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 8

WP(26/2024)462. Carbon taxes in Europe do not hurt the poor

Authors: Brzeziński Michał, Monika Kaczan
This study investigates the distributional impacts of carbon taxes, traditionally examined through simulation studies on the regressivity of hypothetical tax scenarios. However, the dy-namic influence of actually implemented carbon taxes on consumpti…

WP462. Carbon taxes in Europe do not hurt the poor

This study investigates the distributional impacts of carbon taxes, traditionally examined through simulation studies on the regressivity of hypothetical tax scenarios. However, the dy-namic influence of actually implemented carbon taxes on consumption/income poverty and inequality in a cross-country setting has been less scrutinised. This paper assesses the effect of carbon taxes introduced in the past three decades in 15 European countries on consumption shares of the lowest decile groups, poverty rates and inequality indices. The analysis shows that a $40/ton CO2 tax covering 30% of emissions leads to a consumption share increase of up to 4% for the bottom 20% and 40% of the population, a trend that persisted for five years post-implementation, particularly in nations that efficiently redistribute carbon tax revenues. This resulted in a modest reduction in consumption inequality over three years. In contrast, the impact of carbon taxes on income poverty and inequality is not statistically significant. These findings suggest that concerns about poverty and inequality due to carbon taxes can be miti-gated by implementing a moderate tax combined with a strategically efficient revenue redis-tribution mechanism.


DOI: https://doi.org/10.33138/2957-0506.2024.26.462
Brzeziński Michał, Monika Kaczan
climate policy carbon tax poverty inequality consumption/income distribution revenue re-cycling

WP(28/2022)404. The long-term impact of quasi-universal transfers to older households

Authors: Kolasa Aleksandra
One of the key challenges associated with current demographic trends is to provide adequate financial support to older households without jeopardizing fiscal sustainability or harming macroeconomic performance. Among possible policies, quasi-universa…

WP404. The long-term impact of quasi-universal transfers to older households

One of the key challenges associated with current demographic trends is to provide adequate financial support to older households without jeopardizing fiscal sustainability or harming macroeconomic performance. Among possible policies, quasi-universal transfers have recently gained traction in several countries. One example of this approach is the 13th Pension, introduced in 2019 in Poland. In this paper, I study the long-term aggregate, redistributive, and welfare effects of this type of program, and compare its impact to that of more standard elderly-oriented policies with similar fiscal costs. I also investigate how simple modifications would affect its costs and effectiveness. My analysis is based on a general equilibrium overlapping generations model of an open economy that incorporates family types, individual risk associated with earnings, health and mortality, and stochastic out-of-pocket expenses. According to the model simulations, a quasi-universal transfer to retired households such as the Polish 13th Pension program significantly improves the financial situation of a median pensioner but generates an aggregate welfare loss (under the veil of ignorance) equivalent to a 0.7% reduction in average household lifetime consumption. It also has only a moderate impact on average measures of poverty and inequality.


Kolasa Aleksandra
monetary poverty catastrophic health expenditure out-of-pocket medical expenses recursive probit models

WP(23/2022)399. The causal effect of catastrophic health expenditure on poverty in Poland

Authors: Kolasa Aleksandra, Weychert Ewa
Out-of-pocket medical expenses are a crucial source of health care financing in a number of countries, and thus a significant burden for many households. In particular, large health-related spending can lead to financial hardship and impoverishment. …

WP399. The causal effect of catastrophic health expenditure on poverty in Poland

Out-of-pocket medical expenses are a crucial source of health care financing in a number of countries, and thus a significant burden for many households. In particular, large health-related spending can lead to financial hardship and impoverishment. The aim of our study is to assess the direct impact of large out-of-pocket medical payments on household poverty, while properly accounting for endogeneity between these two variables. We use catastrophic health expenditure as a proxy for problematic health-related costs and estimate recursive bivariate probit models using Polish household-level panel data. We show that the causal relationship between catastrophic health expenditure and relative poverty is significant and positive across different methodological approaches. However, we find no empirical evidence that a one-time incidence of catastrophic health expenditure creates a poverty trap. We also show that using a poverty measure which treats out-of-pocket medical payments and food consumption as perfect substitutes can lead to an underestimation of poverty among the elderly.


Kolasa Aleksandra, Weychert Ewa
monetary poverty catastrophic health expenditure out-of-pocket medical expenses recursive probit models

WP(2/2013)87. Accounting for trends in health poverty: A decomposition analysis for Britain, 1991-2008

Authors: Brzeziński Michał
We use data from the British Household Panel Survey to analyse changes in poverty of self-reported health from 1991 to 2008. Recently introduced ordinal counterparts of the classical Foster, Greer, Thorbecke (1984) (FGT) poverty measures are used to …

WP87. Accounting for trends in health poverty: A decomposition analysis for Britain, 1991-2008

We use data from the British Household Panel Survey to analyse changes in poverty of self-reported health from 1991 to 2008. Recently introduced ordinal counterparts of the classical Foster, Greer, Thorbecke (1984) (FGT) poverty measures are used to decompose changes in self-reported health poverty over time into within-group health poverty changes and population shifts between groups. We also provide statistical inference for these ordinal FGT indices. Results suggest that the health poverty rate increased independently of health poverty threshold chosen. In case of other ordinal FGT indices, which are sensitive to depth and distribution of health poverty, results depend on the health poverty threshold. The subgroup decompositions of changes in total health poverty in Britain suggest that the most important poverty-increasing factors include a rise of both health poverty and population shares of persons cohabiting and couples with no children as well as an increase of the population of retired persons.


