Publications

We analyze the effects of offshoring of intermediate input production on labor demand in Sweden, distinguishing between workers with different educational attainments. The econometric results using da…

Analyzing a large panel that matches public firms with worker-level data, we find that managerial entrenchment affects workers’ pay. CEOs with more control pay their workers more, but financial incent…

Entrepreneurship is largely ignored or treated in a highly simplified way in endogenous growth theory. Still, it is now widely recognized that the supply of entrepreneurial talent is likely to be impo…

The Todaro Paradox states that policies aimed at reducing urban unemployment are bound to backfire: they will raise rather than reduce urban unemployment. The aim of this paper is to reexamine this pa…

We highlight the role of commuting cost, location and housing market in crime decision. By assuming that all crimes are committed in the central business district and that criminals create both positi…

This article attempts a formal analysis of the connection between property tax and urban sprawl in U.S. cities. We develop a theoretical model that includes households (who are also landlords) and lan…

This paper investigates the effects of horizontal acquisitions on the performance of target firms in the 1990's. Using French manufacturing firm-level data, we examine two main indicators of performan…

We present a growth model where agents divide time between rent seeking in the form of resource competition; and working in a human capital sector, interpreted as trade or manufacturing. Rent seeking…

The paper serves as a documentation of the survey IUI has conducted on Swedish multinational firms (MNEs) in 2004. It describes recent trends in the operations of Swedish multinational firms participa…

We develop a model in which non-white individuals are defined with respect to their social environment (family, friends, neighbors) and their attachments to their culture of origin (religion, language…

The paper discusses a number of threats to the financial sustainability of social spending: increased internationalization of national economies, gradually higher relative costs of producing a number…

This paper studies whether structural properties of friendship networks affect individual outcomes in education and crime. We first develop a model that shows that, at the Nash equilibrium, the outcom…

Investment liberalizing countries are often concerned that cross-border mergers & acquisitions, in contrast to greenfield investments, might have an adverse effect on domestic firms and consumers.…

The issue considered in this study is whether objective, official reports on disability status are reliable. While there is a rather large literature on the reliability of self-reported disability, ev…

We analyze the evolution of cultural traits when parents purposefully invest resources in order to socialize their children to the cultural traits that maximize child lifetime utility. We assume that…

We examine the effect of corruption on foreign direct investments (FDI). Starting out from the theory of FDI, we show that corruption can have different effects on horizontal investments, which are pr…

In this paper, we empirically address the hypothesis that there is a relationship between the supply of human capital and the rate and direction of skill-biased technical change (SBTC). Using country-…

We develop a model of vertical pricing in which an original manufacturer sets wholesale prices in two markets that are integrated at the distributor level by parallel imports (PI). The manufacturing f…

This paper examines if international trade can reduce total welfare in an international oligopoly with differentiated goods. We show that welfare is a U-shaped function in the transport cost as long a…

We investigate monetary-policy autonomy under different exchange-rate regimes in small, open European economies during the 1980s and 1990s. We find no systematic link between ex post monetary-policy a…

In this paper we derive an exposure-based measure of Cash-Flow-at-Risk (CFaR). Existing approaches to calculating CFaR either only focus on cash flow conditional on market changes or neglect market-ri…

This paper contributes to the study of tacit collusion by analyzing infinitely repeated multiunit uniform price auctions in a symmetric oligopoly with capacity constrained firms. Under both the Market…

Theoretically, cross ownership may mitigate mergers, i.e. market concentrations. Holding a share in a competing firm before the acquisition of another firm, outsider-toehold, is more profitable in som…

We analyze motivations for, and possible alternatives to, the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP). With regard to the former, we identify domestic policy failures and various cross-country spillover effec…

Some high tax countries concerned about outward flight of capital have reacted by imposing so called dual income tax systems. The idea is to keep high taxes on labour while holding low tax rates on ca…

Using cultural transmission, we develop a model that gives some microfoundation to the impact of residential neighborhood on children's educational attainment and then test it using the UK National Ch…

This paper evaluates partial acquisition strategies. The model allows for buying a share of a firm before the actual acquisition takes place. Holding a share in a competing firm before the acquisition…

The aim of this paper is to study the impact of the size and the quality of social networks on the probability to find a job. We first develop a theoretical model in which individuals are embedded wit…

This paper examines the job finding methods of different ethnic groups in the UK. The theoretical framework shows that less assimilated ethnic unemployed workers are more likely to use their friends a…

Exit of venture-backed firms often takes place through sales to incumbents. We show that in such an environment, venture-backed firms have stronger incentive to develop basic innovations into commerci…

Recent theoretical work has examined the spatial distribution of unemployment using the efficiency wage model as the mechanism by which unemployment arises in the urban economy. This paper extends the…

Previous research has been inconclusive as regards the effect of outward foreign direct investment (FDI) on domestic investments. In this article we show that this inconclusiveness can be explained at…

Using a unique database on individual Swedish patents, a survival model estimates how different factors influence the time it takes until commercialization starts. To the best of my knowledge, such an…

