| 31. |
- Löfström, Mikael
(författare)
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Samverkan och gränser : studier av samverkansprojekt i offentlig sektor
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The collaboration projects studied in this thesis originate from national experiments that took place from the late 1990s to the early 2000s. In those experiments, attempts were made to determine whether collaboration could, as part of the organization of the public sector, generate welfare gains for both the individual user and society as a whole. Other forms of political governance of public organizations were also tested in these experiments. Activities were very often carried out in the form of collaboration projects involving joint evaluation groups and through co-localization. The collaboration projects are about in which actors bring their different v rules, values and preconceptions, from their regular activities into a meeting with other activities with different boundaries in order to organize new boundaries. The purpose of the thesis is to achieve an understanding of why collaboration projects encounter difficulties in contributing to lasting integration between government organizations, and the importance of boundaries in the organizing of collaboration projects. The thesis is based on four articles. The first article elucidates the ways in which different boundaries are constructed when inter-organizational collaborations are being carried out. The second article develops a model for analyzing uncertainty factors in the interaction environment of the project. The third article addresses the problem of implementing, within the public sector, results from development projects in the home organization. The fourth article analyzes the ways in which collaboration projects can help to increase integration between government organizations. The results from the studies show that the collaboration projects do provide opportunities for trying out new forms of collaboration, but also that the actors in collaboration projects have to deal with multiple boundary-related problems. The construction of boundaries must, on the one hand, regulate the activities being carried out in the collaboration projects, in that the boundaries enable the actors to come together in a common activity. On the other hand, the boundaries in collaboration projects must be part of the home organizations’ activities and their boundary constructions. This leads to a complex spatial construction in which different boundaries entail different distinctions and regulations of the relationship to the outside world. In turn, this leads to problems involving the home organizations in the collaboration, resulting in the collaboration becoming confined to only the collaboration projects.
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| 32. |
- Vanyushyn, Vladimir, 1979-
(författare)
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Innovative Behaviour of Small Firms : Essays on Small Firms' Internationalisation and Use of Online Channels
- 2011
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The spread of information technology and the dissolution of international borders have had a significant impact on the challenges and opportunities faced by today's small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Innovative behaviour on the part of SMEs is a prerequisite for a successful transformation of the opportunities offered by these structural changes into growth and profitability. Thus, the overall aim of this thesis is to advance the understanding of small firms' innovative behaviour as manifested in the adoption of online channels and internationalisation. This doctoral thesis consists of an introductory chapter and six self-contained essays. The introductory section develops a general analytical framework for the thesis by reviewing the literature on innovation and organisational innovativeness and identifying key determinants and processes. The first four essays seek to explain a firm's propensity to adopt online channels and suggest that firm size and a firm's willingness to cannibalise, i.e. a firm's readiness to reduce the actual or potential value of its earlier investments, differentiate between adopters and non-adopters of online channels. Expectations of alienating resellers through online channel adoption may prevent a firm from adopting. Customers' pull, competitors' push and previous use of the Internet turned out to be strong drivers of online channel use. The fourth essay employs a two-wave research design and highlights that changes that occur in the technological and economic environment in which firms operate can, over time, change a firm's pattern of decision-making from innovation adoption to conventional cost-benefit approach. Essays five and six focus on the internationalisation of SMEs. In particular, essay five focuses on the process aspects of internationalisation and suggests that early importing has a modest direct influence on exporting, and that early importing activity indirectly enhances a firm's international experience and capabilities. Essay six investigates how competitive interactions affect internationalisation and suggests that cooperation with competitors, or coopetition, is a noteworthy internationalisation motive. This thesis contributes to the literature on innovation, internationalisation, electronic marketing and small business management and demonstrates that the dynamic forces associated with innovative behaviour affect SMEs adoption of online channels and how they work with customers and suppliers abroad.
