainty

Analysis of macroeconomic expectations of private sector agents reveals not only the path of expected macroeconomic developments and the mechanism of expectation formation, but also the degree of uncertainty faced by economic agents. Relying on this observation the aim of this paper is twofold. First, we lay down the formal theory of subjective expectations and derive the subjective assessment hypothesis, which defines the optimal forecast of an individual under a specific loss function. Keeping the mathematical rigor, the proposed theory attempts to reflect the process of expectation formation that is consistent with well known behavioral features. Second, we apply the subjective assessment hypothesis to pin down the notion of uncertainty. We propose a novel uncertainty index, retrieved from forecast revisions of professional forecasters using an empirical model within the Bayesian approach. The two versions of this index derived for the US—based either on GDP growth or on inflation forecasts—describe different kinds of macroeconomic uncertainty. Their shocks act similarly as demand shocks, pushing economic activity and inflation down.


Kocięcki Andrzej, Łyziak Tomasz, Stanisławska Ewa
Subjective expectations Uncertainty Stochastic volatility Identification Bayesian approach Survey of Professional Forecasters

WP(5/2022)381. Do numerical probabilities promote informed stated preference responses under inherent uncertainty? Insight from a coastal adaptation choice experiment

Authors: Makriyannis Christos, Johnston Robert J., Zawojska Ewa
Inherent outcome uncertainty within stated preference surveys is invariant across valuation scenarios. It has received relatively little attention in the environmental stated preference literature. Specifically, it is unknown whether percentage proba…

WP381. Do numerical probabilities promote informed stated preference responses under inherent uncertainty? Insight from a coastal adaptation choice experiment

Inherent outcome uncertainty within stated preference surveys is invariant across valuation scenarios. It has received relatively little attention in the environmental stated preference literature. Specifically, it is unknown whether percentage probabilities—a ubiquitous means of communicating uncertainty in questionnaires—are an effective risk communication tool. This article systematically evaluates two treatments in a discrete choice experiment survey related to coastal climate change adaptation in Connecticut, USA: one provides only raw frequencies as a risk communication tool, while the other provides implied numerical probabilities in addition to the same raw frequencies. Results from a mixed logit model and from a latent class model that controls for sociodemographic influences show that the use of percentage probabilities to communicate inherent uncertainty has no additional effect on average welfare estimates or the choice behavior of respondents. Our findings suggest that percentage probabilities may not be an impactful way to communicate inherent uncertainty in environmental stated preference questionnaires.


Makriyannis Christos, Johnston Robert J., Zawojska Ewa
flood adaptation inherent uncertainty discrete choice experiment stated preference mixed logit risk communication WTP-space

WP(6/2021)354. Institutional Framework of Central Bank Independence: Revisited

Authors: Lewkowicz Jacek, Woźniak Michał, Wrzesiński Michał
The subject of central bank independence (CBI) and its consequences for monetary policy and economic development has been widely explored in public debate and research discourse. The main aim of the article is to analyze central bank independence, co…

WP354. Institutional Framework of Central Bank Independence: Revisited

The subject of central bank independence (CBI) and its consequences for monetary policy and economic development has been widely explored in public debate and research discourse. The main aim of the article is to analyze central bank independence, considering the institutional environment in a given country. Our primary focus is on the relevance of de jure provisions for de facto CBI, as well as on the importance of other structural factors. We rely on a dataset consisting of various novel indices to approximate these issues across multiple dimensions and apply advanced econometric tools to investigate our research tasks. The outcome of the study implies that the interrelationships between de jure and de facto CBI are observable. Thus, these conclusions may be successfully applied in institutional design and public policies regarding central banking.


Lewkowicz Jacek, Woźniak Michał, Wrzesiński Michał
central bank independence uncertainty political economy law & economics institutional economics

WP(13/2020)319. Dealing with uncertainties of green supplier selection: a fuzzy approach

Authors: Manucharyan Hayk
Increasing public awareness of environmental protection has caused the emergence of green supply chain management in recent years. As firms tend to outsource a significant part of their activities, the importance of supplier selection increases from …

WP319. Dealing with uncertainties of green supplier selection: a fuzzy approach

Increasing public awareness of environmental protection has caused the emergence of green supply chain management in recent years. As firms tend to outsource a significant part of their activities, the importance of supplier selection increases from a competitive standpoint. While most studies of supplier selection have introduced methods based on economic criteria, the number of studies that incorporate environmental issues is rather limited. In this paper, a methodology is proposed to address the green supplier evaluation and selection issue by first identifying the appropriate criteria and then developing a model for their measurement in the evaluation process. The authors apply fuzzy set theory to deal with the subjectivity of supplier selection decision-making and capture the linguistic terms used for human assessments. A rule-based fuzzy inference system is developed to evaluate suppliers based on ten environmental criteria and eventually select the best-performing supplier. The dynamic nature of the model allows the decision-makers to manipulate the importance of different supplier attributes and constructed rules, based on individual preferences. An illustrative example is also presented to show the applicability and effectiveness of the proposed methodology.


