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: R3pxc/V9=Uyi42!^]vA*1mIX@?Q]#[J}cdMx=*vF_\'MwMC!3|=S*NI+= 

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 4

WP(1/2025)464. Industrial robots and workers’ well-being in Europe

Authors: Bogusz Honorata, Daniela Bellani
In the 21st century, advancements in technologies such as industrial robots have raised concerns about their impact on employment and wages, prompting extensive research. However, their effects on workers’ subjective well-being remain underexpl…

WP464. Industrial robots and workers’ well-being in Europe

In the 21st century, advancements in technologies such as industrial robots have raised concerns about their impact on employment and wages, prompting extensive research. However, their effects on workers’ subjective well-being remain underexplored. This study addresses this gap ¬by examining whether workers experience a decline in well-being due to a loss of agency or maintain it by leveraging human skills to adapt to automation. Using data from the International Federation of Robotics, Eurostat, and the European Social Survey (2002–2018), we link robot density at the country-industry-year level to workers’ life satisfaction, happiness, job influence, and health. Employing an instrumental variables approach, we find that robot adoption negatively affects medium-educated workers’ well-being, particularly its eudaimonic dimension, supporting the decreasing agency thesis. In contrast, low- and highly educated workers experience positive effects. These impacts are more pronounced among women and weaker in countries with robust compensatory social policies.


DOI: https://doi.org/10.33138/2957-0506.2025.1.464 WNE_WP464.pdf
Bogusz Honorata, Daniela Bellani
industrial robots well-being life satisfaction Europe education

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(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(27/2017)256. Diagnosing unhappiness dynamics: Evidence from Poland and Russia

Authors: Brzeziński Michał
This paper studies the determinants of changes in unhappiness rate (low happiness, poverty of happiness, misery) over time. We focus on two post-socialist countries, Poland and Russia, which experienced radical social and economic transformations sin…

WP256. Diagnosing unhappiness dynamics: Evidence from Poland and Russia

This paper studies the determinants of changes in unhappiness rate (low happiness, poverty of happiness, misery) over time. We focus on two post-socialist countries, Poland and Russia, which experienced radical social and economic transformations since the collapse of communism. Using data from the Polish Social Diagnosis project for 1991-2015 and data from the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey for 1994-2014, we investigate the microeconomic determinants of spectacular declines in unhappiness rates observed in the studied periods in Poland (a 56% fall in unhappiness) and Russia (a drop in the range from 46 to 75% depending on the unhappiness threshold chosen). Using a nonlinear decomposition methodology, we split the overall decreases in unhappiness rates into characteristics effects (related to the changing distribution of unhappiness-affecting factors) and coefficients effects (due to changing returns to the unhappiness-affecting factors). Our results show that unhappiness reductions in both countries were mostly driven by coefficient effects, while characteristics played a smaller, but a non-negligible role. In both countries, income growth accounted for about 15% of the total unhappiness reduction. In Russia, this effect was doubled by growing return to income as unhappiness-protecting factor, while in Poland income has been losing protecting power and in overall income had an unhappiness-increasing effect. For Russia, another strong unhappiness-protecting factor was return to employment. In case of Poland, good self-rated health and having children explains additional 15-20% of the unhappiness reduction.


DOI: https://doi.org/10.26405/WP/WNE/2017/256/027
Brzeziński Michał
Happiness unhappiness life satisfaction decomposition determinants Poland Russia
  • 1