| 51. |
- Lindbeck, Assar, et al.
(författare)
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Options for Economic and Political Reform in Sweden
- 1993
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This paper summarises an official report to the Swedish government (and general public). The economic crisis in Sweden is explained by both system failures and specific policy mistakes. The system failures include distorted incentives and markets, and inappropriate and outdated institutions. The deep recession and extraordinary rise in unemployment started as a collision between inflationary wage development and attempts to pursue a hard-currency policy. The resulting loss of international competitiveness in the tradable sector was accompanied by increased real interest rates, collapsing real estate prices and a related financial crisis. Following the floating of the Swedish krona in November 1992, the main problem became a domestic demand collapse, which has been accentuated by a spectacular rise in the household saving rate. The report emphasizes that good policy advice is not enough; it is also necessary to analyse and reform not only to macroeconomic stability but also economic efficiency and growth. The proposed institutional reforms are designed to restore a highly competitive market system and to facilitate a responsible fiscal stabilisation programme. This would also enahnce the medium-run credibility for government policies and provide scope for a more expansionary policy in the short run.
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| 52. |
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| 53. |
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| 54. |
- Lindbeck, Assar, et al.
(författare)
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Pay Schemes, Bargaining, and Competition for Talent
- 2015
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The paper provides a framework for analysis of remuneration to agents whose task is to make well-informed decisions on behalf of a principal, with managers in large corporations as the most prominent example. The principal and agent initially bargain over the pay scheme to the latter. The bargaining outcome depends both on competition for agents and on the relative bargaining power of the two parties, given their outside options, thus allowing for the possibility that the agent may be the current CEO who may have considerable power. Having signed a contract, the agent chooses how much effort to make to acquire information about the project at hand. This information is private and the agent uses it in his subsequent decision whether or not to invest in a given project. In model A the agent’s effort to acquire information is exogenous, whereas in model E it is endogenous. Model A lends no support for other payment schemes than flat salaries is weak. Model E contains a double moral hazard problem; how much information to acquire and what investment decision to make. As a consequence, the equilibrium contracts in model E involve both bonuses and penalties. We identify lower and upper bounds on these, and study how the bonus and bonus rate depend on competition and bargaining power. We also analyze the nature of contracts when the agent is overconfident.
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| 55. |
- Lindbeck, Assar
(författare)
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Pensions and Contemporary Socioeconomic Change
- 2000
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In developed countries, pensions systems emerged as a political response to socioeconomic changes brought about by industrialization and urbanization in the late 19th and early 20th centruries. Today, new socioeconomic changes create both rationales and political forces for revisions of existing pensions systems. Changes in demography, real wage growth and real interest rates are perhaps the most obvious examples. Increased instability of the family, more heterogeneity among individuals, greater internationel mobility of labor and capital, and amibitions to ecourage individual responsibility also have important implications for pensions systems. When discussing these issues, it is useful to set up a more elaborate classification of pension systems than the usual distinction between defined-benefit (DB) and defined-contribution (DV) systems. The choice of an appropriate taxonomy depends, of course, on the issues to be raised. One question that is focused on in this paper concerns the consequences of socioeconomic shocks on the distribution of income and the sharing of income risk among generations. it turns out that the distinction between pensions systems with exogenous and endogenous contribution rates (tax rates) then becomes crucial. Bu the paper also deals with socioeconomic changes that are induced by the pension system itself via behavioral adjustments of individuals - and the feedback of these changes on the pension system. When dealing with such adjustments, highly relevant features of pension systems are the degree to which they are actuarial and funded, respectively - two aspects that are related but not the identical. Six generic pension systems are classified in Section I, highlighting the distinctions mentioned above. The contribution rate is exogenous in two of these systems, while it is endogenous in the other four systems. Each of the six pension systems can ba varied considerably, both by incorporating elements from other systems and by introducing restricitions on contributions or benefits. Section II turns to the consequences of socioeconomic changes for the distribution of income and macroeconomic balance, while sections III and IV examine alternative pension reforms aimed at mitigating some of these consequences. A few of these reforms are "marginal" in the sense that certain rules of a pension system are modified, including both ad hoc policy measures and the introduction of various automatic adjustment mechanisms. Other reforms are "radical" since they imply shift to different types of pensions sytems. Section V concludes. As always when designing social insurance systems, it is necessary to strika balance between conflicting considerations, such as distribution, risk sharing and incentives. But it is also important to be concerned with the balance between paternalism and individual freedom of choice (and hence individual responsibility). This also raises the more general question of the appropriate role of government in society as a whole, including the control of capital markets and government intervention in the management of firms.
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| 56. |
- Lindbeck, Assar, et al.
(författare)
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Political Equilibrium in Representative Democracy
- 1989
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- It is shown in this paper that the Median Voter Theorem lacks robustness in the sense that if voters have (even the slightest) preferences for the competing candidates, beside preferences for their current policy proposals, then no policy in the neighbourhood of the median voter's preferred policy constitutes an equilibrium (in pure strategies). This suggests that this classical theorem does not apply to representative democracy. Indeed, if voters do have candidate preferences, and these are strong enough, the policy-motivated candidates will, in general, adopt differing policy positions in equilibrium, and, under certain qualifications, the equilibrium outcome will be (close ti) a particular utilitarian optimum. More specifically, in a discretized model the policy outcome will lie between the preferred policy of the most popular candidate and this utilitarian optimum.
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| 57. |
- Lindbeck, Assar, et al.
(författare)
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Price Inertia and Production Lags
- 1991
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The paper shows how prolonged price inertia can arise in a macroeconomic system in which there are temporary price rigidities as well as production lags in the use of intermediate goods. In this context, changes in product demand - generated, say, by changes in the money supply - have long-lasting price and quantity effects. Specifically, a temporary demand shift generates "persistence" in price-quantity decision, in the sense that the price-quantity effects of this shift persist for long after the shift has dosappeared. A permanent demand shift generates "sluggishness" in price-quantity decisions, in the sense that the full price effects of the shift take a long time to appear and that meanwhile quantity effects are present.
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| 58. |
- Lindbeck, Assar
(författare)
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Prospects for the Welfare State
- 2008
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- It is useful to distinguish between exogenous and endogenous factors behind contemporary and expected future problems for the welfare state. This paper tries to identify major problems of both types and to indicate alternative reform possibilities to deal with them. At the same time as several governments struggle with such reforms, new demands on the welfare state emerge. Although the basic structure of today’s welfare-state arrangements certainly can be kept, the reforms required are sufficiently large to create considerable conflicts across interest groups.
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| 59. |
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| 60. |
- Lindbeck, Assar, et al.
(författare)
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Public Spending and Private Services : Macroeconomic Effects
- 1986
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- We study the consequences for employment and the production of tradable goods and nontradable services of tax-finances increases in public transfer payments and public consumption. While employment and the production of services usually fall, the consequences for unemployment and the welfare of employed and unemployed workers are less clear. Of particular importance is the rate by which marginal productivity changes in the household production sector and the market sector, as well as the efficiency of government production. In addition, the effects on the ex-post government budget balance and the current account of the balance of payments are also examined.
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