Publications

Children who can count on support from altruistic parents may not try hard to succeed in the labor market. Moreover, parental altruism makes withdrawal of such support non-credible. To promote work ef…

In intermediate goods markets, both buyers and sellers normally have market power, and sales are based on bilaterally negotiated contracts specifying both price and quantity. In our model, pairs of bu…

This article argues that the body of foreign direct investment (FDI) literature in general and the ownership, location, and internalization (OLI) paradigm in particular would be enriched if finance-sp…

Multinational enterprises (MNEs) are important in transmitting technology across national borders. Not only do they allow for transfer of technology within the firm, but it is also believed that they…

The poorest nations of the world suffer from extreme disease burdens, which go largely untreated because weak incomes and the prevailing system of intellectual property rights fail to provide sufficie…

Recent developments in society have generated misalignment between the welfare state and socio-economic conditions and preferences. This paper emphasis developments in the labor market and the structu…

Unlike previous analyses, we consider (i) that IT may affect productivity growth both directly and indirectly, through human capital interactions, and (ii) possible externalities in the use of IT. Exa…

The paper discusses the consequences for the functioning of different pension systems of various types of socioeconomic changes, mainly demographic developments, variations in productivity growth and…

Standards and technical regulations which govern the admissibility of imported goods into an economy raise costs of exporters entering new markets, and may have a particularly high impact on firms see…

imports is unlimited, the manufacturer chooses deterrence and international prices converge. Second, with endogenously limited arbitrage the manufacturing firm accommodates and the price in the home m…

We derive a family of probabilistic choice models including the multinomial logit model, from a microeconomic model in which the decision maker has to make some effort in order to avoid mistakes when…

The purpose of this report is to contribute to the analysis of two questions. Should a merger control system take into account efficiency gains from horizontal mergers, and balance these gains against…

In this paper, a model of product innovation is developed that endogenizes the degree of cooperation. Two opposing forces affect firm profit in an R&D joint venture. Cooperation increases the qual…

Anticompetitive mergers increase competitors' profits, since they reduce competition. Using a model of endogenous mergers, we show that such mergers nevertheless may reduce the competitors' share-pric…

Anticompetitive mergers benefit competitors more than the merging firms. We show that such externalities reduce firms' incentives to merge (a holdup mechanism). Firms delay merger proposals, thereby f…

This paper presents the results of a survey of Swedish multinationals conducted in 1999. The survey was carried out in order to update an existing database on Swedish manufacturing firms with producin…

A model of occupational choice and human capital investment is developed and tested. The model allows family background to influence occupational choice via access to economic resources, differences i…

This paper analyses the effects of price and market size variables on the investment propensities in the pulp and paper industry. A panel of 15 European countries in the time period 1984 - 1997 is use…

Decentralisation of decision-making in active labour market policy makes it possible to use local information to the fullest, but may also impinge on the fulfilment of national objectives, as suggeste…

This paper determines the equilibrium market structure in a mixed international oligopoly, where the state assets are sold at an auction. The model suggests that low greenfield costs and low trade cos…

This paper presents a unified analytical framework for the analysis of social security reform. It discusses reform along two dimensions: Pay-As-You-Go versus fully funded on the one hand, and actuaria…

This paper provides deterministic approximation results for stochastic processes that arise when finite populations recurrently play finite games. The deterministic approximation is defined in continu…

The classical Roy-model of selection on the labor market is extended in order to analyze intergenerational mobility. This is done by linking ability uncertainty to family background. I derive implicat…

In Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy Joseph A. Schumpeter concluded that socialism would eventually displace capitalism in Western democracies. This would come about as a result of the superior perf…

Consulting firms (CFs) sell services on a project basis to many clients and must therefore continuously tender for new contracts. One frequently used strategy by CFs is to visit the clients in connect…

This paper determines the equilibrium market structure in an international oligopoly which is opened up by a privatization. Market power is shown to be an important determinant of the equilibrium mark…

The recent 'scientification' of commercial technology has brought the interface between universities and industry into sharp focus. In particular, academic entrepreneurship, i.e., the variety of ways…

Centralized wage-setting institutions compress relative wages. Motivated by this fact, we investigate the effects of centralized wage setting on the industry distribution of employment. We examine Swe…

Most econometric studies of equity market integration suggest that national markets are increasingly becoming part of a global equity market. As regards the extent of this integration, however, the re…

The paper examines the determinants of the division of labor within firms. It provides an explanation of the pervasive observed changes in work organization away from the traditional functional depart…

This paper discusses how ICT and emerging electronic commerce in consumer products influence the relative efficiency in production of households and firms, resulting in changes in the division of task…

Bergin and Lipman (1996) show that the refinement effect from the random mutations in the adaptive population dynamics in Kandori, Mailath and Rob (1993) and Young (1993) is due to restrictions on how…