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| 33. |
- Baltzopoulos, Apostolos, 1981-
(författare)
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Essays on High-Quality Entrepreneurship : On the Origins and Survival of Start-ups and the Role of Universities in the Location Decision
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis consists of four self-contained essays on the topic of entrepreneurship. [Essay I] uses a unique and detailed Swedish dataset to explore firm, regional, and industry determinants that stimulate spin-offs using the choice of the individuals as the level of analysis. The most important results are that the size of the region and of the local entrepreneurial culture (the relative number of SMEs) has a positive effect on the propensity of the individual to set up a new venture corroborating the results of past firm- and regional-level studies. Industrial specialization is shown to have a positive impact on spin-offs, albeit only in high-tech manufacturing and in knowledge intensive business service sectors. Moreover, using an entropy measure to disentangle unrelated and related variety, it is found that the former has a significantly negative while the latter a significantly positive effect on the propensity of the individual to start a spin-off. [Essay II] asks how localisation (MAR) and diversity (Jacobs) externalities affect opportunity-based entrepreneurship across all industry sectors in Sweden’s private economy in the period 1999-2005. MAR externalities are found to positively affect entrepreneurship across all sectors. Jacobs externalities, measured as related variety using an entropy measure, positively affect entrepreneurship in high-tech manufacturing and in knowledge intensive business services but have no significant effect on low-tech manufacturing and other services. The results suggest that previous studies that find no evidence of entrepreneurship benefiting from a diverse local market composition might be using too broad measures of variety. [Essay III] analyses how different R&D strategies of incumbent firms affect the quantity and quality of their entrepreneurial spawning. By examining entrepreneurial ventures of ex-employees of firms with different R&D strategies three things emerge: First, firms with persistent R&D investments with a general superiority in sales, exports, productivity, profitability and wages are less likely to generate entrepreneurs than firm with temporary or no R&D investments. Second, start-ups from knowledge intensive business service (KIBS) firms with persistent R&D investments have a significantly increased probability of survival. No corresponding association between the R&D strategies of incumbents and survival of entrepreneurial spawns is found for incumbents in manufacturing sectors. Third, spin-outs from KIBS-firms are more likely to survive if they start in the same firm, indicating the importance of inherited related knowledge. The findings suggest that R&D intensive firms spur fewer entrepreneurs, but their entrepreneurial spawns tend to be of higher quality. [Essay IV] investigates how universities may affect regional entrepreneurship through the localisation decisions of entrepreneurial alumni. Empirically, a comprehensive, individual-level dataset from Sweden is used for the period 2003-2005. The results suggest that even when controlling for their spatial history, individuals have an increased propensity to set up in the region where they studied. This effect is found to substitute for both urbanisation economies and localisation economies as drivers of regional-level entrepreneurship. Thus, the analysis provides evidence on how universities affect regional economic development that complements the strong focus on spin-off activities by university researchers in previous studies.
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| 34. |
- Bos, Marieke, 1974-
(författare)
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Essays on Household Finance
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The thesis consists of three self-contained essays on household finance. “Pawn Credit and the Importance of Financial Exclusion” explores the importance of access to regular credit to the demand for pawn credit. I find that the rejection of one's loan application by a regular bank increases the probability that one will take pawn credit, on average, by 9 percent, relative to individuals whose loan application has been granted. However, of all pawn credit borrowers, 73 percent do not even try to get regular bank credit first. For these borrowers, I find that 93 percent are implicitly excluded from regular bank credit at the time they decide to take pawn credit. “Should Credit Remark Be Forgotten? Evidence from a Legally Mandated Removal” (with Leonard Nakamura) analyzes what happens when Swedish law mandates the removal of credit remarks from credit reports after three years. We find that removal induces an abrupt improvement in individuals' credit scores, an improvement that is not reversed in the long run. Further, the excess loan applications caused by the boost in creditworthiness translate into significant access to new credit. We find evidence that only a minority of the individuals who received a credit remark may be inherently high risk which suggests that credit remark removal is welfare enhancing. “Accept or Reject: Do Immigrants Have Less Access to Bank Credit? Evidence from Swedish Pawnshop Customers” asks if immigrants have less access to mainstream credit than their Swedish born counterparts. I find that immigrants are six percent less likely to be accepted when applying for mainstream credit, relative to Swedish born. This holds in particular for immigrants of African descent, who are 15 percent less likely. This effect disappears for second-generation immigrants with African parents. Immigrant pawnshop borrowers that do not apply for mainstream credit before they take pawn credit are found to make well-informed decisions.
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| 35. |
- Folke, Olle, 1979-
(författare)
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Parties, Power and Patronage : Papers in Political Economy
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis consists of three empirical essays in political economics."Shades of Brown and Green: Party Effects in Proportional Election Systems" is the first paper to develop a method for estimating the causal effect of party representation in proportional election systems. This method is applied to Swedish municipalities. The results show that party representation has a large effect on immigration policy and environmental policy. Parties profiling themselves in a policy area also have the largest effects on it. There is no evidence for party representation having an effect on tax policy."Midterm Slumps in US State Elections: Coattails, Power Balancing, or Referenda?" examines midterm slumps in US state legislatures and the mechanisms that cause them. The results show that the party of the governor systematically loses legislative seats in the midterm elections. Through the use of a regression discontinuity design it can be ruled out that this is caused by a surge-and-decline type mechanism. Instead, the results suggest that the midterm slump can be attributed, in about equal shares, to the midterm elections being a referendum on gubernatorial performance and the voters using the midterms for balancing of power."Patronage and Elections in U.S. States" examines if control over patronage jobs increased a political party's probability of winning elections in US States. A patronage system is a practice where a political party, after winning an election, reward their supporters by giving them government jobs. The essay provides evidence that patronage does -- or, rather, did -- help U.S. parties in power to retain it. There is also evidence for an "entrenched" party in power for a longer time period can use patronage more effectively than a "weak" party that usually is out of power.