Manucharyan Hayk
supplier evaluation supplier selection supply chain economics uncertainty fuzzy logic fuzzy inference system

WP(14/2017)243. The strength of the anchoring effect on Pay What You Want payments: Evidence from a vignette experiment

Authors: Kukla-Gryz Anna, Zagórska Katarzyna
The goal of this paper is to empirically investigate, on the example of eBooks, the effects of the expected quality, external and internal reference prices, risk-taking propensity and perceived costs of production on the size of the voluntary payment…

WP243. The strength of the anchoring effect on Pay What You Want payments: Evidence from a vignette experiment

The goal of this paper is to empirically investigate, on the example of eBooks, the effects of the expected quality, external and internal reference prices, risk-taking propensity and perceived costs of production on the size of the voluntary payments in pay-what-you-want (PWYW) scheme. Using the results of a vignette experiment, we show that independently from the expected quality of the eBook, when individual internal reference price is higher than external reference price, voluntary payments are significantly higher if external reference price is not provided. When the external reference price is not provided then PWYW payments depend positively on consumers' individual internal reference price, and the perceived percentage of the price believed to cover the author's compensation and the publication costs. The originality of the research comes from separating the anchoring effect of external reference prices from the quality signal effect.


DOI: https://doi.org/10.26405/WP/WNE/2017/243/014
Kukla-Gryz Anna, Zagórska Katarzyna
pay-what-you-want cultural goods uncertainty reference price experience goods

WP(7/2017)236. Stated Preferences for Conservation Policies under Uncertainty: Insights on Individuals’ Risk Attitudes in the Environmental Domain

Authors: Faccioli Michela, Kuhfuss Laure, Czajkowski Mikołaj
The outcome of a conservation policy is often subject to uncertainty. In stated preference valuation, there is increasing recognition that uncertainty affects preferences for environmental policies. However, there is also poor understanding regarding…

WP236. Stated Preferences for Conservation Policies under Uncertainty: Insights on Individuals’ Risk Attitudes in the Environmental Domain

The outcome of a conservation policy is often subject to uncertainty. In stated preference valuation, there is increasing recognition that uncertainty affects preferences for environmental policies. However, there is also poor understanding regarding people's perception of uncertainty per se and risk attitude. To shed more light on this, we designed a discrete choice experiment and compared preferences for environmental outcomes under climate change across two split samples, each confronted with a scenario where environmental outcomes are presented as either certain or uncertain (i.e. probabilistically) but displaying the same expected results. We find that, for an equal expected outcome, preferences vary between the certain and the uncertain treatment. These results indicate that risk attitudes impact stated preferences for conservation policies under uncertainty and reinforce the idea that uncertainty should be included in stated preference studies to provide more accurate and policy relevant results. Interestingly, we additionally find that risk attitudes appear to be both context- and individual- specific – the effect of uncertainty depends on the magnitude and direction of change of the environmental good and on individual's socio-demographic characteristics.


DOI: https://doi.org/10.26405/WP/WNE/2017/236/007
Faccioli Michela, Kuhfuss Laure, Czajkowski Mikołaj
stated preference valuation uncertainty risk attitude climate change conservation

WP(12/2016)203. What is the Causal Impact of Knowledge on Preferences in Stated Preference Studies?

Authors: LaRiviere Jacob, Czajkowski Mikołaj, Hanley Nick, Simpson Katherine
This paper reports the results of a stated preference experiment designed to test for how information provided in a survey affects knowledge, and how knowledge affects preferences for a public good. A novel experimental design allows us to elicit sub…

WP203. What is the Causal Impact of Knowledge on Preferences in Stated Preference Studies?

This paper reports the results of a stated preference experiment designed to test for how information provided in a survey affects knowledge, and how knowledge affects preferences for a public good. A novel experimental design allows us to elicit subjects’ ex ante knowledge levels about a good’s attributes, exogenously vary how much new objective information about these attributes we provide to subjects, elicit subjects’ valuation for the good, and elicit posterior knowledge states about the same attributes. We find evidence of incomplete learning and fatigue: as subjects are told more information, their marginal learning rates decrease. We find there is no marginal impact of knowledge on the mean nor the variance of WTP for changes in the environmental good; but that ex ante knowledge does affect stated WTP. Our results are consistent with preference formation models of confirmation bias, costly search, or timing differences in learning and preference formation. Our results raise questions about the purpose and effects of providing information in stated preference studies.


LaRiviere Jacob, Czajkowski Mikołaj, Hanley Nick, Simpson Katherine
Learning Information Behavioral Economics Decision Making Under Uncertainty

WP(30/2013)115. The Value of Familiarity: Effects of Experience, Knowledge and Signals on Willingness to Pay for a Public Good

Authors: LaRiviere Jacob, Czajkowski Mikołaj, Hanley Nick, Aanesen Margrethe, Falk-Petersen Jannike, Tinch Dugald
This paper compares how increases in experience versus increases in knowledge about a public good affect willingness to pay (WTP) for its provision. This is challenging because while consumers are often certain about their previous experiences with a…

WP115. The Value of Familiarity: Effects of Experience, Knowledge and Signals on Willingness to Pay for a Public Good

This paper compares how increases in experience versus increases in knowledge about a public good affect willingness to pay (WTP) for its provision. This is challenging because while consumers are often certain about their previous experiences with a good, they may be uncertain about the accuracy of their knowledge. We therefore design and conduct a field experiment in which treated subjects receive a precise and objective signal regarding their knowledge about a public good before estimating their WTP for it. Using data for two different public goods, we show qualitative equivalence of the effect of knowledge and experience on valuation for a public good. Surprisingly, though, we find that the causal effect of objective signals about the accuracy of a subject's knowledge for a public good can dramatically affect their valuation for it: treatment causes an increase of $150-$200 in WTP for well-informed individuals. We find no such effect for less informed subjects. Our results imply that WTP estimates for public goods are not only a function of true information states of the respondents but beliefs about those information states.


LaRiviere Jacob, Czajkowski Mikołaj, Hanley Nick, Aanesen Margrethe, Falk-Petersen Jannike, Tinch Dugald
Information Beliefs Field Experiment Valuation Uncertainty Choice Experiment
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