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.

Please send your paper by e-mail: OH8G-Z[MCo?rNKW@~LyX4]Ax%12]#[G4#/qIC={`{eBbO#dUoPAC|n0|y 

Please send 2 files:

(1) the main text without the title of the article and the authors (DOC/DOCX file) and

(2) the title page including: the title of the paper, the authors and their affiliation (DOC/DOCX file).

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Number of Results 7

WP(26/2015)174. "Thou shalt not leech" Are digital pirates conditional cooperators?

Authors: Hardy Wojciech, Krawczyk Michał, Tyrowicz Joanna
In this project we investigate willingness to share and download cultural content by implementing a novel "piracy game" modelled after standard public good games. Subjects' decisions have real consequence, as they are rewarded with indi…

WP174. "Thou shalt not leech" Are digital pirates conditional cooperators?

In this project we investigate willingness to share and download cultural content by implementing a novel "piracy game" modelled after standard public good games. Subjects' decisions have real consequence, as they are rewarded with individual "transfer" on a file-sharing service. We find that willingness to share depends positively on the sharing by others. Interestingly, however, this tendency does not seem to be associated with reciprocity or other-regarding social preferences. We employ several measures of sharing - from self-reporting to experimental - and incorporate to the analysis other factors which may explain the autonomous willingness to share, irrespective of the group effects. We find that conditional cooperation in content sharing is fairly prevalent, but unrelated to personality traits, attitude towards risk, attitude towards the other, marginal valuation, as well as socio-demographic characteristics.


Hardy Wojciech, Krawczyk Michał, Tyrowicz Joanna
digital piracy Big Five public goods laboratory experiment

WP(23/2015)171. Friends or foes? A meta-analysis of the link between "online piracy'" and sales of cultural goods

Authors: Hardy Wojciech, Krawczyk Michał, Tyrowicz Joanna
Over the past decade or so, the literature has sprung in analyses of the impact the so-called online or digital "piracy'" has on sales. Since theory posits both positive and negative effects are possible, the question remains purely emp…

WP171. Friends or foes? A meta-analysis of the link between "online piracy'" and sales of cultural goods

Over the past decade or so, the literature has sprung in analyses of the impact the so-called online or digital "piracy'" has on sales. Since theory posits both positive and negative effects are possible, the question remains purely empirical. Consequently, there is a variety of published articles and working papers arguing in both ways, many of which attempt to account for the challenge of providing a reliable and causal effect. The objective of this survey is to review and discuss the accomplishments of the field so far. We also provide a tentative meta-analysis. Despite the multiplicity of measures and methods used we argue that the literature as a whole fails to reject the null hypothesis of no effects on sales.


Hardy Wojciech, Krawczyk Michał, Tyrowicz Joanna
digital piracy cultural goods meta analysis

WP(23/2014)140. Internet piracy and book sales: a field experiment

Authors: Hardy Wojciech, Krawczyk Michał, Tyrowicz Joanna
We report the results of an experimental study analyzing the effects of Internet piracy on book sales. We conducted a year-long controlled large-scale field experiment with pre-treatment pair matching. Half of the book titles received experimental tr…

WP140. Internet piracy and book sales: a field experiment

We report the results of an experimental study analyzing the effects of Internet piracy on book sales. We conducted a year-long controlled large-scale field experiment with pre-treatment pair matching. Half of the book titles received experimental treatment, in which a specialized agency would immediately remove any unauthorized copy appearing on the Internet. For the other half we merely registered such occurrences, but no countermeasures were taken. For all the titles we obtained print and e-book sales statistics from the publishers. We find that removal of unauthorized copies was an effective method of curbing piracy, but this had no bearing on legal sales.


Hardy Wojciech, Krawczyk Michał, Tyrowicz Joanna
digital piracy e-books field experiment

WP(10/2014)127. We all do it, but are we willing to admit? Incentivizing digital pirates' confessions.

