| 1. |
- Jakobsson, Niklas, et al.
(författare)
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Does immigration affect welfare state generosity? Quasi-experimental evidence
- 2014
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This note studies the impact of immigration on welfare state generosity in 12 Western European countries. In estimations not coping with the possible endogeneity problem, there are indications of a negative relationship between immigration and welfare state generosity. However, when the distance to the Balkan wars are used as a source of exogenous variation in the immigrant share, as to overcome potential endogeneity in mobility across countries, our findings suggest that an increase in the immigrant share does not decrease welfare state generosity.
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| 2. |
- Nordén, Anna, 1981
(författare)
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Payment Types and Participation in Payment for Ecosystem Services Programs: Stated Preferences of Landowners
- 2014
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Because the effectiveness of payment for ecosystem services (PES) programs depends on landowners’ engagement, understanding the relationship between the type of payment and participation is a key issue. This paper reports on a choice experiment that quantifies landowners’ preferences for cash and educational in-kind payment. The main results indicate a positive correlation between participation in a PES contract and the magnitude of the cash payment, while participation seems uncorrelated with the magnitude of the educational inkind payment. In addition, we investigate the mix of payment types and heterogeneity in preferences, which can help policymakers design strategies to increase participation.
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| 3. |
- Bonilla, Jorge, 1975, et al.
(författare)
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Synergies and Trade-offs between Climate and Local Air Pollution: Policies in Sweden
- 2012
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In this paper, we explore the synergies and tradeoffs between abatement of global and local pollution. We built a unique dataset of Swedish heat and power plants with detailed boiler-level data 2001-2009 on not only production and inputs but also emissions of CO2 and NOx. Both pollutants are subject to strict policies in Sweden. CO2 is subject to multiple levels of governance using environmental instruments such as the EU ETS and Swedish carbon taxes; NOx – as a precursor of acid rain and eutrophication – is regulated by a heavy fee. Using a quadratic directional output distance function, we characterize changes in technical efficiency as well as patterns of substitutability in response to the policies mentioned. The fact that generating units face a trade-off between the pollutants indicates a need for policy coordination.
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| 4. |
- Carlsson, Fredrik, 1968, et al.
(författare)
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Social preferences are stable over long periods of time
- 2012
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- We measure people’s prosocial behavior, in terms of voluntary money and labor time contributions to an archetypical public good, a bridge, and in terms of voluntary money contributions in a public good game, using the same non-student sample in rural Vietnam at four different points in time from 2005 to 2011. Two of the experiments are natural experiment, one is a field experiment and one is a public good experiment. Since the experiments were conducted far apart in time, the potentially confounding effects of moral licensing and moral cleansing are presumably small, if existing at all. Despite large contextual variations, we find a strong positive and statistically significant correlation between voluntary contributions in these experiments, whether correcting for other covariates or not. This suggests that pro-social preferences are fairly stable over long periods of time and contexts.
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| 5. |
- Congdon Fors, Heather, 1975
(författare)
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Social Globalization and Child Labor
- 2012
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In recent years, a growing number of authors have turned their focus to the question of why children work. While much of the research focuses on household level factors, macroeconomic factors have gained increasing attention. This is particularly true in the case of globalization. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the literature on the role of globalization in child labor by examining a specific aspect of globalization: social globalization. The results of the empirical analysis indicate that social globalization does have a significant impact on the average incidence of child labor in the cross-country sample of developing countries.
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| 6. |
- Coria, Jessica, 1979, et al.
(författare)
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Should we tax or let firms trade emissions? An experimental analysis with policy implications for developing countries
- 2011
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In this paper we use laboratory experiments to test the theoretical predictions derived by Villegas-Palacio and Coria (2010) about the effects of the interaction between technology adoption and incomplete enforcement. They show that under Tradable Emissions Permits (TEPs), and in contrast to taxes, the fall in permit price produced by adoption of environmentally friendly technologies reduces the benefits of violating the environmental regulation at the margin and leads firms to improve their compliance behavior. Moreover, when TEPs are used, the regulator can speed up the diffusion of new technologies since the benefits from adopting the new technology increase with the enforcement stringency. Our experimental results confirm these theoretical predictions. While the aggregate emissions do not statistically differ between the two policy instruments, the fraction of firms violating the regulation and the aggregate extent of violation are lower under TEPs than under emission taxes regardless of the monitoring probability. Hence, in contrast to previous studies, our results indicate that TEPs would appear to be a feasible policy alternative in weak regulatory contexts.
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| 7. |
- Dimico, Arcangelo, et al.
(författare)
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Origins of the Sicilian Mafia: The Market for Lemons
- 2012
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Since its first appearance in the late 1800s, the origins of the Sicilian mafia have remained a largely unresolved mystery. Both institutional and historical explanations have been proposed in the literature through the years. In this paper, we develop an argument for a market structure-hypothesis, contending that mafia arose in towns where firms made unusually high profits due to imperfect competition. We identify the produc tion of citrus fruits as a sector with very high international demand as well as substantial fixed costs that acted as a barrier to entry in many places and secured high profits in others. We argue that the mafia arose out of the need to protect citrus production from predation by thieves. Using the original data from a parliamentary inquiry in 1881-86 on Sicilian towns, we show that mafia presence is strongly related to the production of orange and lemon. This result contrasts recent work that emphasizes the importance of land reforms and a broadening of property rights as the main reason for the emergence of mafia protection.
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| 8. |
- Eggert, Håkan, 1961, et al.
(författare)
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Reference-dependent behaviour of paua (abalone) divers in New Zealand
- 2011
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- We study dynamic labour supply using data on paua (abalone) divers in New Zealand. The divers face stable, flat prices per kilogram after each catch, but experience transitory wage changes due to varying weather and water conditions, and are free to vary their daily working hours and display an intermittent working pattern. We find non-linear wage elasticities, rejecting the standard neo-classical prediction. We explore potentially distorting factors, but find little evidence. Applying Kőszegi and Rabin’s (2006) theory where workers have both income and hours targets could explain our result. In particular, our divers appear to be primarily guided by the hours target.
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| 9. |
- Engström, Per, et al.
(författare)
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Loss evasion and tax aversion
- 2011
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The objective of this paper is to study if taxpayers behave in a loss averse manner when filing their tax returns. This is important for tax design but also for understanding human behavior in general. The predictions of prospect theory can be contrasted to those of expected utility theory. We use data for 3.6 million Swedish taxpayers for the income year 2006. Our research method is quasi-experimental using a regression kink and discontinuity approach. We also use an alternative instrumental-variables approach. There is strong evidence of loss aversion. We estimate the coefficient of loss aversion using actual behavior and the instrument-variables approach. Our estimate is very close to the estimates reported in the experimental literature.
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| 10. |
- Ericson, Peter, 1962, et al.
(författare)
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Taxes, Wages and Working Hours
- 2011
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This paper presents estimates of individuals’ responses in hourly wages to changes in marginal tax rates. Estimates based on register panel data of Swedish households covering the period 1992 to 2007 produce significant but relatively small net-of-tax rate elasticities. The results vary with family type, with the largest elasticities obtained for single males and the smallest for married/cohabitant females. Despite these seemingly small elasticities, evaluation of the effects of a reduced state tax using a microsimulation model shows that the effort effect matters. The largest effect is due to changes in number of working hours yet including the effort effect results in an almost self-financed reform. As a reference to the earlier literature we also estimate taxable income elasticities. As expected, these are larger than for the hourly wage rates. However, both specifications produce significantly and positive income effects.
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