| 1. |
- Ahlberg, Joakim, 1966-
(författare)
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Multi-unit common value auctions : theory and experiments
- 2012
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Research on auctions that involve more than one identical item for sale was,almost non-existing in the 90’s, but has since then been getting increasing attention. External incentives for this research have come from the US spectrum, sales, the European 3G mobile-phone auctions, and Internet auctions. The policy relevance and the huge amount of money involved in many of them have helped the theory and experimental research advance. But in auctions where values are equal across bidders, common value auctions, that is, when the value depends on some outside parameter, equal to all bidders, the research is still embryonic.This thesis contributes to the topic with three studies. The first uses a Bayesian game to model a simple multi-unit common value auction, the task being to compare equilibrium strategies and the seller’s revenue from three auction formats; the discriminatory, the uniform and the Vickrey auction. The second study conducts an economic laboratory experiment on basis of the first study. The third study comprises an experiment on the multi-unit common value uniform auction and compares the dynamic and the static environments of this format.The most salient result in both experiments is that subjects overbid. They are victims of the winner’s curse and bid above the expected value, thus earning a negative profit. There is some learning, but most bidders continue to earn a negative profit also in later rounds. The competitive effect when participating in an auction seems to be stronger than the rationality concerns. In the first experiment, subjects in the Vickrey auction do somewhat better in small groups than subjects in the other auction types and, in the second experiment, subjects in the dynamic auction format perform much better than subjects in the static auction format; but still, they overbid.Due to this overbidding, the theoretical (but not the behavioral) prediction that the dynamic auction should render more revenue than the static fails inthe second experiment. Nonetheless, the higher revenue of the static auction comes at a cost; half of the auctions yield negative profits to the bidders, and the winner’s curse is more severely widespread in this format. Besides, only a minority of the bidders use the equilibrium bidding strategy.The bottom line is that the choice between the open and sealed-bid formats may be more important than the choice of price mechanism, especially in common value settings.
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| 2. |
- Aranki, Ted N., 1978-
(författare)
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Wages, unemployment and regional differences : empirical studies of the Palestinian labor market
- 2006
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis consists of four essays analyzing wages, unemployment and regional differences in the Palestinian labor market. Paper [I] investigates the effects of the Israeli closure policy on Palestinian wage earnings. Closure has a significant impact on the Palestinian labor force in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. However, the effect differs between the two regions. The estimated models show that closure affects the Gaza Strip more than the West Bank. This could indicate that external closure is more damaging than internal closure. The reason is that external closure has been more strictly enforced in the Gaza Strip compared to the West Bank, which has suffered from a more severe internal closure. Paper [II] examines the effects of foreign workers on labor market outcomes for Palestinian workers from the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The data covers the period 1999-2003, a period in which Israel enforced a strict closure on labor (and goods) movement. The evidence suggests that foreign workers in Israel do not affect Palestinian employment; however, an increase in the number of foreign workers in Israel tends to reduce Israeli wages paid to Gazans. The Israeli closure policy appears to be the main cause of the substantial reduction in long-run Palestinian employment levels in Israel, not the presence of foreign workers. Paper [III] (co-authored with Yousef Daoud) investigates the determinants of unemployment duration in the Palestinian territories. This paper is the first study analyzing unemployment duration for Palestinian males; it covers a sensitive period (1999-2003) which in part witnessed a sharp increase in unemployment resulting from the closure of the Israeli labor market to many Palestinians. Non-parametric, semi-parametric, and full parametric methods were used to investigate the importance of individual and local labor market characteristics. The results indicate no significant differences between semi- and full-parametric methods. The Intifada has significantly lowered the hazard rate throughout the Palestinian territories, however, more so for the West Bank than the Gaza Strip. The probability of leaving unemployment is substantially lower in Gaza. Thus, the risk of long-term unemployment for individuals becoming unemployed is higher in that region. Paper [IV] estimates the economic returns to schooling in the Palestinian territories, and examines the relationship between household characteristics and the returns received by male household members in the labor market. The basic findings are that the economic returns to schooling are very low. Yet, the least-square estimate of the economic returns to schooling in Palestine is overestimated because of omitted unobservable household characteristics from the wage-schooling relationship. This is true even after correcting for measurement error in the schooling variable. The measurement-error-corrected least-square estimator of the returns to schooling is overestimated by 32 percent. Nevertheless, the omitted variable bias is of different magnitude in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. In fact, the least-square estimator of the returns to schooling in the West Bank is more biased upwards, due to omitted unobservable household characteristics, than measurement error biases the estimated returns downwards. The results for the Gaza Strip indicate on the contrary no such bias, as the upward bias due to omitted variables is roughly offset by the attenuation bias due to errors in the measurement of schooling.