Brzeziński Michał
health poverty ordinal FGT measures self-reported health statistical inference British Household Panel Survey

WP(23/2011)63. Multidimensional poverty analysis in Polish gminas

Authors: Anacka Marta, Kobus Martyna
In this paper we present the results of multidimensional poverty analysis in five Polish gminas: Zgierz, Gliwice, Gostyń, Małogoszcz and Manowo. Income and educational attainment are two dimensions of well-being we consider. The analysis is based on …

WP63. Multidimensional poverty analysis in Polish gminas

In this paper we present the results of multidimensional poverty analysis in five Polish gminas: Zgierz, Gliwice, Gostyń, Małogoszcz and Manowo. Income and educational attainment are two dimensions of well-being we consider. The analysis is based on the concept of stochastic dominance known in the literature on decision making under uncertainty. In two out of ten cases bidimensional comparisons help to remove inconclusiveness that arises with unidimensional comparisons. Moreover, bidimensional approach indicates that Gostyń dominates other communities in terms of well-being (lack of poverty), which would be impossible to be revealed by unidimensional analysis only. This is due to low correlation of income and years of education. Association between variables is a distinctive feature of multidimensional analysis as opposed to comparing marginal distributions only (dimension by dimension separately). It means that it is less possible in Gostyń than in other gminas to be deprived in both dimensions. We also find a pattern that already emerged in other multidimensional results (Duclos, Sahn and Younger, 2006): multidimensional poverty can be greater in cities (Gliwice) than in areas that are at least partially rural (Gostyń).


Anacka Marta, Kobus Martyna
multidimensional poverty stochastic dominance rural and urban poverty

WP(19/2011)59. Accounting for recent trends in absolute poverty in Poland: A decomposition analysis

Authors: Brzeziński Michał
This paper uses several decomposition of poverty and poverty changes to identify factors explaining recent changes in absolute income and consumption poverty in Poland during 1998-2008. Shapley decompositions of poverty changes into growth and redist…

WP59. Accounting for recent trends in absolute poverty in Poland: A decomposition analysis

This paper uses several decomposition of poverty and poverty changes to identify factors explaining recent changes in absolute income and consumption poverty in Poland during 1998-2008. Shapley decompositions of poverty changes into growth and redistribution components show that fast economic growth was the main source of a radical fall in absolute poverty since 2005. Distributional changes had a more profound effect on absolute poverty during 1998-2005. Sectoral decompositions of poverty suggest that stagnant wages and pensions as well as growing unemployment were major factors accounting for increasing poverty between 1998 and 2005. Decompositions of poverty indices by income sources show that social insurance is the most effective income source in reducing poverty incidence in Poland, while social assistance is the most effective source in fighting intensity of poverty.


Brzeziński Michał
poverty growth inequality poverty decompositions transfers Poland

WP(18/2011)58. Has recent economic growth in Poland been pro-poor?

Authors: Brzeziński Michał
This paper applies two recently introduced measurement frameworks to analyze the effects of economic growth and inequality changes on the performance of the poor's living standard in Poland during the recent decade of 1998-2008. We use both an ap…

WP58. Has recent economic growth in Poland been pro-poor?

This paper applies two recently introduced measurement frameworks to analyze the effects of economic growth and inequality changes on the performance of the poor's living standard in Poland during the recent decade of 1998-2008. We use both an approach based on a general class of pro-poorness indices as well as dominance-based techniques, which allow for robust statistical inference on pro-poorness. Using repeated cross-sectional household survey data, we find that over the decade, there was a statistically significant absolute pro-poor growth in Poland for both disposable income and consumption. However, because of the increasing inequality, the rates of growth for incomes and consumption of the poor were generally lower than those of the non-poor. For this reason, economic growth over the decade was anti-poor in relative terms. The pro-poorness indices used suggest that the only episode of relative pro-poorness was for income growth during fast-growth years from 2005 to 2008. This result holds, however, only for a limited range of possible poverty lines.


Brzeziński Michał
pro-poor growth inequality absolute poverty economic transition Poland

WP(9/2009)19. Analysis of poverty in Poland in 1997 - 2000 using hazard models

Authors: Nehrebecka Natalia, Kocia Agata
In this work, the size and character of poverty in Poland was studied based on a panel data from CHER (Consortium of Household Panels for European Socio-Economic Research) database for the years 1997 - 2000. The analyses have shown a low households&#…

WP19. Analysis of poverty in Poland in 1997 - 2000 using hazard models

In this work, the size and character of poverty in Poland was studied based on a panel data from CHER (Consortium of Household Panels for European Socio-Economic Research) database for the years 1997 - 2000. The analyses have shown a low households' dynamic of income in this period. The sum of years spent in poverty as well as different sequences of entry to and exit from poverty suggest a permanence of this phenomenon in the population. During the period studied, the basis for the calculation of the number of years spent in poverty was the rate of exit from and entry to poverty. The calculations were made using a method of analyzing poverty based on hazard models, considering observed and unobserved heterogeneity of individuals in order to 'explain' a chance of exit and return to the sphere of poverty.


Nehrebecka Natalia, Kocia Agata
permanent poverty hazard models multi-time episodes unobserved heterogeneity
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