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: hTaq10f~2Vl=CNk$3KnD/'^O{WI]#[`DT]uyNonGR-3ecosTd88hCE*H2 

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).

Please read the detailed editing requirements before submitting your text. 

Number of Results 2

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(26/2018)285. Benefit Transfer and Commodity Measurement Scales: Consequences for Validity and Reliability

Authors: Johnston Robert J., Zawojska Ewa
Non-market goods can be measured on cardinal or relative scales. Consider a marsh of two hundred acres, of which twenty acres would be affected by a policy. The same affected area can be measured in cardinal terms (twenty acres) or as a relative prop…

WP285. Benefit Transfer and Commodity Measurement Scales: Consequences for Validity and Reliability

Non-market goods can be measured on cardinal or relative scales. Consider a marsh of two hundred acres, of which twenty acres would be affected by a policy. The same affected area can be measured in cardinal terms (twenty acres) or as a relative proportion (ten percent of the marsh). This seemingly inconsequential transformation can have significant implications for benefit transfer across sites—a simple observation that remains unacknowledged by the literature. This article provides the first theoretical and empirical evaluation of variable measurement conventions within benefit transfer, deriving conditions under which different types of measurement scales are expected to enhance validity and reliability. Theoretical results are illustrated using an application of discrete choice experiments to coastal flood adaptation in two Connecticut (USA) communities. Empirical findings validate expectations from the theoretical model, with both suggesting that transfers over goods measured in relative units may substantially outperform transfers over goods measured in cardinal units.


DOI: http://doi.org.10.26405/WP/WNE/2018/285/026
Johnston Robert J., Zawojska Ewa
Benefit Transfer; Flood Adaptation; Measurement; Scale; Reliability; Stated Preference; Validity; Willingness to Pay
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