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| 4. |
- Bandick, Roger, 1974-
(författare)
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Multinationals, employment and wages : microeconomic evidence from Swedish manufacturing
- 2008
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The aim of this thesis, consisting of four essays, is to study the effects of multinationals and inward FDI on employment and wage formation in Swedish manufacturing during the 1990s. Paper [1] (co-authored with Patrik Karpaty) investigates the employment effects of foreign acquisitions in acquired firms in Swedish manufacturing during the 1990s. To handle likely endogeneity problems we evaluate the effects of foreign acquisitions on the targeted firms’ employment by combining propensity score matching with difference-in-difference estimation. We find some evidence of positive employment effects in firms taken over by foreigners and it seems that the employment of skilled labor increases more than that of less-skilled labor. Moreover, we examine whether the employment impact of foreign ownership differs between takeovers of Swedish MNEs and non-MNEs. Our results indicate that the positive employment effects only appear in acquired non-MNEs. Furthermore, we observe shifts in skill intensities toward higher shares of skilled labor in non-MNEs taken over by foreign MNEs, but not in acquired Swedish MNEs. Paper [2] (co-authored with Pär Hansson) investigates whether the increased foreign ownership in Sweden in the 1990s have had any effects on relative demand for skilled labor. Estimating relative labor demand at the firm level and using propensity score matching with difference-in-difference estimation, we obtain support for relative demand for skilled labor tending to rise in non-multinationals (non-MNEs) but not in multinationals (MNEs) that become foreign owned. Other interesting findings are that a larger presence of foreign MNEs in an industry appears to have a positive impact on the relative demand for skills in Swedish MNEs within the same industry and that the elasticity of substitution between skilled and less-skilled labor seems to be lower in MNEs than in non-MNEs. Paper [3] investigates whether MNEs are more likely than non-MNEs to close down their plants, due to their footloose character. The results from using a panel of all Swedish manufacturing plants over the period 1993 and 2002 suggest that MNE plants, and in particular Swedish MNE plants, have a higher probability of exiting the market than non-MNE plants. The outcome is robust controlling for other variables affecting the survival rates. Among non-MNE plants, the probabilities of exit are higher in non-exporting firms than in exporting firms. Moreover, the increased foreign presence in Swedish manufacturing seems, due to intensified competition, to have led to the higher exit rates of plants in non-exporting non-MNEs. Plants of globally engaged indigenous firms, such as plants of Swedish MNEs and exporting non-MNEs, appear, on the other hand, to have been unaffected by the increased foreign presence. Paper [4] examines whether MNEs Swedish MNEs and foreign-owned firms pay higher wages than non-MNEs in manufacturing, controlling for firm heterogeneity and individual characteristics. In accordance with the idea that MNEs are superior in performance to other firms, I find that MNEs pay higher wages than non-MNEs, in particular for skilled labor. Yet the MNE wage premium is low; the average wages in MNEs are between 4-7 percent higher than in non-MNEs, while estimates at the individual level reduce the wage premium in MNEs to around 2-3 percent. Higher wages in foreign-owned firms may result from foreign acquisitions of high-wage firms. Alternatively, the acquired firms might have a more favorable wage growth than non-targeted domestically owned firms. My findings only lend support to the hypothesis that foreign firms select high-wage firms (especially non-MNEs) for acquisition.
