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 5

WP(25/2026)519. Biodiversity-oriented forest management aligns with societal preferences across Europe

Authors: Giergiczny Marek, Jacobsen Jette Bredahl, Glenk Klaus, Meyerhoff Jürgen, Abildtrup Jens, Taye Fitalew Agimass, Budziński Wiktor, Czajkowski Mikołaj, Draus Borys, Faccioli Michela, Gajderowicz Tomasz, Getzner Michael, Hackbarth Tom X., Janiec Piotr, Lundhede Thomas, Mayer Marius, McVittie Alistair, Oh Rachel, Olschewski Roland, Pereira Henrique M., Quaas Martin, Socha Jarosław, Strange Niels, Ščasný Milan, Valasiuk Sviataslau, Wasiak Adam, Fernández Néstor
Forests across Europe are undergoing rapid transformation as biodiversity loss and climate change reshape priorities for forest management. Strategies that promote biodiverse and structurally complex forests are increasingly advocated to enhance ecol…

WP519. Biodiversity-oriented forest management aligns with societal preferences across Europe

Forests across Europe are undergoing rapid transformation as biodiversity loss and climate change reshape priorities for forest management. Strategies that promote biodiverse and structurally complex forests are increasingly advocated to enhance ecological resilience, yet they are often assumed to conflict with societal preferences, potentially limiting public support for conservation and restoration. We examined whether forest characteristics associated with biodiversity conservation and climate adaptation are consistently valued by society across Europe. We combined a visual discrete choice experiment involving 11,622 respondents from twelve European countries with a travel cost model to evaluate whether stated societal preferences were reflected in observed recreational behaviour. We then integrated harmonized preference estimates with continental forest inventory and remote-sensing data to map the spatial distribution of societal values associated with forest ecosystem condition. Across all countries, respondents consistently preferred forests characterized by taller canopies, greater tree-species richness, heterogeneous age structures, and more deadwood. These preferences closely aligned with observed visitation behaviour despite substantial differences in geography, accessibility, and recreational traditions. Spatial analyses further showed that forests with greater structural complexity consistently exhibited higher societal value. Our findings demonstrate that biodiversity-oriented forest management and societal values largely converge across Europe, suggesting that many interventions promoting ecological resilience can simultaneously strengthen public support for forest conservation and restoration, providing a stronger foundation for adaptive, multifunctional forest governance under global environmental change.


DOI: https://doi.org/10.33138/2957-0506.2026.25.519
Giergiczny Marek, Jacobsen Jette Bredahl, Glenk Klaus, Meyerhoff Jürgen, Abildtrup Jens, Taye Fitalew Agimass, Budziński Wiktor, Czajkowski Mikołaj, Draus Borys, Faccioli Michela, Gajderowicz Tomasz, Getzner Michael, Hackbarth Tom X., Janiec Piotr, Lundhede Thomas, Mayer Marius, McVittie Alistair, Oh Rachel, Olschewski Roland, Pereira Henrique M., Quaas Martin, Socha Jarosław, Strange Niels, Ščasný Milan, Valasiuk Sviataslau, Wasiak Adam, Fernández Néstor
biodiversity conservation forest management structural complexity forest recreation ecosystem services discrete choice experiment travel cost method

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(19/2014)136. Buying spatially-coordinated ecosystem services and biodiversity conservation on forest land: an experiment on the role of auction format and communication.

Authors: Bartczak Anna, Krawczyk Michał, Hanley Nick, Stenger Anne
Procurement auctions are one of several policy tools available to incentivise the provision of ecosystem services and biodiversity conservation. Successful biodiversity conservation often requires a landscape-scale approach and the spatial coordinati…

WP136. Buying spatially-coordinated ecosystem services and biodiversity conservation on forest land: an experiment on the role of auction format and communication.

Procurement auctions are one of several policy tools available to incentivise the provision of ecosystem services and biodiversity conservation. Successful biodiversity conservation often requires a landscape-scale approach and the spatial coordination of participation, for example in the creation of wildlife corridors. In this paper, we use a laboratory experiment to explore two features of procurement auctions in a forest landscape?the pricing mechanism (uniform vs. discriminatory) and availability of communication (chat) between potential sellers. We modify the experimental design developed by Reeson et al. (2011) by introducing uncertainty (and hence heterogeneity) in the production value of forest sites as well as an automated, endogenous stopping rule. We find that discriminatory pricing yields to greater environmental benefits per government dollar spent, chiefly due to better coordination between owners of adjacent plots. Chat also facilitates such coordination but also seems to encourage collusion in sustaining high prices for the most environmentally attractive plots. These two effects offset each other, making chat neutral from the viewpoint of maximizing environmental effect per dollar spent.


Bartczak Anna, Krawczyk Michał, Hanley Nick, Stenger Anne
conservation auctions spatial coordination chat in experiments discriminatory and uniform auctions biodiversity conservation provision of ecosystem services

WP(14/2012)80. Valuing the chances of survival of two distinct Eurasian lynx populations in Poland. Do people want to keep doors open?

Authors: Bartczak Anna, Meyerhoff Jürgen
This survey deals with valuing the social benefits of increasing chances of survival of the two main Eurasian lynx populations in Poland: the Lowland population and the Carpathian one. The populations are exposed to different risks of extinction. Usi…

WP80. Valuing the chances of survival of two distinct Eurasian lynx populations in Poland. Do people want to keep doors open?

This survey deals with valuing the social benefits of increasing chances of survival of the two main Eurasian lynx populations in Poland: the Lowland population and the Carpathian one. The populations are exposed to different risks of extinction. Using a discrete choice experiment we examined the influence of the initial degree of endangerment of those lynx populations on respondents' funds allocation. The results show that instead of investing in the option with the expected higher outcome a main driver of individuals' decisions regarding the conservation of threatened species seems to be loss aversion. Thus, people seem to try to keep options (doors) open by investing more in the more vulnerable population. Moreover, employing a scale-extended latent class model allowed to detect segments among individuals showing different types of response behavior and therefore improved the accuracy of the willingness to pay estimates considerably compared to a conditional logit model.


Bartczak Anna, Meyerhoff Jürgen
discrete choice models loss aversion Lynx conservation scale-extended latent class model threatened species

WP(10/2012)76. More random or more deterministic choices? The effects of information on preferences for biodiversity conservation

Authors: Czajkowski Mikołaj, Hanley Nick
For many years, stated preference researchers have been interested in the effects of information on willingness to pay for environmental goods. Within the random utility model, information about an environmental good might impact on preferences and o…

WP76. More random or more deterministic choices? The effects of information on preferences for biodiversity conservation

For many years, stated preference researchers have been interested in the effects of information on willingness to pay for environmental goods. Within the random utility model, information about an environmental good might impact on preferences and on scale (error variance), both between and within samples of choices. In this paper, we extend the G-MNL model to investigate the effects of different information sets on choices over the management of biodiversity in the UK, looking specifically at moorlands managed for red grouse shooting. Specifically, we make the individual scale parameter a function of observable (dataset-specific) characteristics. Our results show that changing information sets results in significant differences in the mean scale between datasets, and in the variance of scale. Respondents are more deterministic in their choices and show lower within-sample scale heterogeneity in the alternative information treatment. Changes in information provision also effect willingness to pay estimates, reducing the value people place on the conservation of two iconic birds of prey. The methods used will also be of interest to researchers who need to combine choice experiment data sets.


Czajkowski Mikołaj, Hanley Nick
choice modelling information effects scale scale heterogeneity G-MNL heather moorland management raptor conservation combined SP-RP
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