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: ^./4[jl1L`J0*5pE=d9]Y!xn_a+]#[Vx|zEYT|*Q+}xPh0zm/Ube]dhRs 

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).

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Number of Results 2

WP(22/2026)516. When Risk Information Changes the Trip: Evidence from a Randomized Panel Combining Discrete Choice and Travel Cost Methods

Authors: Czajkowski Mikołaj, Zawadzki Wojciech, Skrzypek Katarzyna, Budziński Wiktor, Ščasnŷ Milan
Coastal bathing delivers large welfare benefits but exposes recreationists to low-probability, high-salience microbial risks that are likely to become more frequent under climate change. Because these risks are largely invisible, behaviour and welfar…

WP516. When Risk Information Changes the Trip: Evidence from a Randomized Panel Combining Discrete Choice and Travel Cost Methods

Coastal bathing delivers large welfare benefits but exposes recreationists to low-probability, high-salience microbial risks that are likely to become more frequent under climate change. Because these risks are largely invisible, behaviour and welfare depend on beliefs and the effectiveness of risk communication. We provide causal evidence on how pathogen-risk information affects preferences and recreation demand using a three-wave panel survey of users of the Gulf of Gdańsk and the Vistula Lagoon (Poland). A stratified national sample identified 3,312 active coastal users in Wave 1 (spring 2024); 2,588 respondents returned in Wave 2 (summer 2024), where they were randomly assigned to receive either minimal information or increasingly detailed pathogen-risk scripts, and then completed a repeated beach-site discrete choice experiment. Approximately one year later (spring 2025), 1,507 users completed a policy-referendum discrete choice experiment on programs combining water-quality improvements, monitoring frequency, and household costs, alongside a repeated travel-cost module capturing multi-day trips and beach outings. Information treatments significantly increased objective and self-assessed knowledge and selectively raised willingness to travel/pay for risk-relevant attributes – especially frequent water-quality monitoring and water-quality improvements – while leaving unrelated attributes largely unchanged. Travel-cost models indicate that information affects trip-taking behaviour, yet the marginal travel-cost sensitivity remains stable, consistent with a demand shift rather than a change in the “price” slope. The results imply that welfare estimates are information-dependent and that credible risk communication can function as a scalable, low-cost complement to traditional coastal health-risk management.


DOI: https://doi.org/10.33138/2957-0506.2026.22.516
Czajkowski Mikołaj, Zawadzki Wojciech, Skrzypek Katarzyna, Budziński Wiktor, Ščasnŷ Milan
Bathing water quality Pathogens Microbial contamination Risk communication Information treatments Discrete choice experiment (DCE) Travel cost method (TCM) Recreation demand Welfare measurement Consumer surplus Climate adaptation Coastal health risks Baltic Sea Poland

WP(13/2026)507. Did Living Standards Converge? Beyond GDP in Post-Socialist Europe and Russia

Authors: Brzeziński Michał
Three decades after the fall of communism, GDP convergence is widely cited as evidence that the post-socialist transition succeeded. But GDP is a narrow measure of living standards. This paper asks whether convergence toward Western Europe holds up o…

WP507. Did Living Standards Converge? Beyond GDP in Post-Socialist Europe and Russia

Three decades after the fall of communism, GDP convergence is widely cited as evidence that the post-socialist transition succeeded. But GDP is a narrow measure of living standards. This paper asks whether convergence toward Western Europe holds up once health, inequality, and leisure are also taken into account. We construct a comprehensive welfare measure for Poland, Czechia, Hungary, Slovakia, and Russia, benchmarked against Germany, covering the 1980s through 2022. In every country, welfare relative to Germany falls well below what GDP alone would suggest. Russia’s welfare stands at roughly half its GDP level, driven by the post-Soviet mortality crisis and extreme inequality—challenging characterisations of Russia as a “normal” middle-income country. Hungary, conventionally grouped with the Visegrad convergence successes, suffers a substantial welfare shortfall driven by decades of poor health outcomes. Poland emerges as the strongest performer in convergence dynamics. Life expectancy is the largest contributor to this gap.


DOI: https://doi.org/10.33138/2957-0506.2026.13.507
Brzeziński Michał
welfare measurement Eastern Europe Russia transition economies living standards life expectancy inequality
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