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 5

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(4/2018)263. A New Baseline Model for Estimating Willingness to Pay from Discrete Choice Models

Authors: Carson Richard T., Czajkowski Mikołaj
We show a substantive problem exists with the widely-used ratio of coefficients approach to calculating willingness to pay (WTP) from choice models. The correctly calculated standard error for WTP using this approach is shown to always be infinity. A…

WP263. A New Baseline Model for Estimating Willingness to Pay from Discrete Choice Models

We show a substantive problem exists with the widely-used ratio of coefficients approach to calculating willingness to pay (WTP) from choice models. The correctly calculated standard error for WTP using this approach is shown to always be infinity. A variant of this problem has long been recognized for mixed logit models. We show it occurs even in simple models like the conditional logit used as a baseline reference specification. It occurs because the standard error for the cost parameter implies some possibility that the true parameter value is arbitrarily close to zero. We propose a simple yet elegant way to overcome this problem by reparameterizing the coefficient of the (negative) cost variable to enforce the theoretically correct (and empirically almost always found) positive coefficient using an exponential transformation of the original parameter. This reparameterization enforces the desired restriction that no-part of the confidence region for original cost parameter spans zero. With it the confidence interval for WTP is now finite and well behaved. Our proposed model is straightforward to implement using readily available software. Its log-likelihood value is the same as the usual baseline discrete choice model and we recommend its use as the new standard baseline reference model.


DOI: http://doi.org.10.26405/WP/WNE/2018/263/004
Carson Richard T., Czajkowski Mikołaj
conditional logit confidence intervals contingent valuation delta method discrete choice experiment Krinsky-Robb multinomial logit probit welfare measures

WP(5/2015)153. Why do users choose Open Source software? Analysis of the network effect

Authors: Celińska Dorota, Lasek Mirosława
This article analyses the phenomenon of using the Open Source software. Its aim is to verify the existence of a positive direct network effect that characterizes using of the Open Source software. The multivariate probit model is used to extract fact…

WP153. Why do users choose Open Source software? Analysis of the network effect

This article analyses the phenomenon of using the Open Source software. Its aim is to verify the existence of a positive direct network effect that characterizes using of the Open Source software. The multivariate probit model is used to extract factors motivating users to the usage of the Open Source software. Special attention is paid to demographic characteristics of users, as well as to the impact of users' acquaintances, such as family, work and school on using the Open Source software. The results of the conducted analysis confirm our research. 


Celińska Dorota, Lasek Mirosława
Open Source software source code end user characteristics network effect multivariate probit motivation

WP(11/2010)34. Transition to full-time employment status based on two-equation and three-equation probit model with endogenous switching

Authors: Nehrebecka Natalia
This paper examines employment transitions among men and women in Poland aged between 20 and 65 based on the data from the CHER (Consortium of Household Panels for European Socio-Economic Research). The research results show that the state of the per…

WP34. Transition to full-time employment status based on two-equation and three-equation probit model with endogenous switching

This paper examines employment transitions among men and women in Poland aged between 20 and 65 based on the data from the CHER (Consortium of Household Panels for European Socio-Economic Research). The research results show that the state of the person in a given year is not only dependent upon his/her state in the previous year, but also upon whether he/she was in that state the years before. Moreover, the study proves that the impact of individual characteristics of persons on the conditional probability of retaining a given status depends on the persons' employment record, which confirms the rejection of the null hypothesis regarding the 'interdependence of states'. As a result of this study, we can determine that, as expected, being in a given state, just like entry in to that state, are conditioned by demographic characteristics and the human capital of the respondent, as well as by the characteristics of the household, although the impact of these variables depends on the occupational background of that person. This implies that every individual may get trapped in non-employment and, ideally, policy should intervene as soon as the individual begins non-employment period. This article also includes statistics describing the duration of each status and time spent outside of the status by persons with different combinations of characteristics calculated based on the parameter estimation of the model.


Nehrebecka Natalia
two-equation and three-equation probit model with endogenous switching initial conditions problem labour market transitions
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