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| 5. |
- Bohlin, Lars
(författare)
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Taxation of intermediate goods : a CGE analysis
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation is concerned with tax rates for the use of commodities in general, and energy in particular. Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) models are used to analyze the normative question of whether the tax rate for intermediate use by firms should be the same as the tax rate for final consumption by households. To answer this question, a distinction needs to be made between fiscal taxes for the purpose of raising revenue for the government, and Pigovian taxes for the purpose of changing behaviour. Concerning fiscal taxes, firms should not pay taxes on their use of inputs if the tax rates in final consumption are at their optimal level. If the tax rate for households is above the optimal level, intermediate use in firms should be taxed in order to increase the price of other commodities and reduce the distortion of relative prices. Essay 1 ascertains what factors determine the optimal relation between the tax rate for final consumption by households and intermediate use by firms. Essay 2 analyses Swedish energy taxes from the perspective of reducing global emission of CO2. It is found that the welfare maximizing tax rates are equal for households and firms not participating in emission trading, while firms that participate in emission trading should have a zero tax rate. Essays 3 and 4 deal with methodological issues. Essay 3 derives a new method for estimation of symmetric input-output tables from supply and use tables. This method solves the problem of negative coefficients, makes it possible to use both the industry and commodity technology assumptions simultaneously and enables the commodity technology assumption to be used even when the number of commodities is larger than the number of industries. Essay 4 describes the model used in the first two essays. The price structure developed here makes it possible to take into account price differences between different purchasers other than differences in tax rates. This essay also makes a comparison between the Swedish implementation of this model and other Swedish CGE-models used to analyse climate policy and energy taxation.
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| 6. |
- Bornhäll, Anders, 1984-
(författare)
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Unseen job creators and firm growth barriers : the role of capital constraints and seniority rules
- 2017
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The topic of this thesis is to provide a deeper understanding of how the institutional framework affects firms’ hiring decisions.The first article focuses on a group of firms, called sleeping gazelles, that do not grow despite having high profits. Sleeping gazelles constitute a much larger share of the firm population than that of high-growth firms. If it is growth barriers that are hindering these firms from hiring more employees, many new jobs could be created if these barriers were removed. To investigate the effects of one of the suggested growth barriers in the literature, the second article, focuses on whether small-firm growth is hampered by lack of capital. Using survey data from business owners matched with register data, we find that firms may face a capital constraint paradox, whereby the supply of external capital might be sufficient, but firm owners might refrain from accessing it due to fear of losing control of their companies. The third article investigates whether employment protection acts as a growth barrier in Sweden. Using a reform of the Swedish last-in-first-out (LIFO) rule, we estimate the causal effects from a liberalization of the employment protection. We find that firm growth increased because of the reform and that a more expansive reform could provide new job opportunities and increase overall employment. The LIFO rule was introduced to protect older workers. The fourth article investigates whether the reform weakened the labor market position of these workers. It is found that more young individuals who were unemployed or previously not in the workforce were hired as a consequence of the reform, showing that the reform lowered youth unemployment. There is no indication of older workers leaving the workforce or becoming unemployed to any greater extent after the reform. The fifth article show that the positive effects of the reform were limited to native workers, with no effects on the labor market position of immigrants. The effects depend on the relative insider-status of employees, so that groups of employees who are closer to being insiders benefit more from less-strict employment protection legislation than groups that are further from being insiders.