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| 36. |
- Gränsmark, Patrik, 1972-
(författare)
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Essays on economic behavior, gender and strategic learning
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This doctoral thesis consists of four papers. Strategic behavior across gender: A comparison of female and male expert chess players analyzes gender differences in risk behavior in chess. We use a panel data set with 1.4 million games. Most notably, the data contains an objective measure of individual playing skill. We find that women are more risk averse and that men choose riskier strategies when playing against female opponents even though this reduces their winning probability. Gender differences in time preference and inconsistency among expert chess players presents findings on gender differences in time preference and inconsistency in chess. Impatience is estimated by measuring preferences for game durations while inconsistency by exploiting the 40th move time control. The results reveal that men are more impatient while women are more time inconsistent. Moreover, the difference in impatience increases with expertise while the difference in inconsistency decreases. Beauty queens and battling knights: Risk taking and attractiveness in chess explores the relationship between attractiveness and risk taking in chess. We examine whether people use riskier strategies when playing with attractive opponents and whether this affects performance. Our results suggest that male, but not female, chess players choose significantly riskier strategies when playing against an attractive female opponent, although this does not improve their performance. Strategic Learning in Repeated Chess Games, examines if chess players in repeated games with the same opponent, learn about the opponent’s type and adapt future strategies accordingly. It also shows how matching background characteristics affect the choice of strategy. The findings show that chess players learn about the opponent’s type. Players with similar background characteristics coordinate better than players of different gender or nationality but this difference decreases as the players update their beliefs.
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| 37. |
- Hall, Caroline, 1979-
(författare)
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Empirical Essays on Education and Social Insurance Policies
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis consists of four self-contained essays. Essay 1: This paper evaluates the effects of the introduction of a more comprehensive upper secondary school system in Sweden in the 1990s. The reform reduced the differences between the academic and vocational educational tracks through prolonging and substantially increasing the academic content of all vocational tracks. The effects of this policy change are identified by exploiting a six year pilot scheme, which preceded the actual reform in some municipalities. The results show that the prolongation of the vocational tracks brought about an increased probability of dropping out among low performing students. Though one important motive behind the policy change was to enable all upper secondary school graduates to pursue a university degree, I find no effects on university enrolment or graduation. There are some indications, however, that attending the longer and more academic vocational tracks may have led to increased earnings in the long run. Essay 2: (co-authored with Peter Fredriksson, Elly-Ann Johansson and Per Johansson) We examine whether the impact of pre-school interventions on cognitive skills differs by immigrant background. The analysis is based on Swedish data containing information on childcare attendance, rich family background information, the performance on cognitive tests at age 13, and long-run educational attainment for cohorts born between 1967 and 1982. We find that childcare attendance reduces the gap in language skills between children from immigrant backgrounds relative to native-born children. We find no differential effects on inductive skills, however. Nor does childcare appear to affect the distribution of long-run educational attainment. Essay 3: (co-authored with Laura Hartman) This paper studies a specific type of moral hazard that arises in the interplay between two large public insurance systems in Sweden, namely the sickness insurance (SI) and the unemployment insurance (UI). Moral hazard can arise from the structure of the benefit levels as for some unemployed persons benefits from the SI are higher than benefits from the UI. We use a reform of the SI system that came into force on 1 July 2003 to identify the effect of economic incentives arising from the different benefit levels. The purpose of the reform was to eliminate the difference in benefits between the two insurance systems. Our results from a duration analysis show clearly that the higher the sickness benefits, the higher the probability of reporting sick. Essay 4: Previous research suggests that there are substantial interactions between the unemployment insurance (UI) and the sickness insurance (SI) in Sweden. Moral hazard arises in the interplay between these two social insurance systems, since by reporting sick an unemployed person can postpone the UI expiration date and sometimes also receive considerably higher benefits. This paper examines whether these interactions affect the transition rate from unemployment to employment. To study this question I utilize a reform which greatly reduced the incentives for unemployed persons to transfer to the SI. While there is evidence that this reform substantially lowered the incidence of sick reports among the unemployed, I find no evidence suggesting that the reduced sick report rate in turn affected the transition rate to employment.
