Publications

This paper presents annual Swedish time-series data regarding consumption taxes, i.e., the indirect taxation of goods and services, for the 1862–2013 period. As a share of total state tax revenue, con…

In a comment to Dahlberg, Edmark and Lundqvist (2012), Nekby and Pettersson-Lidbom (2012) argue (i) that the refugee placement program should be measured with contracted rather than actually placed re…

We establish a correlation between the hierarchical structure of a firm and the likelihood of business creation among its former employees, using a sample of 16 million observations of Swedish workers…

I examine if employment protection affects parental childcare. I find that a softer employment protection has a substantial effect on how parents use and divide paid childcare between them. The identi…

This paper studies the impact of market specific news on the short-time forward premia on the Scandinavian electricity market. I show that the short time premia between the day-ahead and intra-day ele…

Despite the global reach of their commercial activities, many multinational firms have proved slow in internationalizing their boards of directors. Based on a panel study of the internationalization o…

Re-coinage implies that old coins are declared invalid and exchanged for new ones at fixed exchange rates and dates. Empirical evidence shows that re-coinage could occur as often as twice a year withi…

The introduction of antibiotics as a medical treatment after World War II helped to dramatically increase life expectancy in the industrialized world. However, over-prescription of antibiotics during…

Research on entrepreneurship has flourished in recent years and is evolving rapidly. This paper explores the history of entrepreneurship research, how the research domain has evolved, and its current…

This paper estimates the effect of trust on internet use by studying the general population as well as second generation immigrants in 29 European countries with ancestry in 87 nations. There is a sig…

This paper estimates the intergenerational transmission of trust by studying second generation immigrants in 29 European countries with ancestry in 87 nations. There is significant transmission of tru…

Transport constraints limit competition and arbitrageurs.possibilities of exploiting price differences between commodities in neighbouring markets. We analyze a transport-constrained network with loca…

Self-employment is often used as synonymous with entrepreneurship. We define entrepreneurship as having the ambition to grow or innovate. As part of a large and representative survey in Sweden, busine…

The purpose of this research endeavor—in the form of eight articles—to be published in 2013 in a Special Section of Industrial and Corporate Change is to further our understanding of the extent, chara…

Economists and political scientists have long been interested in factors that affect the statutory tax rate on businesses set by federal governments. In this study, we examine the impact of political…

We test whether generosity is related to political preferences and partisanship in Canada, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States using incentivized dictator games. The total sample consists…

The most common reason for scrapping a wind turbine in Denmark is to make room for a newer turbine. The decision to scrap a wind turbine is then highly dependent on an opportunity cost that comes from…

Quantifying possible ineciencies stemming from regulation is important to both policymakers and researchers. We use a dynamic structural model to evaluate the role of local market entry regulations in…

In this paper, we use data from a corruption survey conducted among top politicians and high level civil servants in 290 Swedish municipalities in 2007 to investigate the effects of government size on…

We demonstrate how suppliers can take strategic speculative positions in derivatives markets to soften competition in the spot market. In our game, suppliers first choose a portfolio of call options a…

This paper studies the evolution of the modern Swedish inheritance taxation from its introduction in 1885 to its abolishment in 2004. A thorough description is offered of the basic principles of the t…

In this paper we show, theoretically and empirically, that stronger employment protection legislation (EPL) in a host country has important and differing effects on the various activities of multinati…

Globalization, high growth rates in high-tech industries, growing emerging markets and harmonization of patent institutions across countries have stimulated patenting in foreign markets. We use a simp…

The constraint on informal finance is commonly taken to be high costs and limited supply. But the majority of informal investors – family and friends – is often willing to supply funds at negative ret…

It is commonly argued in the media that a presidential candidate will be helped in a state by having a governor of the same party in office. However, there is little research to support this claim. To…

The role of school principals largely resembles that of corporate managers and the leadership they provide are often viewed as a crucial component for educational success. We estimate the impact of in…

This paper shows that the R&D intensity of an industry plays an important role in determining international trade patterns via its e¤ect on scale economies. I first develop a model of trade with h…

Timor-Leste’s first ten years of independence have been turbulent and a large share of the population remains poor. Broad-based improvements in living standards will require improvements in agricultur…

Declining fertility rates and increasing life expectancy necessitate a higher labor participation rate among older people in order to sustain pension systems and boost economic growth. At the same tim…

This paper proposes a cross-border M&A model with financially constrained owners in which the identity of the buyer and seller can be determined. We show that policies blocking foreign acquisition…

Entrepreneurs face higher commercialization costs than incumbents. We show that this implies that entrepreneurs will choose more risky projects than incumbents, aiming to reduce their high expected ma…

The theory of the firm suggests that firms can respond to poor contract enforcement by vertically integrating their production process. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether firms’ integrati…

Fifteen years after the introduction of highly ambitious social insurance programs for urban Chinese workers, a large number of them remain un-insured. This paper examines the relationship between lab…

