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 7

WP(10/2026)504. Clashing narratives about economic inequality in the economic and sociological textbooks

Authors: Weychert Ewa, Kopczewski Tomasz
Students of introductory economics courses pointed out that economic inequality the most significant challenge in the 21st century (Bowles & Carlin, 2020). However, there is limited research on how this issue is portrayed in introductory textbook…

WP504. Clashing narratives about economic inequality in the economic and sociological textbooks

Students of introductory economics courses pointed out that economic inequality the most significant challenge in the 21st century (Bowles & Carlin, 2020). However, there is limited research on how this issue is portrayed in introductory textbooks. Our study aims to investigate the presentation of economic inequality in economics textbooks compared to sociological ones. We conduct a mixed-method study to examine differences in how introductory economics and sociology textbooks portray economic inequality. By focusing on the comparison between economic and sociological textbooks, we aim to highlight the importance of an interdisciplinary approach to studying economic inequalities, as advocated by economist Thomas Piketty (Korom, 2019). Comparing textbooks across disciplines is essential for informing curriculum development, encouraging interdisciplinary learning, and enhancing the relevance of education to real-world issues. This comparison provides insights that help integrate diverse perspectives on economic inequality into educational practices in both disciplines. Our analysis includes twelve introductory economics textbooks and three introductory sociological textbooks. We find significant differences: top-selling economics textbooks focus on statistical measurements of inequality and the trade-off between equality and efficiency, while sociological textbooks consider economic inequality from historical, cultural, and philosophical perspectives.


DOI: https://doi.org/10.33138/2957-0506.2026.10.504
Weychert Ewa, Kopczewski Tomasz
income inequality wealth inequality textbook analysis narrative economics qualitative research

WP(10/2023)417. What if she earns more? Gender norms, income inequality, and the division of housework

Authors: Magda Iga, Cukrowska-Torzewska Ewa, Palczyńska Marta
Using data from “Generation and Gender Survey” for Poland, we study the relationship between women’s relative income within the household, as measured by the female share of total household income, and women’s involvement in h…

WP417. What if she earns more? Gender norms, income inequality, and the division of housework

Using data from “Generation and Gender Survey” for Poland, we study the relationship between women’s relative income within the household, as measured by the female share of total household income, and women’s involvement in housework. We find that households in which the woman contributes more to the total household income are more likely to share housework equally. We also find that individual gender norms matter both for women’s involvement in unpaid work at home and for the observed link between the female share of income and inequality between the partners in the division of housework. Women from less traditional households are found to be more likely to share housework equally. However, this negative relationship between the female share of household income and female involvement in housework is not observed among more traditional couples.


Magda Iga, Cukrowska-Torzewska Ewa, Palczyńska Marta
household income income inequality housework gender norms

WP(4/2023)411. Inequality and happiness: the role of income versus wealth inequality

Authors: Sałach-Dróżdż Katarzyna
There are conflicting theories about whether individuals like or dislike inequality, or in other words, whether living in an unequal country increases or decreases their subjective well-being. The empirical literature has also not yet reached a conse…

WP411. Inequality and happiness: the role of income versus wealth inequality

There are conflicting theories about whether individuals like or dislike inequality, or in other words, whether living in an unequal country increases or decreases their subjective well-being. The empirical literature has also not yet reached a consensus. In this paper, we add a new perspective to the inequality-happiness puzzle. First, we study not only income inequality, but also wealth inequality, which has so far been overlooked in the happiness literature. Second, we reach beyond the usually studied Gini coefficient and top income shares, looking also at the other parts of income or wealth distribution. Using data from the integrated World Values Surveys and European Values Surveys for over 50 countries, matched with World Inequality Database data over the years 1981-2020, we find that individuals are happier with increases in the top 10% and top 1% shares of wealth and less happy with increases in the middle 40% share of either wealth or pre-tax income. Increasing the bottom 50% share of after-tax income also makes individuals happier, suggesting that they favor income redistribution. We offer possible explanations for these findings.