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| 7. |
- Bångman, Gunnel, 1956-
(författare)
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Equity in welfare evaluations : the rationale for and effects of distributional weighting
- 2006
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis addresses the issue of weighted cost-benefit analysis (WCBA). WCBA is a welfare evaluation model where income distribution effects are valued by distributional weighting. The method was developed already in the 1970s. The interest in and applications of this method have increased in the past decade, e.g. when evaluating of global environmental problems. There are, however, still unsolved problems regarding the application of this method. One such issue is the choice of the approach to the means of estimating of the distributional weights. The literature on WCBA suggests a couple of approaches, but gives no clues as to which one is the most appropriate one to use, either from a theoretical or from an empirical point of view. Accordingly, the choice of distributional weights may be an arbitrary one. In the first paper in this thesis, the consequences of the choice of distributional weights on project decisions have been studied. Different sets of distributional weights have been compared across a variety of strategically chosen income distribution effects. The distributional weights examined are those that correspond to the WCBA approaches commonly suggested in literature on the topic. The results indicate that the choice of distributional weights is of importance for the rank of projects only when the income distribution effects concern target populations with low incomes. The results also show that not only the mean income but also the span of incomes, of the target population of the income distribution effect, affects the result of the distributional weighting when applying very progressive non-linear distributional weights. This may cause the distributional weighting to indicate an income distribution effect even though the project effect is evenly distributed across the population. One rational for distributional weighting, commonly referred to when applying WCBA, is that marginal utility of income is decreasing with income. In the second paper, this hypothesis is tested. My study contributes to this literature by employing stated preference data on compensated variation (CV) in a model flexible as to the functional form of the marginal utility. The results indicate that the marginal utility of income decreases linearly with income. Under certain conditions, a decreasing marginal utility of income corresponds to risk aversion. Thus the hypothesis that marginal utility of income is decreasing with income can be tested by analyses of individuals’ behaviour in gambling situations. The third paper examines of the role of risk aversion, defined by the von Neumann-Morgenstern expected utility function, for people’s concern about the problem of ‘sick’ buildings. The analysis is based on data on the willingness to pay (WTP) for having the indoor air quality (IAQ) at home examined and diagnosed by experts and the WTP for acquiring an IAQ at home that is guaranteed to be good. The results indicate that some of the households are willing to pay for an elimination of the uncertainty of the IAQ at home, even though they are not willing to pay for an elimination of the risks for building related ill health. The probability to pay, for an elimination of the uncertainty of the indoor air quality at home, only because of risk aversion is estimated to 0.3-0.4. Risk aversion seems to be a more common motive, for the decision to pay for a diagnosis of the IAQ at home, among young people. Another rationale for distributional weighting, commonly referred to, is the existence of unselfish motives for economic behaviour, such as social inequality aversion or altruism. In the fourth paper the hypothesis that people have altruistic preferences, i.e. that they care about other people’s well being, is tested. The WTP for a public project, that ensures good indoor air quality in all buildings, have been measured in three different ways for three randomly drawn sub-samples, capturing different motives for economic behaviour (pure altruism, paternalism and selfishness). The significance of different questions, and different motives, is analysed using an independent samples test of the mean WTPs of the sub-samples, a chi-square test of the association between the WTP and the sample group membership and an econometric analysis of the decision to pay to the public project. No evidence for altruism, either pure altruism or paternalism, is found in this study.
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| 8. |
- Deschamps-Laporte, Jean-Philippe, 1985-
(författare)
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Essays on welfare and debt : From impact evaluation in Kenya to Canadian housing markets
- 2020
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis is comprised of two independent essays on the topics of impact evaluation, and one essay on the housing wealth-effect. The essays address key questions on welfare and spending decisions made by households when subject to government assistance programs and increases in housing prices.The first essay deals with a large scale pro-poor government assistance program in Kenya. It studies the impact of extension services on rural households, to understand whether the SIDA-funded program led to sustainable improvements in the treated households’ livelihoods. The results suggest that the treated households increased fertilizer dosage, and had higher household expenditures. However, the treatment did not impact farming revenues and output.The second essay investigates a novel labelled cash transfer program in agriculture in Kenya. This essay documents the impacts of the program to draw a relationship between the treatment and farm output and revenue, as well as basic welfare indicators at the household level. The results show that while household expenditures were higher following the reception of the labelled cash transfer, farm yields and revenues were not improved by the intervention.The third essay analyses the relationship between housing prices and consumer debt in the Canadian province of British Columbia. Using administrative data and an implementation of the Arellano-Bond estimator, this essay shows that, even as residential property values climbed very rapidly, consumers did not engage in additional non-mortgage debt, in particular consumers who planned to stay in their home for the following twelve months.
