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How can the EU become more inclusive, innovative, and achieve sustainable growth? According to Magnus Henrekson, Niklas Elert and Mark Sanders, Utrecht University, entrepreneurship is the answer. This is the message of their new book The Entrepreneurial Society: A Reform Strategy for the European Union. This was also their message when Elert and Henrekson presented their research at a lecture arranged by ESBRI, the Entrepreneurship and Small Business Research Institute.

The Italian economist Marco Pagano, University of Naples Federico II, visited the Research Institute of Industrial Economics this week. His area of expertise is Labor and Finance, an area that is central to IFN’s research program Globalization and Corporate Restructuring.

On Thursday Özge Öner, IFN and the University of Cambridge, received the Young Researcher Award 2019 for "significant contributions to our understanding of entrepreneurship," explained the chairman of the prize committee Martin Andersson, professor at Blekinge Institute of Technology. The prize sum is SEK 150,000 and is given every year, alternately to a man and a woman, by the Entrepreneurship Forum. "We try to understand what the place means for the economy and for, among other things, entrepreneurship," Öner explained in her prize lecture.

The EU needs reforms in six different areas for a more dynamic and competitive entrepreneurship, according to IFN:s Niklas Elert and Magnus Henrekson. They have co-authored the new book The Entrepreneurial Society: A Reform Strategy for the European Union with Mark Sanders, Utrecht University. Magnus Henrekson, CEO of the IFN, presented the book at a seminar open to the public at Näringslivets Hus on September 12th.

Magnus Henrekson, CEO of IFN, presenting the new book  The Entrepreneurial Society: A Reform Strategy for the European Union. Photo: Karl Gabor

How do Swedish taxes compare to other OECD countries? This is the topic of a report published by SNS.
Åsa Hansson, University of Lund and affiliated to IFN talked about the report at a seminar at SNS. Sweden, being a small country, needs to lower corporate taxes to be competitive on a global market, said Åsa Hansson.

Professor Magnus Henrekson, Managing director of IFN, has been appointed by the Government to propose who should be Chairman and further members of the Board of Lund University. He is one of two appointees that will give their suggestions for the operational period of May 2020 - April 2023. The other nominee is Maria Arnholm, former Minister of Gender Equality and the Liberals party secretary.

A report about digitalization in health care by Mårten Blix, IFN, and Charlotta Levay, Lund University, was presented by the Expert Group on Public Economics (ESO) in Swedish in December 2018 and is now published in English. "New technology enables citizens to better monitor their health, take preventive measures, and, if necessary, take more control of their health situation" Blix and Levay argue. "Technology can thus enable more and better quality care, despite fewer physical care visits."

In the summer of 2018, Hedda Nielsen started working as a research assistant at IFN. Now, a year later, she is leaving the institute to begin doctoral studies at the Berlin School of Economics & Humboldt University in Berlin. She explains that at IFN, she has gained insight into many different research areas and learned a lot about data processing.

On Monday, the first academic brown bag seminar of the fall was held at IFN (research at an early stage).  Johanna Möllerström, George Mason University in Washington DC and affiliate of IFN,  presented the study "A Meritocratic Origin of Egalitarian Behavior." In experiments, the researchers have studied how people (in the US and Norway) believe that it is fair to redistribute income - depending on who is responsible for the best performance. And what does it mean when you do not know for sure whose performance is the best?

"It was great that my time as a summer assistant at IFN started with this year's Summer get-together," says Kajsa Rudal. This event involves almost all researchers and employees. "I immediately learned who was who," she explains. Kajsa says she learned a lot about data processing, which she will benefit greatly from in the future. And, she has had no dull and monotonous tasks. "IFN is a friendly workplace, " she explains.

For a couple of years now, the Research Institute of Industrial Economics has been filming public activities organized by the Institute. By subscribing, you can see all the videos immediately when posted, which is usually later the same day that an event takes place. There are also videos explaining what the researchers are working on in the various research programs and interviews with, among others, Economist Assar Lindbeck about his long research career.

Assar Lindbeck, professor of economics at IFN and Stockholm University, talks in this about 10 minutes long video with Magnus Henrekson, professor and CEO of IFN. The questions he answers include: Whether economists can do better than others? And how come that his research deals with norms and incentives? Also, Assar Lindbeck tells us what was different about the famous Lindbeck Commission that he headed in the 1990s.

IFN is a private and independent foundation that researches questions that are of high relevance to Swedish business and industry. In today's knowledge-intensive and global competition, specialization is increasing, but also the need for broad societal perspectives. The researchers at IFN are united in their belief that methods of economics offer a powerful tool for understanding society.

Niklas Elert and Mikael Stenkula, IFN, have studied how trust in society affects entrepreneurship among employees in existing companies, so-called intrapreneurship. They find that trust provides a higher degree of work autonomy in existing companies, which is a prerequisite for intrapreneurship to flourish. Trust also renders a more comprehensive welfare state. Because many benefits are often more advantageous to employees than to self-employed, it can lead to entrepreneurial individuals choosing to become intrapreneurs instead of independent entrepreneurs.

Researchers from IFN were invited by external organizations to be part of numerous panels and presentations during “Almedalen”. This is an eight-day event in Visby on the Baltic island of Gotland. This annual event takes place at the beginning of July when politicians, opinion leaders, media, corporations, and interested Swedes come together and have the opportunity to attend thousands of seminars and numerous informal events.

French high school students have not, by law, been able to use their cell phones at school for a year. And, since 2007, Swedish teachers, according to the Education Act, have the right to "take care of objects that are used in a way that is disturbing in class." Under these circumstances, what would a total ban on mobile phones in our schools bring about, asked Björn Tyrefors and Dany Kessel, IFN, and Hulda Lif Hardardottir, Stockholm University, in a new study. They found that a statutory mobile ban in Swedish schools is a cheap but not generally effective reform.

A central part of the Swedish summer is the Midsummer celebration. IFN wishes all visitors to this site a happy midsummer and a pleasant summer.

On Wednesday, Petra Persson, Stanford University and affiliate to IFN, presented research showing that the likelihood is greater that people with access to informal health expertise, such as a doctor or a nurse in the family, will be 80 or older. At the seminar at SNS, Mårten Palme, Stockholm University, commented on the research based on his own studies on the connection between education and health. The main theme of the seminar was "how inequalities in health and lifespan can be reduced".