This paper presents a model to explain why both industry leaders and follower firms often invest in R&D and explores the welfare implications of these R&D investment choices. Regardless of ini…

This study uses data on Swedish multinationals to estimate cross elasticities of labour demand in different locations. With a vertical decomposition of the firm's activities, whether there is substitu…

Most previous studies have found evidence at the aggregate level that female entrepreneurs underperform relative to their male counterparts. This study conducts a comprehensive test of this finding. T…

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of European integration on the location of investments by Swedish multinational corporations (MNCs). Evidence is presented about the extent to which…

Investigating the robustness of the skill-biased technical change hypothesis, this analysis incorporates two novel features. First, effective labor is modeled as the product of a quantity measure - nu…

This paper studies the interaction between the incentives for predation and mergers. I show that the incentive for predation in an oligopoly is limited by the subsequent competition for the prey. This…

Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) is the dominant form of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), but has received but scarce attention in the theory literature on trade and investment. This paper highlight…

FDI has received surprisingly little attention in theoretical and empirical work on openness and growth. This paper presents a theoretical growth model where MNCs directly affect the endogenous growth…

This paper analyzes a three-stage optimization problem in which a firm chooses (i) its technology, by deciding on a level of R&D, (ii) whether this technology is to be used in a domestic or in a f…

We demonstrate a "preemptive merger mechanism" which may explain the empirical puzzle why mergers reduce profits, and raise share prices. A merger may confer strong negative externalities on the firms…

In conjunction with its tercentenary celebrations in 1968, Sveriges Riksbank (Bank of Sweden) instituted a new award, "The Central Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel"…

The search for growth-promoting policies is found to demand knowledge of how growth depends upon actions of entrepreneurs and how these actions depend upon the prevailing institutions. While instituti…

This paper considers a small open economy whit an input-output industrial structure that creates vertical linkages multiple equilibria. An imperfect labor market is introduced by assuming unionized la…

Investment in human capital is a central issue in the literature on economic growth. The purpose of this study is to shed light on the economic incentives for investment in university education across…

This paper evaluates the welfare consequences of the failing firm doctrine in the EU and US merger laws. I combine an oligopoly model with an "endogenous valuations" auction model. Thereby, I take int…

A unique database on individual tender documents is used to analyze the relationship between strategical factors and outcomes when technical consultancy firms (TCFs) compete for foreign assignments in…

In the models of Young (1993a,b), boundedly rational individuals are recurrently matched to play a game, and they play myopic best replies to the recent history of play. It could therefore be an advan…

This paper presents a model of R&D-driven growth without scale effects where firms can engage in both horizontal and vertical R&D activities. Unlike in earlier models of R&D-driven growth…

This paper analyses the effect on agglomeration tendencies of allowing firms to become multi-region firms in a standard model of trade and location. More specifically, we introduce horizontal and vert…

Can income equality be combined with high economic efficiency and rapid economic growth? Fortunately, we need not to answer such a general question. Indeed, the question is poorly phrased. The relatio…

A number of cross-country comparisons do not find a robust negative relationship between government size and economic growth. In part this may reflect the prediction in economic theory that a negative…

Bergin and Lipman (1996) show that the refinement effect from the random mutations in the adaptive dynamics in Kandori, Mailath and Rob (1993) and Young (1993) is due to restrictions on how these muta…

This paper proposes an approach for prediction the pattern of mergers when different mergers are feasible. It generalizes the traditional IO approach, employing ideas on coalition-formation from coope…

It is extraordinarily difficult to determine the extent to which the gender wage gap reflects discriminatory behaviors by employers or differences in productive capacities between men and women. We no…

The analysis provides a new explanation for two widespread problems concerning European unemployment policy: the disappointingly small effect of many past reform measures on employment, and the politi…

Sweden experienced exceptionally fast economic growth during the century-long period 1870-1970. This illustrates that a decentralized market economy, highly open to international transactions, may be…

This paper considers the possibility of letting a pay-go pension system mimic a fully funded pension system. Generically, it turns out to be impossible to make a less than fully funded pension system…

This thesis contains two studies. The first study investigates the income distribution among Namibian households. The second study examines the differences in earnings between males and females in the…

In this paper it is argued that the size distribution of firms may largely be determined by institutional factors. This hypothesis is tested in an exploratory fashion by studying the evolution of the…

This paper takes a step towards formalizing the theoretical interconnections among four post-Industrial Revolution phenomena - the industrialization and growth take-off of rich "northern" nations, mas…

Lam and Schoeni (1993) consider an equation where earnings are explained by schooling and ability. They assume that ability data are lacking and that schooling is measured with error. The estimate obt…

In an analysis of the risk-sharing properties of different types of pension systems, we show that only a fixed-fee pay-as-you-go (PAYG) pension systems can provide intergenerational risk sharing for l…

In a recent review article Jonas Agell, Thomas Lindh and Henry Ohlsson (1997) claim that theoretical and empirical evidence does not allow any conclusion on whether there is a relationship between the…