We consider policy issues regarding parallel imports (PIs) of brand-name pharmaceuticals in the European Union, where such trade is permitted. We develop a simple model in which an original manufactur…

We examine coordinated effects of mergers in the Swedish retail market for gasoline during the period 1986-2002. Despite significant changes in market concentration and many factors conductive to coor…

We consider a search-matching model in which black workers are discriminated against and the job arrival rates of all workers depend on social networks as well as distance to jobs. Location choices ar…

The major strand of finance literature understands market efficiency through the market’s ability to process information into prices. Another strand of literature refers to the economists’ usual sense…

We analyze the effect of deadlines on timing of effort when agents are occasionaly distracted. We show that agents get started early when completion of the task is uncertain, but rather likely. Agents…

This paper presents evidence that, in Europe, production of high-tech goods is attracted to large markets, while R&D activities tend to be located away from them. In order to explain this phenomen…

Criminals are embedded in a network of relationships. Social ties among criminals are modeled by means of a graph where criminals compete for a booty and benefit from local interactions with their nei…

Assuming that job search efficiency decreases with distance to jobs, workers' location in a city depends on spatial elements such as commuting costs and land prices and on labour elements such as wage…

We propose a simple investment model which shows that, in the presence of fluctuations in and uncertainty about the opportunity cost of time, marginal individuals may choose to delay their education i…

The dynamics of self-confidence are modelled in an environment where rational individuals optimally choose educations and occupations with the aim to acquire productive skills while learning about abi…

By combining new data on bilateral asset holdings with data on securities regulation in an empirical gravity model, it is found that bilateral differences in securities regulation lead to decreased po…

This paper analyzes corporate restructuring and its role in generating labor productivity growth in a sample of large Swedish manufacturing corporations. It is found that external restructuring, inclu…

This study examines the relation between the internationalization of firms and CEO compensation. Starting from a sample of Norwegian and Swedish listed firms we analyze the effects of internationaliza…

A finite number of heterogeneous firms facing demand-induced price fluctuations imperfectly compete for heterogeneous workers. Because firms must commit to wages and employment before the realization…

We consider a population of heterogenous laborers and landlords who belong to different ethnic groups so that working together implies a cost (because of language and cultural differences). Part of th…

This paper studies privatization policy in an international oligopoly. The argument that equal treatment of foreign investors will be detrimental to domestic welfare by shifting profits from domestic…

A model is considered in which optimal search intensity is a result of a trade off between short run losses due to higher search costs (more interviews, commuting...) and long-run gains due to a highe…

This paper examines the restructuring of state assets in markets deregulated by privatizations and investment liberalizations. We show that the government has a stronger incentive to restructure than…

The aim of this paper is to introduce endogenous housing consumption in an efficiency wage model in which two cases are considered: very high and zero relocation costs. First, in both cases, we are ab…

We develop a model in which non-white individuals are defined with respect to their social environment (family, friends, neighbors) and their attachments to their culture of origin (religion, language…

This paper determines the equilibrium ownership structure in an emerging market deregulated by privatization and investment liberalization. It is shown that bidding competition in the privatization st…

This paper provides a unified explanation for why blacks commit more crime, are located in poorer neighborhoods and receive lower wages than whites. If everybody believes that blacks are more criminal…

We develop a model in which delinquents compete with each other in criminal activities but may benefit from being friends with other criminals by learning and acquiring proper know-how on the crime bu…

We analyze an oligopoly model in which differentiated criminal organizations globally compete on criminal activities and engage in local corruption to avoid punishment. When law enforcers are sufficie…

This paper analyses recruitment practices to Samhall, a state-owned company that provides sheltered employment for individuals with severe work disabilities. Besides providing employment for disabled…

Two-way trade in (almost) homogenous products has ambiguous welfare effects if entry is restricted. We examine Swedish imports of bottled water to investigate whether transport cost losses from trade…

We analyse voter turnout as a function of referendum types. An advisory referendum produces advice that a legislature may or may not take into account when choosing between two alternatives, whereas a…

This paper presents a new approach to the theory of the firm by identifying factor complementarities as central to the determination of the firm's boundaries. The factor complementarities may take a v…

The expansion of welfare-state arrangements is seen as the result of dynamic interaction between market behaviour and political behaviour, often with considerable time lags, sometimes generating eithe…

The regional voting pattern of the Swedish EU-membership referendum is analyzed to determine voters' preferences over two fiscal regimes: an autonomous Sweden, or Sweden as part of the EU. A major dif…

We analyze the development of the Swedish ownership model after World War II. The controlling ownership in Swedish firms is typically concentrated to one or two owners. Often, but not always, the cont…

In Europe, accounting standards prevent larger expenditures on employer-sponsored training from being treated as investments. Using Sweden as example, we discuss two consequences for training. First,…

A "chain of replacement" model is used to examine the effects of automobile taxes and of a scrappage premium on the life length of cars, and on the size of the car fleet. The predictions of the model…

The Knowledge Capital Model (KC-model), described in Markusen (2002), encompasses both market size (horizontal) as well as factor endowment (vertical) explanations to why multinational production occu…