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| 9. |
- Ekblad, Kristin, 1975-
(författare)
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The economics of sickness absence : social interactions, local cultures and working conditions
- 2014
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The focus of this thesis is the study of social and psychosocial aspects of sickness absence. In Essay 1, Sickness Absence and Peer Effects – Evidence from a Swedish Municipality, detailed employment records from a Swedish public employer are used to investigate whether sick leave among work group colleagues influences individual sick leave. Our results indicate that a worker’s level of sick leave is positively correlated with sick leave among peers. When length of employment is taken into account, however, we find that this positive peer effect emerges initially after the first few years of employment. In Essay 2, Who Cares about the Colleagues? – Insights into Peer Effect Heterogeneities in Sickness Absence across Gender and Age, I scrutinize the data used in Essay 1 to further investigate the nature of peer effects in sickness absence in relation to gender and age. The results indicate that men, as well as women, are sensitive to their female colleagues but not to their male peers. Moreover, somewhat surprisingly, I find that young and middle-aged workers are sensitive to younger peers, whereas the oldest workers are not sensitive to any of their peers. Essay 3, Sickness Absence and Local Culture, investigates the effect of geographical and presumed cultural context on sickness absence. Our results indicate that the region of residence is important to individual ‘illness-related absence’. In Essay 4, Sickness Absence, Working Conditions and Gender – An Empirical Analysis using Multiltvel Models, I analyse how psychosocial working conditions are related to short- and longterm sick leave and if, and how, these relation-ships vary with gender. The results show that employees who enjoy higher levels of autonomy in their post take fewer periods of short-term sick leave, and that this effect is significantly greater for male workers. The results also show that for female workers, stronger work-group cohesion is related to a lower likelihood of long-term sick leave.
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| 10. |
- Elert, Niklas, 1983-
(författare)
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Economic dynamism : essays on firm entry and firm growth
- 2014
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The topic of this thesis is economic dynamism. The five articles contribute to the literature on firm entry and firm growth. Studies are based on a dataset covering all Swedish limited liability firms between 1997 and 2010.The first article investigates conditions for firm entry in Sweden, distinguishing regular entrants from entrants that survive for at least two years, modelling the firm entry decision using count data models. While high income and a well-educated population had a positive effect, the effect was more important for surviving entrants. The second article uses a similar method, but focuses on wholesale industries and distinguishes between regular entry and in migration of firms, i.e. when an incumbent firm relocates its operations. Access to a university, many educated workers and low local taxes had positive effects. Better access to infrastructure had a strong positive effect on entrants, but it was smaller for in-migrating firms. The third article investigates if the industry context matters for whether Gibrat’s law holds, i.e. whether firm growth is independent of firm size. The law is found more likely to be rejected in industries with a high minimum efficient scale and a large number of firms located in metropolitan areas, but more likely to hold in industries with high market concentration and more group ownership. The fourth and fifth article contribute to the high-growth firms (HGFs) literature. In the fourth article it is examined whether the way HGFs are defined matters for the policy implications. It is found that the economic contributions of HGFs differ significantly depending on definition. Young firms are however more likely to be HGFs irrespective of definition. The fifth article considers the frequent argument that policymakers should target high-tech firms, i.e., firms with high R&D intensity, because such firms are thought more likely to become HGFs. We examine this assumption by studying the industry distribution of HGFs. Results indicate that industries with high R&D intensity, ceteris paribus, can be expected to have a lower share of HGFs than can industries with lower R&D intensity. By contrast, we find that HGFs are overrepresented in service industries with a high share of human capital.
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