We compare the relation between foreign affiliate production and parent employment in U.S. manufacturing multinationals with that in Swedish firms. U.S. multinationals appear to have allocated some of…

Evolutionary game theory studies the robustness of strategy profiles and sets of strategy profiles with respect to evolutionary forces in games played repeatedly in large populations of boundedly rati…

The paper demonstrates how trade between developing countries can cause the divergence of long-run growth among these countries. The model describes two symmetric countries trading with each other and…

Evolutionary theorizing has a long tradition in economics. Only recently has this approach been brought into the framework of non-cooperative game theory. Evolutionary game theory studies the robustne…

Demand for less skilled workers decreased dramatically in the US and in other developed countries over the past two decades. We argue that pervasive skill biased technological change rather than incre…

We analyse symmetric coordination games à la Bryant (1983) where a number of players simultaneously choose efforts from a compact interval and the lowest effort determines the output of a publi…

This study investigates changes in the number and the size distribution of firms in Sweden in the period 1968-1993. The number and the size distribution of Swedish firms are compared to the number and…

What factors determine national differences in the size and industry distribution of employment? This study stresses the role of business taxation, employment security laws, credit market policies, wa…

This paper addresses various attempts by so-called new Keynesians, writing mainly in the 1980s and 1990s, to strengthen the analytical basis, in particular the microeconomic foundations, of these asse…

Attention is called to a little explored scarce resource, named 'economic competence', which combines features of human capital and bounded rationality, and can be defined as the non-transferable ('ta…

This paper develops a new analytical approach to the old question whether market conditions may influence the internal efficiency of firms. The basic textbook model of the firm is slightly extended to…

This note elaborates an extension of the paper "Social Norms, the Welfare State, and Voting" by Lindbeck, Nyberg, and Weibull [1]. That paper studies the effects of a social norm against living off ot…

Market exchange is subject to an endogenously-determined level of predation which impedes specialization and gains from trade. Utility-maximizing agents opt between careers in specialized production a…

This paper analyzes the interplay between social norms and economic incentives in the context of work decisions in the modern welfare state. We assume that to live off one's own work is a social norm,…

Post World War II European welfare states experienced several decades of relatively low unemployment, followed by a plague of persistently high unemployment since the 1980's. We impute the higher unem…

This thesis consists of one essay in industrial organization and two essays in non-cooperative game theory.

The paper examines the implications of an important aspect of the ongoing reorganization of work - the move from occupational specialization toward multi-tasking - for centralized wage bargaining. The…

This paper develops a new analytical approach to the old question whether market conditions may influence the internal efficiency of firms. The basic textbook model of the firm is slightly extended to…

This paper presents a dynamic general equilibrium model of trade between two advanced countries in which both innovation and skilled acquisition rates are endogenously determined. The model offers a N…

For the U.S. and for Norway it has been established that men and women working in the same occupation for the same employer receive more or less the same pay. So-called within-job wage discrimination…

What were the asserted complementarities between the welfare state and full-employment policies, and why do these complementarities look less convincing today?

This paper shows that the liberalisation of foreign direct investment (FDI) tends to make the effect of labour costs on domestic investment and labour demand more negative. Using data from Germany, it…

We use a specific-factor model to examine the conditions under which policy-makers are able to increase aggregate production of high-tech goods by production or R&D-subsidies in the short and long…

How do we explain the poor employment performance in Western Europe since about the-1970s? This question is in fact twofold : What initiated the dramatic rise in employment, and waht mechanisms have m…

This paper contributes to research endogenizing multinational firms in general-equilibrium trade models. We attempt to integrate separate contributions on horizontal multinationals which produce the s…

We propose a simple model to analyze the widespread idea that a necessary condition for firms to make foreign direct investments is that they have firm-specific advantages with respect to host country…

These notes discuss some of the main results and models from the theory of international trade under imperfect competition. They are necessairy both selective and superficial. Multinationals are consp…

This paper presents recent trends in the foreign activities of Swedish multinationals. The focus is on the distribution of production and R&D between the MNCs' domestic and foreign units, and the…

Several recent articles claim that pre-tax income equality promotes growth. Equality is argued to dampen demand for redistributive economic policies that tax returns to growth-enhancing activities suc…

This paper analyzes the utilization of R&D results in the home and foreign plants of Swedish multinational enterprises (MNEs). The empirical findings indicate that the firms' R&D undertaken in…

This paper examines the determinants of overseas R&D by Swedish multinationals. Our empirical results indicate that the location of R&D abroad to a large extent is motivated by the need to ada…

This paper analyzes the simultaneous relationship between R&D and foreign sales in Swedish multinational enterprises in the manufacturing sector. We argue that this two-way relationship should esp…

This paper examines whether Swedish multinational enterprises transfer R&D-generated knowledge to their foreign affiliates. The empirical results suggest that such technology transfer takes place…