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| 38. |
- Henriksson, Eva
(författare)
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Industrial electricity demand and energy efficiency policy
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation consists of an introduction and five self-contained papers addressing the issues of industrial electricity demand and the role of energy efficiency policy. An important context for the study is the increased interest in so-called voluntary energy efficiency programs in which different types of tax exemptions are granted if the participating firms carry out energy efficiency measures following an energy audit. Paper 1 conceptually analyses the cost-effectiveness of voluntary energy efficiency programs targeted at the industrial sector. A broad methodological framework is outlined, and discussed in the empirical context of the Swedish PFE program. The results show that the presence of information inefficiencies and asymmetries represents one of the major motives for policy intervention in the industrial energy efficiency field, but the substitution of energy management systems for electricity taxes, such as that achieved in the Swedish PFE program, does not necessarily address these market failures cost-effectively. Paper II provides an empirical assessment of the electricity efficiency improvement potential in the Swedish pulp and paper industry by employing data envelopment analysis (DEA) and mill-specific input and output data for the years 1995, 2000 and 2005. The estimated electricity efficiency gap is relatively stable over time, and it equals about 1 TWh for the sample mills. This result is largely a reflection of the fact that in the pulp and paper industry electricity efficiency improvements are typically embodied in the diffusion of new capital equipment, and there is a risk that some of the reported energy efficiency measures in PFE simply constitute an inefficient speed-up of capital turnover. Overall the analysis suggests that future energy efficiency programs could be better targeted at explicitly promoting technological progress as well as at addressing the most important information and behaviour-related failures. In Paper III the electricity demand behaviour in the Swedish pulp and paper industry is analysed. A panel data set of 19 pulp and paper firms is employed within a Translog cost function, and the own- and cross-price elasticities of electricity demand as well as the impact of knowledge accumulation following private R&D on electricity use are estimated. The empirical results show that electricity use in the Swedish pulp and paper industry is relatively own-price insensitive, but they also display that already in a baseline setting firms tend to invest in private R&D that have electricity saving impacts. The objectives of Paper IV are to: (a) analyse long-run electricity demand behaviour in the Swedish mining industry; and (b) contrast this to the reported outcomes of PFE. Methodologically, a Generalized Leontief variable cost function covering a panel data set of nine mining operations over the time period 1990-2005 is used. The empirical results indicate that long-run electricity demand in the mining industry is sensitive to changes in the own-price, but the estimated electricity use increases following the tax reduction in PFE do not overweigh the self-reported electricity savings of the program. Finally, Paper V analyses the presence of structural changes in the Swedish pulp and paper industry, and we pay particular attention to altering energy demand patterns and factor substitution possibilities over time. The paper employs a flexible Translog cost function, and an unbalanced panel data set covering 32 pulp and paper mills over the time period 1974-2005. The results show evidence of more significant factor substitution possibilities over time, not the least between electricity and fossil fuels. In addition, fuel and labour demands have overall become more sensitive to short-run changes in relative prices.
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| 39. |
- Hensvik, Lena, 1981-
(författare)
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The effects of markets, managers and peers on worker outcomes
- 2011
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Essay 1: This essay exploits the entry of private independent high schools in Sweden to examine how local school competition affects the wages and the mobility of teachers in a market with individual wage bargaining. Using rich matched employer-employee panel data covering all high school teachers over a period of 16 years, I show that the entry of private schools is associated with higher teacher salaries, including higher salaries for teachers in public schools. The wage returns from competition are highest for teachers entering the profession and for teachers trained in math and science. Private school entry has also increased wage dispersion between high- and low-skilled teachers within the same field. Several robustness checks support a causal interpretation of the results, which draw attention to the potential effects of school competition on teacher supply, through the more differentiated wage setting of teachers. Essay 2: (with Olof Åslund and Oskar Nordström Skans) We investigate how manager origin affects hiring patterns, job separations, and entry wages. The analysis, draws on a longitudinal matched employer-employee data including more than 100,000 workplaces during a nine year period. Immigrant managers are substantially more likely to hire immigrants, a result robust to comparisons within 5-digit industry and location as well as within firms across establishments. The finding holds also when we follow establishments that change management over time, even accounting for trends. Origin dissimilarity increases separations within the first year of employment, but there is no impact on entry wages. Several results point to information asymmetries as an important explanation to the patterns. Essay 3: The third essay examines whether women benefit from working under female management. I use matched employer-employee panel data for Sweden, which enables me to account for unobserved heterogeneity among both workers and firms. In line with existing work, I document a substantial negative correlation between the proportion of female managers and the establishment’s gender wage gap. However, most of this relationship reflects worker heterogeneity, suggesting that sorting is an important explanation for the lower gender wage difference in female-led firms. Further analysis supports this conclusion by showing that while female managers are not more likely to hire same-sex workers per se, they do indeed hire women with higher portable earnings capacity. Essay 4: (with Peter Nilsson) We analyze how peer effects among co‑workers affect fertility using population‑wide matched employer-employee panel data. We provide evidence on if, when, why and for whom co‑workers’ fertility decisions matter. Overall the impact of co-workers on own fertility is of the same magnitude as the effect of being one year older in the age span 20 to 30. “Same-type” co‑workers are particularly influential, although social status and own previous childbearing experiences modify the influence of peers in distinct ways. Peers’ fertility decisions matter most when the uncertainty about job-related costs of childbearing is low. The results provide insights to the sharp fluctuations in fertility rates observed in many countries, and give an indication of how social interactions affect important career related decisions.
