| 1. |
- Carlsson, Fredrik, 1968, et al.
(författare)
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Conformity and the demand for environmental goods
- 2008
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- We test the hypothesis that people conform to certain social norms, i.e. that some individuals may be willing to pay a higher price premium for green products the more widespread green consumerism is in society. To investigate consumer preferences for environmentally friendly products, we conducted a choice experiment where the respondents were asked to choose among coffee products varying with respect to their share of ecological beans, share of fair trade beans, and price. Three treatments were used, differing only in the information given about the choices made by other consumers. More specifically, the respondents in the three subgroups were told that 10%, 50%, and 90% of all other consumers chose the alternative with 100% ecological beans. We find different responses to the treatments across individuals. In particular, we can only confirm our hypothesis of conformity for women, although men appear to have stronger preferences for ecological coffee than women.
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| 2. |
- Aaberge, Rolf, et al.
(författare)
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Evaluation of an In-work Tax Credit Reform in Sweden: Effects on Labor Supply and Welfare Participation of Single Mothers
- 2008
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The purpose of this paper is to evaluate a recent Swedish in-work tax credit reform where we pay particular attention to labor market exclusion; i.e. individuals in as well as outside the labor force are included in the analysis. To highlight the importance of the joint effects from the tax and the benefit systems it appears particular relevant to analyze the labor supply behavior of single mothers. To this end, we estimate a structural microeconometric model of labor supply and welfare participation. The model accounts for heterogeneity in consumption-leisure preferences as well as for constraints in job opportunities. The results of the evaluation show that the reform generates welfare-gains for virtually every single mother, and moreover benefits low-income households. Finally, due to increased labor supply and decline in welfare participation we find that this reform is almost self-financing.
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| 3. |
- Abou-Ali, Hala, 1972, et al.
(författare)
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Does Benefit Transfer Always Work: a Multi-country Comparison
- 2005
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This paper analyzes the welfare effects of a 50 percent reduction in air pollution caused by road traffic in both Cairo (Egypt) and Rabat-Salé (Morocco) using a contingent valuation method with identical elicitation questions. Despite the fact that both the numbers of inhabitants and vehicles are higher in Cairo the willingness to pay to reduce the impacts of vehicle emissions is higher in Rabat-Salé although incomes are rather similar in both cities. This paper shows that the relatively often-used benefit transfer frequently leads to biases where damage costs are under- or overestimated.
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| 4. |
- Acocella, Nicola, et al.
(författare)
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Labor market regimes and the effects of monetary policy
- 2006
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In this paper we use a standard multi-union, monopolistic competition model to evaluate analytically and numerically the effects of monetary policy on inflation and unemployment under different institutional arrangements in the labor market that are defined by the rigidity of nominal wages. We show that the effects of monetary policy on the real economy depend critically on the wage formation regime, and on the ways in which the restrictiveness of policy interacts with product price competition, wage setting centralization and the utility weight unions place on real wage premiums as compared to unemployment. Our interpretation of the results emphasizes how the posture of monetary policy toward inflation influences the strategic calculations driving unions´ wage setting behavior in different institutional environments.
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| 5. |
- Ahlerup, Pelle, 1977
(författare)
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Earthquakes and Civil War
- 2009
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Natural disasters claim thousands of lives each year and can be a heavy burden for already vulnerable societies. Are natural disasters also a cause of violent con- flict? While most studies based on systematic empirical research do find this to be the case, there are also known cases where natural disasters have contributed to a de-escalation of fighting. This paper shows, theoretically and empirically, that mod- erate earthquakes increase the risk of civil wars, but that stronger (and therefore more rare) earthquakes instead reduce the risk of civil wars. We use an exhaustive dataset on earthquakes from 1947 to 2001 collected by seismologists. The associ- ation between earthquakes and the incidence of civil war is decomposed into two separate effects: they affect the risk that new civil wars are started and they affect the chance that existing civil wars are terminated.
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| 6. |
- Ahlerup, Pelle, 1977, et al.
(författare)
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Nationalism and Government Effectiveness
- 2008
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The literature on nation-building and nationalism suggests that nation-building affects economic and political performance, mitigates the problems associated with ethnic hetero- geneity, but that nationalism, an indicator of successful nation-building, is linked to dismal performance via protectionism and intolerance. This paper shows that there is a nonlinear association between nationalism and government effectiveness, that nationalism leaves no imprint on the effects of ethnic heterogeneity but may be a positive force in former colonies, and that actual trade ows are independent of the level of nationalism in the population.
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| 7. |
- Ahlerup, Pelle, 1977, et al.
(författare)
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Social Capital vs Institutions in the Growth Process
- 2007
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Is social capital always important for economic growth? A number of recent micro studies suggest that interpersonal trust and social capital will have its greatest impact on economic performance when court institutions are relatively weak. The conventional wisdom from macro studies, however, is that social capital is unconditionally good for growth. On the basis of the micro evidence, we outline an investment game between a producer and a lender in an incomplete-contracts setting. A key insight is that social capital will have the greatest e¤ect on the total surplus from the game at lower levels of institutional strength and that the effect of social capital vanishes when institutions are very strong. When we bring this prediction to an empirical cross-country growth regression, it is shown that the marginal e¤ect of social capital (in the form of inter- personal trust) decreases with institutional strength. Our results imply that a one standard deviation rise in social capital in weakly institutionalized Nigeria should increase economic growth by 1.8 percentage points, whereas the same increase in social capital only increases growth by 0.3 percentage points in strongly institutionalized Canada.
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| 8. |
- Ahlerup, Pelle, 1977
(författare)
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The Causal Effects of Ethnic Diversity: An Instrumental Variables Approach
- 2009
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Ethnic diversity is endogenous to economic development in the long run. Yet the standard approach in economic research is to treat ethnic diversity as an exogenous factor. By identifying instruments for ethnic diversity, we correct this misspeci ca- tion and establish that ethnic diversity has an exogenous in uence on income levels, economic growth, corruption, and provision of public goods. Earlier results based on OLS estimations may have underestimated the negative e¤ects of high levels of ethnic diversity.
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| 9. |
- Ahlerup, Pelle, 1977, et al.
(författare)
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The Roots of Ethnic Diversity
- 2007
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The level of ethnic diversity is believed to have significant consequences for economic and political development within countries. In this article, we provide a theoretical and empirical analysis of the determinants of ethnic diversity in the world. We introduce a model of cultural and genetic drift where new ethnic groups endogenously emerge among peripheral populations as a response to an insufficient supply of public goods. In line with our model, we find that the duration of human settlements has a strong positive association with ethnic diversity. Ethnic diversity decreases with the length of modern state experience and with distance from the equator. Both "primordial" and "constructivist" hypotheses of ethnic fractionalization thus receive some support by our analysis.
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| 10. |
- Ahlgren, N., et al.
(författare)
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Panel Cointegration of Chinese A and B Shares
- 2008
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In this paper we study market segmentation and information flows in China's stock markets. By using panel data methods we test for a unit root in the price premium of domestic investors' A shares over foreign investors' B shares as well as cointegration between the prices of the A and B shares on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges. We find that the A-share premia are nonstationary and the A- and B-share prices are not cointegrated up till January 2001. After February 2001, when domestic investors were allowed to trade B shares, the A-share premia become stationary and the A- and B-share prices cointegrated. Our findings suggest that the relaxation of the investment restrictions decreased the information asymmetry betwen the A- and B-share markets in China.
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