A large literature has studied the context that affects women’s numerical representation, but few have moved beyond numbers to study the drivers of a gender gap in political influence among elected po…

Despite the central role played by human capital in entrepreneurship, little is known about how employees in entrepreneurial firms are compensated and incentivized. We address this gap in the literatu…

Green certificates are the main instrument for promoting renewable electricity (RES-E) in Sweden. But certificates cover only a limited share of total RES-E production. Under partial coverage, crowdin…

Central banks have been made more independent in many countries. A common rationale has been the existence of a credibility (or lack-of-trust) problem for monetary policy. This indicates a possible an…

The primary objective of most trade agreements is to restrain members' use of trade policies for protectionist purposes. But it would be pointless to restrict the application of border instruments wit…

The purpose of this study is to present to readers with limited training in economics the perspective that most international trade economists bring to the study of trade agreements. It focuses on the…

Previous research has recognized that weak institutions can hamper investments and alter patterns of trade. However, little is known about the impact of institutional quality on offshoring. This is su…

Tolerance has the potential to affect both economic growth and wellbeing. It is therefore important to discern its determinants. We add to the literature by investigating whether the degree to which e…

Wholesale electricity markets use different market designs to handle congestion in the transmission network. We compare nodal, zonal and discriminatory pricing in general networks with transmission co…

We show that every time a local economy generates a new job by attracting a new business in the traded sector, a significant number of additional jobs are created in the non-traded sector. This multip…

Since the sinking of the Titanic, there has been a widespread belief that the social norm of ‘women and children first’ gives women a survival advantage over men in maritime disasters, and that captai…

Recent theoretical analysis suggests that a reduction in the cost of exporting increases the degree of assortative matching between workers and firms in export-oriented industries. Changes that reduce…

We study the impact of the 1918 influenza pandemic on economic performance in Sweden. The pandemic was one of the severest and deadliest pandemics in human history, but it has hitherto received only s…

In games with continuum strategy sets, we model a player’s uncertainty about another player’s strategy, as an atomless probability distribution over the other player’s strategy set. We call a strategy…

This paper analyzes how institutional differences affect university entrepreneurship. We focus on ownership of faculty inventions, and compare two institutional regimes; the US and Sweden. In the US,…

It is well established within both the economics and power system engineering literature that hydro power can act as a complement to large amounts of intermittent energy. In particular hydro power can…

This paper makes use of individual data for 2004 to 2008 on owners of closely-held businesses in Sweden to estimate the role of both tax and non-tax determinants in the choice to be a closely-held cor…

Private equity firms are often criticized for laying off workers, but the evidence on who loses their jobs and why is scarce. This paper argues that explanations for job polarization also explain layo…

Social and cultural determinants of economic institutions and outcomes have come to the forefront of economic research. We introduce religiosity, measured as the share for which religion is important…

Relying on Forbes Magazine annual rankings for two decades, 1625 billionaires and their countries of birth and residence are identified, most of whom are self-made entrepreneurs. 13 percent of billion…

I generalize the workhorse model of network competition to include income effects in demand. Empirical work has shown income effects to be positive and statistically significant. Income effects delive…

We analyze the rate of formation, the characteristics, and the performance of different types of new firms in Sweden over a decade. Comparisons to Denmark, Brazil, and the U.S. suggest that the enviro…

Over the last twenty years we have seen an increasing use of in-work tax subsidies to encourage labor supply among low-income groups. In Sweden, a non-targeted earned income tax credit was introduced…

We show theoretically that the poor can benefit from price changes induced by higher income inequality. As the number of poor in a society increases, or when the income difference between rich and poo…

We use individual and multi-level data from Zambia on child nutritional health to test the absolute income hypothesis (AIH), the relative income hypothesis (RIH) and the income inequality hypothesis (…

The entry of large (“big-box”) stores and the accompanying drastic decrease in the overall number of stores represent a striking trend in retail. We use a dynamic model to measure the impact of the en…

We survey the literature on venture capital and institutions and present a case study comparing the development of the venture capital market in the US to Sweden. Our literature survey underscores tha…

Many governments promote small businesses for the dual reasons of fostering ‘breakthrough’ innovations and employment growth. In this paper we study the effects of tax and subsidy policies on entrepre…

This paper examines the interaction between intellectual property protection and competition policy on the choice of entrepreneurs with respect to commercialization as well as the rate of innovation.…

This study tests whether individuals who grow up with parents on welfare benefits are themselves more (or less) likely to be welfare recipients as young adults, compared to individuals who grow up in…

Existing studies of entrepreneurship focus on entrepreneurs whose individual contribution to wealth creation is typically trivial: self-employed persons. This paper investigates entrepreneurs whose in…

We propose nuclear capacity auctions as a means to improve the incentives for investing in nuclear power. In particular, capacity auctions open the market for large-scale entry by outside firms. Requi…

The Dispute Settlement (DS) system is a central feature of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement. This compulsory and binding two-level mechanism for the adjudication of disputes between WTO Me…