Sałach-Dróżdż Katarzyna
income inequality wealth inequality happiness subjective well-being life satisfaction

WP(18/2019)303. Reevaluating distributional consequences of the transition to market economy in Poland: new results from combined household survey and tax return data

Authors: Brzeziński Michał, Myck Michał, Najsztub Mateusz
We use Pareto imputation, survey reweighting, and microsimulation methods applied to combined household survey and tax return data to reevaluate distributional consequences of the post-socialist transition in Poland. Our approach results in the first…

WP303. Reevaluating distributional consequences of the transition to market economy in Poland: new results from combined household survey and tax return data

We use Pareto imputation, survey reweighting, and microsimulation methods applied to combined household survey and tax return data to reevaluate distributional consequences of the post-socialist transition in Poland. Our approach results in the first estimates of top-corrected inequality trends for real equivalized disposable incomes over the years 1994-2015. We find that the top-corrected Gini coefficient grew by 14-26% more compared to the unadjusted survey-based estimates. This implies that over the last three decades Poland has become one of the most unequal European countries among those for which top-corrected inequality estimates exist. The highest-income earners benefited the most during the post-socialist transformation: the annual rate of in-come growth for the top 5% of the population exceeded 3.5%, while the median income grew by about 2.5%.


Brzeziński Michał, Myck Michał, Najsztub Mateusz
income inequality Gini index top income shares tax record survey data Pareto distribution Poland

WP(15/2018)274. Top incomes and subjective well-being

Authors: Brzeziński Michał
We use data from the World Wealth & Income Database, the European Values Surveys and World Values Surveys to estimate the relationship between top income shares and subjective well-being in a sample of 35 countries observed between 1980s and 2010…

WP274. Top incomes and subjective well-being

We use data from the World Wealth & Income Database, the European Values Surveys and World Values Surveys to estimate the relationship between top income shares and subjective well-being in a sample of 35 countries observed between 1980s and 2010s (139 surveys and more than 200,000 respondents). Results show that top 1% income shares are positively associated with happiness, but not with life satisfaction. The effect is present in a subsample of Western countries. We discuss possible explanations for the positive association between top income shares and happiness.


DOI: http://doi.org.10.26405/WP/WNE2018/274/015
Brzeziński Michał
top incomes subjective well-being life satisfaction happiness income inequality World Wealth & Income Database

WP(28/2017)257. Income inequality and the Great Recession in Central and Eastern Europe

Authors: Brzeziński Michał
This paper uses the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) data to study the changes in income inequality in Central and Eastern Europe during the Great Recession (2008-2012) and its determinants. Inequality changes are d…

WP257. Income inequality and the Great Recession in Central and Eastern Europe

This paper uses the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) data to study the changes in income inequality in Central and Eastern Europe during the Great Recession (2008-2012) and its determinants. Inequality changes are decomposed using an Oaxaca-Blinder-like decomposition analysis based on the Recentered Influence Function (RIF) methodology, which allows to split the overall change in inequality into endowment effects associated with changes in the distribution of inequality covariates and coefficient effects, which are related to the changing returns to these covariates. Our results show that the Gini for disposable incomes has increased over 2008-2012 in a statistically significant way for Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary and Slovenia. For most of the countries with significant inequality increases, falling full-time employment rate played the biggest role in explaining changes in inequality. It accounted for about 50-60% of the Gini change for disposable incomes and for about 60-80% of the Gini change for market incomes. The fall in full-time employment rate had a smaller inequality-increasing effect for disposable incomes in Hungary (about 15% of the Gini increase). Increased part-time employment during the recession had either no impact on inequality or was rather inequality-decreasing. We did not find evidence that changes in the incidence of temporary jobs had any impact on income inequality.


DOI: https://doi.org/10.26405/WP/WNE/2017/257/028
Brzeziński Michał
income inequality decomposition RIF regression Great Recession Central and Eastern Europe

WP(17/2012)83. Life Cycle Income and Consumption Patterns in Transition

Authors: Kolasa Aleksandra
There is vast literature examining how households' income and consumption change over the life cycle. These studies, however, are usually restricted to developed economies. The main objective of this paper is to add to this literature by investig…

WP83. Life Cycle Income and Consumption Patterns in Transition

There is vast literature examining how households' income and consumption change over the life cycle. These studies, however, are usually restricted to developed economies. The main objective of this paper is to add to this literature by investigating the life cycle profiles and relative income mobility in a transition economy, facing rapid structural economic and social changes, such as Poland. I show that, in contrast to the US, where income inequality over the life cycle follows a roughly linear trend, the age-variance profile of income in Poland is hump-shaped. This finding might indicate that the income process at a micro level in Poland exhibits less persistence than in the US. The estimates of relative income mobility confirm this conjecture.


Kolasa Aleksandra
consumption income life cycle profiles income inequality relative income mobility transition economy
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