Authors: Kukla-Gryz Anna, Krawczyk Michał, Siwiński Konrad, Tyrowicz Joanna
In this study we try to assess the prevalence of illicit downloading in the market of audio books and the willingness to admit to such practices. We compare the Bayesian Truth Serum (Prelec, 2004) treatment in which truthful responses and precise est…

WP127. We all do it, but are we willing to admit? Incentivizing digital pirates' confessions.

In this study we try to assess the prevalence of illicit downloading in the market of audio books and the willingness to admit to such practices. We compare the Bayesian Truth Serum (Prelec, 2004) treatment in which truthful responses and precise estimates are rewarded to the control treatment with a flat participation fee. We find a sizable treatment effect - incentivized ?pirates? admit approximately 60% more often than the non-incentivized ones.


Kukla-Gryz Anna, Krawczyk Michał, Siwiński Konrad, Tyrowicz Joanna
illegal download digital piracy Bayesian Truth Serum wages

WP(25/2013)110. Pirates in the lab. Using incentivized choice experiments to explore preference for (un)authorized content.

Authors: Ćwiakowski Piotr, Giergiczny Marek, Krawczyk Michał
We report a laboratory experiment aimed at investigating factors affecting choice between different versions of a full-length movie. In particular, we estimate the willingness to pay for a legal, rather than pirated copy and compare it to the impact …

WP110. Pirates in the lab. Using incentivized choice experiments to explore preference for (un)authorized content.

We report a laboratory experiment aimed at investigating factors affecting choice between different versions of a full-length movie. In particular, we estimate the willingness to pay for a legal, rather than pirated copy and compare it to the impact of such characteristics as picture quality or delay in delivery. We find a modest but highly significant preference for the authorized version. By conducting otherwise identical choice experiments both with and without actual experiential and monetary consequences, we conclude that the method does not seem to suffer from hypothetical bias. We also find that when the proceeds from legal sale are transferred to a good cause, willingness to pay for the unauthorized copy is reduced.


Ćwiakowski Piotr, Giergiczny Marek, Krawczyk Michał
digital piracy choice experiments

WP(24/2013)109. Why is online piracy ethically different from theft? A vignette experiment.

Authors: Hardy Wojciech, Krawczyk Michał, Tyrowicz Joanna
This study employs a vignette experiment to inquire, which features of online "piracy" make it ethically discernible from a traditional theft. This question is pertinent since the social norm concerning traditional theft is starkly differen…

WP109. Why is online piracy ethically different from theft? A vignette experiment.

This study employs a vignette experiment to inquire, which features of online "piracy" make it ethically discernible from a traditional theft. This question is pertinent since the social norm concerning traditional theft is starkly different from the evidence on ethical evaluation of online "piracy". We specifically distinguish between contextual features of theft, such as for example the physical loss of an item, breach of protection, availability of alternatives, emotional proximity to the victim of theft, etc. We find that some of these dimensions have more weight in ethical judgment, but there are no clear differences between online and traditional theft which could explain discrepancy in the frequency of commitment.


Hardy Wojciech, Krawczyk Michał, Tyrowicz Joanna
vignette experiment illegal downloading digital piracy illegal download downloading behaviour P2P networkv

WP(22/2013)107. Piracy as an ethical decision

Authors: Kobus Martyna, Krawczyk Michał
We consider a monopolist producer of information goods that may be subject to unauthorized copying. The key feature of our model is that we allow consumers to have ethical concerns based on equity theory that may reduce their utility of such a copy. …

WP107. Piracy as an ethical decision

We consider a monopolist producer of information goods that may be subject to unauthorized copying. The key feature of our model is that we allow consumers to have ethical concerns based on equity theory that may reduce their utility of such a copy. We derive the formulas describing demand for the product. We find that piracy reduces prices and producers' profit, an effect that can be limited by such measures as copyright enforcement (proxied by expected value of punishment for piracy) and anti-piracy campaigns. Welfare effects are also analyzed and generally turn out to be ambiguous.


Kobus Martyna, Krawczyk Michał
digital piracy copyright protection equity theory
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