We compare four approaches to network neutrality and network management regulation in a two-sided market model: (i) no variations in Quality of Service and no price discrimination; (ii) variations in…

High levels of wind power penetration will tend to affect prices in a deregulated electricity market. Much of the analysis in the literature has focused on the effect that wind power has on average el…

This chapter focuses on the role of corporate financial strategies to improve firms’ market valuations, and thus lower their cost of capital. The identification of successful strategies is accomplishe…

I investigate the effect of human capital on entrepreneurship using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth - 1979. I find that individuals with higher measured intelligence and self-confidence are…

Users of the social networking service Facebook have the possibility to post status updates for their friends to read. In turn, friends may react to these short messages by writing comments or by pres…

This paper attempts to measure the size of South-South FDI in developing East Asia and the trends in it, and the characteristics of the investing countries and the investments themselves. It also summ…

We study the intergenerational transmission of cognitive and non-cognitive abilities between fathers and sons using population-wide enlistment data. Measurement error bias in fathers’ ability measures…

It is well known that communication often serves as a facilitator for cooperation in static games. Yet, communication can serve entirely different purposes in dynamic settings as communication during…

This paper considers the sealed bid and ascending auction, which both identifies the minimum Walrasian equilibrium prices and where truthful preference revelation constitutes an equilibrium. Even thou…

The current political turmoil in the Arab world has contributed to renewed interest in the Barcelona Process. This paper explores whether deeper integration in the form of trade facilitation – i.e. im…

Aiming to explore how the survival of trade flows has evolved over time, we analyze a rich data set of detailed imports to individual EU15 countries from 140 non-EU exporters, covering the period 1962…

The theory of the firm suggests that firms can respond to poor contract enforcement by vertically integrating their production process. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether firms' integrati…

Recent empirical evidence suggests that prices for some goods and services are higher in larger markets. This paper provides a demand-side explanation for this phenomenon when firms can choose how muc…

There are several theoretical accounts of public sector outsourcing. We note that leading theories give different predictions of the influence of political variables and test the predictions on a Swed…

We analyse a reform of notice periods for employer-initiated separations in Sweden, which reduced the notice periods for newly hired older workers substantially but implied minor or no changes in the…

We survey the literature on the effects of public sector outsourcing. Guided by theory, we systematically arrange services according to the type and magnitude of their contractibility problems. Taken…

We use a Swedish sickness insurance reform to show that among married couples a partner’s benefit level affects spousal labour supply. The spousal elasticity of sick days with respect to the partner’s…

This paper discusses a number of questions with regard to Sweden’s economic and political development:• How did Sweden become rich?• What explains Sweden’s high level of income equality?• What were th…

This paper develops an improved test of economic convergence or divergence using time series methods. The usefulness of the method is illustrated in an analysis of the growth pattern between Chinese r…

This paper studies how cognitive and social skills in childhood are related to the duration of unemployment in adolescence and early adulthood. I estimate a flexible proportional hazard rate model for…

Realized capital gains are typically disregarded in the study of income inequality. We show that in the case of Sweden this severely underestimates the actual increase in inequality and, in particular…

This paper examines the effects of collectively agreed increases in real minimum wages on employment transitions and hours among manual workers in the Swedish retail sector over the period 2001–05. Th…

In this paper we outline an evolutionary framework of entrepreneurial processes where by firms are started, grow, and exit from the market. We explain the important of such a framework in explaining b…

In industries with network effects, incumbents’ installed bases create barriers to entry that discourage entrepreneurs from developing new innovations. Yet, entry is not the only commercialization rou…

The objective of this paper is to study when and how much labor supply and savings of heirs respond to inheritances. We estimate fixed effects models following direct heirs, inheriting in 2004, during…

This article surveys the literature and adds to the evidence on the impact of employment protection legislation on employment. While stringent employment protection contributes to less turnover and jo…

In a recent paper, Colombier (2009) uses a robust estimation technique and claims to find empirical evidence that government size has not been detrimental to growth for OECD countries during the 1970…

Since the mid 1990s labor productivity growth in Sweden has been high compared to Japan, the US and the western EU-countries. While productivity growth has been rapid in manufacturing, it has been muc…

Using panel data from more than 100 countries around the world from 1988 through 2007, this paper examines the relationship between economic and social globalization and absolute income poverty ex pos…

One of the major reasons why inventors are awarded patents by governments is they encourage R&D investments and commercialization of inventions. If the patent holder commercializes his invention,…

In recent decades immigration of workers and refugees to Europe has increased substantially, and the composition of the population in many countries has consequently become much more heterogeneous in…

This paper presents results from a laboratory experiment studying the channels through which different law enforcement strategies deter cartel formation. With leniency policies offering immunity to th…

The literature on the relationship between the size of government and economic growth is full of seemingly contradictory findings. This conflict is largely explained by variations in definitions and t…

This paper explores the effects of deregulation and globalization on the dominant mode of corporate governance in Swedish public firms. The effects are multidimensional—the direction of change in corp…