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 4

WP(14/2020)320. Why wealth inequality differs between post-socialist countries?

Authors: Brzeziński Michał, Sałach Katarzyna
We provide the first attempt to understand how differences in households' socio-demographic and economic characteristics account for disparities in wealth inequality between five post-socialist countries of Central and Eastern Europe. We use 2013…

WP320. Why wealth inequality differs between post-socialist countries?

We provide the first attempt to understand how differences in households' socio-demographic and economic characteristics account for disparities in wealth inequality between five post-socialist countries of Central and Eastern Europe. We use 2013/2014 data from the second wave of the Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS) and the reweighted Oaxaca-Blinder-like decompositions based on recentered influence function (RIF) regressions. Our results show that the differences in homeownership rates account for up to 42% of the difference in wealth inequality measured with the Gini index and for as much as 63-109% in case of the P50/P25 percentile ratio. Differences in homeownership rates are related to alternative designs of housing tax policies but could be also driven by other factors. We correct for the problem of the 'missing rich' in household surveys by calibrating the HFCS survey weights to top wealth shares adjusted using wealth data from national rich lists. Empirically, the correction procedure strengthens the importance of homeownership rates in accounting for cross-country wealth inequality differences, which suggests that our results are not sensitive to the significant underestimation of top wealth observations in the HFCS.


Brzeziński Michał, Sałach Katarzyna
wealth inequality decomposition recentered influence function (RIF) regressions survey weight calibration Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS) post-socialist transition Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) housing homeownership missing rich

WP(16/2011)56. Interactions between trade and environmental policies in the Czech economy

Authors: Kiuila Olga
Pollution charges are directly applied on exported and domestic, but not imported commodities. We investigate how environmental taxation affects foreign trade in the Czech Republic. Using computable general equilibrium modeling with bottom-up approac…

WP56. Interactions between trade and environmental policies in the Czech economy

Pollution charges are directly applied on exported and domestic, but not imported commodities. We investigate how environmental taxation affects foreign trade in the Czech Republic. Using computable general equilibrium modeling with bottom-up approach, we consider a small-open economy with endogenous unemployment, fixed exchange rate, ten types of taxes and six air-pollutants. Emission reduction is possible through substitution with less polluting inputs, a reduction of output, or abatement. The results show that the imports should not be affected, except coal and electricity. Exports will increase in the light and the biomass industries. The overall effect on the trade balance is slightly negative.


Kiuila Olga
calibration competitiveness computable general equilibrium modeling pollutions taxes

WP(15/2011)55. Overconfident for real? Proper scoring for confidence intervals.

Authors: Krawczyk Michał
Studies show that people tend to provide overly narrow confidence intervals for unknown values. Such a form of overconfidence would have an important impact on financial markets, among other domains, leading i.a. to excessive trading. The present stu…

WP55. Overconfident for real? Proper scoring for confidence intervals.

Studies show that people tend to provide overly narrow confidence intervals for unknown values. Such a form of overconfidence would have an important impact on financial markets, among other domains, leading i.a. to excessive trading. The present study is one of the very few that try to incentivize reporting correct confidence intervals. To this end, a reward scheme is proposed, based on a combination of asymmetric loss functions minimized by appropriate quantiles of a probability distribution. In the experiment I find that incentivized subjects provide wider confidence intervals, obtaining a higher hit rate than the control group. The effect is stronger than that of feedback and explicit warning. These findings suggest that the overly narrow confidence intervals reported elsewhere are partly due to an insufficient mental effort that subjects exert and that they can be induced to do so by the proposed incentive scheme.


Krawczyk Michał
overconfidence calibration confidence intervals proper scoring rules

WP(12/2011)52. Approximation of Marginal Abatement Cost Curve

Authors: Kiuila Olga, Rutherford Thomas F.
 Top-down models usually include piecewise-smooth functions to describe marginal cost curves, while bottom-up models describe those curves with a step function. When a bottom-up cost curve is available, we can explicitly represent this curve wit…

WP52. Approximation of Marginal Abatement Cost Curve

 Top-down models usually include piecewise-smooth functions to describe marginal cost curves, while bottom-up models describe those curves with a step function. When a bottom-up cost curve is available, we can explicitly represent this curve with a top-down model in order to replicate its shape instead of arbitrary assumptions. We propose methods to approximate a piecewise function from a step function using constant elasticity of substitution technologies. Specifically, we consider a pollution abatement sector and calibrate the parameters of the abatement function in order to be able properly to assess the economic effects of an environmental policy. Our methodology can be applied to any sector characterized by decreasing returns to scale technologies. We conclude that the elasticities of substitution need not be estimated only on the basis of historical data, but can be precisely calibrated on the basis of engineering estimates of technology potential.


Kiuila Olga, Rutherford Thomas F.
elasticity of substitution calibration abatement top-down and bottom-up modeling
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