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| 40. |
- Jakobsson, Niklas
(författare)
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Laws, Attitudes and Public Policy
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Paper 1: Do laws affect attitudes? An assessment of the Norwegian prostitution law using longitudinal data The question of whether laws affect attitudes has inspired scholars across many disciplines, but empirical knowledge is sparse. Using longitudinal survey data from Norway and Sweden, collected before and after the implementation of a Norwegian law criminalizing the purchase of sexual services, we assess the short-run effects on attitudes using a difference-indifferences approach. In the general population, the law did not affect moral attitudes toward prostitution. However, in the Norwegian capital, where prostitution was more visible before the reform, the law made people more negative toward buying sex. This supports the claim that proximity and visibility are important factors for the internalization of legal norms. Paper 2: Gender and overconfidence: are girls really overconfident? Previous research finds that people are overconfident and that men are more overconfident than women. Using a very precise confidence measure, this article shows, however, that whereas boys are overconfident, girls are actually underconfident regarding their mathematics performance. We conducted a survey where 14-year-old high school students were asked what grade they thought they would get in a mathematics test a week later. These results were then compared with their actual grade. Boys were overconfident about their grades, whereas girls were underconfident. Forthcoming in Applied Economics Letters. Paper 3: A field experiment of discrimination in the Norwegian housing market: sex, class, and ethnicity We test for gender, class, and ethnical discrimination in the Norwegian rental housing market, using fake application letters. Females, individuals with high job status, and ethnical Norwegians are more likely to receive positive call-backs. For example, being an Arabic man, working in a warehouse is associated with a 25 percentage points lower probability of receiving a positive response when showing interest in an apartment as compared to an ethnically Norwegian female economist. We conclude that gender, class, and ethnic discrimination exist in the Norwegian rental housing market, and ethnic discrimination seems to be most prevalent. Paper 4: What explains attitudes toward prostitution? We assess people’s attitudes toward prostitution in Norway and Sweden, two countries that have made it illegal to buy sex. The laws were, however, put in place in different time-periods and embedded in different market structures and discourses. Compared to previous research, the present study is the first to use methods that can shed light on attitudes toward various aspects of prostitution while controlling for other factors. We find that men and sexual liberals are more positive toward prostitution, and that conservatives and those who support gender equality are more negative. Holding anti-immigration views is correlated with more positive attitudes toward buying, but not toward selling, sex. Norwegians are more positive than Swedes toward prostitution. It is also found that supporting gender equality has more explanatory power in Sweden than in Norway, and it is argued that this may be due to the gender equality framing of the Swedish debate. Forthcoming in Feminist Economics. Paper 5: Why do you want lower taxes? Preferences regarding municipal income tax rates The factors shaping people's references for municipal labor income tax rates in Sweden are assessed using survey data. The tax rate actually faced by the respondents has explanatory power for their attitudes toward the tax rate only when a few socio-demographic explanatory variables are included. When a richer set of variables are included, the association disappears. The hypothesis that this small or nonexistent effect of the actual tax rate is caused by a Tiebout bias finds no support, yet IV-estimations indicate that the actual municipal tax rate may be of importance for attitudes toward the tax rate. Paper 6: Intergovernmental grants and fiscal competition This theoretical paper shows how a central government can induce a policy concerning a municipal matter through a package of a policy requirement and a grant. We find that, due to fiscal competition and the possibility for citizens to move between municipalities, the central government can make the municipalities adopt the policy requirement although the municipalities make a loss from doing so. We apply this model to a recent Swedish child-care fee reform and can explain why all Swedish municipalities implemented the maximum childcare fee although it had a negative impact on many municipalities' finances.
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