We investigate experimentally how the share of experienced traders in double-auction asset markets affects trading, in particular the occurrence of bubble-crash pricing patterns. In each session, six…

The achievements of social-welfare arrangements in Western Europe are well known: considerable income security, relatively little poverty and, in some countries, ample supply of social services. But t…

The growth effects of international financial liberalization and integration are investigated using the methodology and data developed by Rajan and Zingales (1998). The main result is that industries…

The paper analyses the interaction between economic incentives and work norms in the context of social insurance. If the work norm is endogenous in the sense that it is weaker when the population shar…

This paper considers the effects of union-bargained minimum wages on transitions into and out of employment in the hotels and catering industry over the period 1979–99. This industry is characterised…

In this paper, I analyze the commercialization of patents in the Swedish medicine & hygiene sector. A unique database makes it possible to use a new method, where I follow the commercialization pr…

We construct a model in which a number of equally powerful ethnic groups compete for power by engaging in civil war. In non-redistributive equilibrium, ethnically homogeneous and ethnically diverse co…

A people's culture, norms and habits are important determinants not just of the quality of social life but of economic progress and growth. In this paper we take the view that while the importance of…

Developing countries, in particular the least developed ones, probably have more to learn from social policies in Europe during the early 20th century than from the elaborate welfare-state arrangement…

We characterize pension systems along three dimensions: 1) actuarial vs. non-actuarial, 2) funded vs. pay-as-you-go, 3) defined-contribution vs. defined-benefit. Increasing the degree of actuarial fai…

An important issue in the debate on voucher systems and school choice is what effects competition from independent schools will have on public schools. Sweden has made a radical reform of its system f…

This study explores how relative skilled-wage premia affect FDI. Contrary to previous studies based on factor endowment differences, we find strong support for vertical FDI, in the sense that more FDI…

Dynamic decision-making without commitment is usually modelled as a game between the current and future selves of the decision maker. It has been observed that if the time-horizon is infinite, then su…

Real exchange and interest rates may still fluctuate inside the EMU and give rise to changes in competitiveness. We find, in contrast to what is generally expected, no convergence in these variables a…

Is discounting of future instantaneous utilities consistent with altruism towards future selves? More precisely, can temporal preferences, expressed as a sum of discounted instantaneous utilities, be…

Value Based Management (VBM) has become a common tool for ex ante and ex post evaluation of corporate strategies and projects from the perspective of shareholder value maximization (SVM). VBM-framewor…

This paper analyses simultaneous regulation of cost and quality when firms have private, correlated information about productivity and the regulator receives a signal about quality. It is shown that m…

We investigate whether temporal preferences expressed as a sum of discounted consumption utilities can be derived from a welfare representation in the form of a sum of discounted total utilities. We f…

Increased integration and growing macroeconomic fluctuations require more attention to be paid to the link between the ”noise” that these fluctuations represent and the company’s own development. For…

We investigate the interaction between cross-border acquisitions and greenfield entry in a multi-firm setting. It is shown that the net profits of the acquirer may decrease when the acquisition gives…

Investment liberalizing countries are often concerned that cross-border mergers & acquisitions might have an adverse effect on domestic firms and benefit multinational enterprises (MNEs). However,…

This study examines the effect of foreign (Anglo-American) board membership on corporate performance measured in terms of firm value (Tobin’s Q). On a basis of firms with headquarters in Norway or Swe…

This paper studies a model of how political parties use resources for campaigning to inform voters. Each party has a predetermined ideology drawn from some distribution. Parties choose a platform and…

We investigate the dramatic transformation of ownership policies and ownership structure in Sweden during the postwar period. After WWII, Swedish ownership policies were guided by a socialist vision w…

This paper deals with the interplay between economic incentives and social norms in firms. We outline a simple model of team production and provide preliminary results on linear incentive schemes in t…

We provide a cultural explanation to the phenomenon of corruption in the framework of an overlapping generations model with intergenerational transmission of values. We show that the economy has two s…

This paper tests the insiders' dilemma hypothesis in a laboratory experiment. The insiders' dilemma means that a profitable merger does not occur, because it is even more profitable for each firm to u…

This paper provides a simple explanation for why some minority groups are economically successful, despite being subject to government-mandated discriminatory policies. We study an economy with privat…

Government firms and authorities often sell services in the free market via affiliated consulting firms (CFs). In this study, I analyze whether these agents have an unfair competitive edge compared to…

The competitive effect of international market integration in industries with imperfect competition is of great policy interest. This paper focuses on the link between monopolization and market segmen…

What is the impact of the increasing dominance of conventional firms in e-commerce? We use a simple model to show that retailers who only sell through Internet have lower on-line prices than retailers…

Markets with imperfect competition do not induce a cost-minimizing allocation of production between firms. The market's ability to rationalize production is even more limited if costs are private info…

This report studies the importance of efficiency gains from horizontal mergers. A general theme throughout this report is that efficiency gains, and their pass-on to consumers, may vary substantially…