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- Johansson, Lars M., 1963-
(author)
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Studies of the relationship between aid and trade and the fiscal implications of emigration and HIV/AIDS interventions
- 2009
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This thesis consists of three studies; two on fiscal effects of demographic change and one on the correlation between international aid and trade flows. Fiscal Implications of Emigration. This study examines the fiscal effects of emigration. A dynamic macroeconomic framework is used. The net present value of the fiscal effects of different types of individuals' emigration decisions is calculated. Individuals are differentiated with relation to age, gender, education, being immigrants or born in Sweden and how long they choose to stay abroad in case of emigration. The study explores how the fiscal effects of emigration are contingent on these different personal characteristics and it is applied to the case of emigration from Sweden in 1998. The estimated aggregate fiscal cost is 0.62% of GDP. This cost is significantly larger than the cost of immigration. Fiscal Implications of AIDS in South Africa. In this paper, I study the fiscal implications of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in South Africa in a standard neoclassical growth model. I find that an antiretroviral program is to a large extent self financing. An improvement in dependency ratios and health care cost savings would pay for Rand 144 billion of a full epidemiological intervention. The indirect effect through the changing demographic structure will be more important than the direct health care cost saving effect. Tied Aid, Trade-Facilitating Aid or Trade-Diverting Aid? Donor aid is often regarded as being informally tied (aid increases donor-recipient exports). However, in this paper, using a gravity model, we show that aid is also positively associated with recipient-donor exports. That is, aid increases bilateral trade flows in both directions. Our interpretation is that an intensified aid relation reduces the effective cost of geographic distance. We find a particularly strong relation between aid in the form of technical assistance and exports in both directions.
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| 2. |
- Herzing, Mathias, 1969-
(author)
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Essays on Uncertainty and Escape in Trade Agreements
- 2005
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This thesis comprises three theoretical essays on trade agreements."Can Self-Destructive Trade Agreements Be Optimal?" focuses on the impact of hidden information on strategic interaction in the context of trade agreements. In an infinitely repeated tariff setting game between two symmetric countries, informational asymmetry is introduced by letting the weight a government attributes to present vis-à-vis future payoffs be stochastically determined and non-observable to the trading partner. It is demonstrated that countries may face a tradeoff, when higher degrees of liberalization are associated with decreasing probabilities of cooperation being maintained. It may nevertheless be optimal to agree on a degree of liberalization such that there is a strictly positive likelihood of cooperation breaking down in finite time."Escape and Optimal Compensation in Trade Agreements" addresses the issue of safeguard provisions in trade agreements. In an infinitely repeated Prisoner's Dilemma tariff setting game between two countries, shocks influencing the incentive to deviate are introduced. Under asymmetric information about these shocks, liberalization is associated with a positive probability of cooperation breaking down in finite time. By introducing an escape clause allowing for temporary deviation while compensating the trading partner, cooperation can be sustained for any degree of trade liberalization. If the optimal fixed compensation cost scheme is implemented, the expected per-period payoff increases for any given degree of liberalization. Moreover, the scope for liberalization unambiguously increases as compared to the case when there is no escape clause."Optimal Time Limits on Safeguards in Trade Agreements" addresses the issue of having time limits on how long countries should be permitted to withdraw liberalization commitments under a trade agreement. It is shown that, by limiting the time the safeguard can be applied, the interests of winners and losers from liberalization are balanced across countries. However, an ex ante agreed-upon finite time limit on the use of the safeguard will eventually be perceived as too restrictive.
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| 3. |
- Stavlöt, Ulrika, 1969-
(author)
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Essays on Culture and Trade
- 2005
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This thesis consists of three self-contained essays. The first two essays address the consumption of culture and are closely related in terms of the theoretical framework used. The third essay is a separate analysis of international trade and competition.The studies of culture are motivated by the special treatment of culture consumption in most modern societies: there are usually large, government-provided subsidies, the aim of which is to stimulate both the production and the consumption of culture. The purpose of the present work is to explore reasons for this special treatment. Using a stylized theoretical framework, the essays contrast culture with another, generic, good or activity. Culture is thus regarded as an "experience good": previous consumption of the good enhances the current appreciation of the good. The generic good is one where experience is assumed not to be at all relevant for the appreciation of the good. For experience goods, decisions made today will influence future utility and future choices. This makes the intertemporal preferences essential. If, in particular, consumers have time-inconsistent preferences of the type that can be characterized as a present-bias---modeled with "multiple selves" using quasi-geometric discounting---as opposed to standard, time-consistent preferences, there will be a case for government subsidies. The first essay explores this possibility in detail in a framework where experience is mainly of importance in the short run. The second essay then studies cases where experience is more potent and can cause persistent diversity in culture consumption across individuals."Culture and Control: Should There Be Large Subsidies to Culture?" studies the circumstances under which public support for culture is warranted. A policy example is designed to illustrate important aspects of public support systems currently in place, and is calibrated to Swedish data. The essay concludes that, given present-biased agents with self-control problems, public support of culture can work as a commitment device and improve long-run welfare. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that welfare-maximizing subsidies to culture can be substantial if the present-bias is profound and the taste-cultivation property of culture consumption is pronounced."Origins of the Diversity of Culture Consumption" analyzes the diversity of culture consumption among individuals. If the culture good and the generic good are sufficiently close substitutes in a static sense, very large and persistent differences in the consumption of highbrow culture across consumers can be explained by differences in initial experience levels alone. Moreover, slight differences in preferences and time endowments can cause significant diversity between individuals, both in the long- and short-run levels of culture consumption. In addition, if consumers have time-inconsistent preferences, further diversity can be rationalized. If there is a present-bias, there may also be Pareto-ranked multiple equilibria with "optimism" and "pessimism": high (low) culture consumption of the current self is rationalized, based on the belief that future culture consumption will be high (low)."Has international competition increased? Estimates of residual demand elasticities in export markets" studies the impact of the last decades of intense economic integration on the competitive conduct of Swedish export industries. The functional relationship between the inverted residual demand elasticity and the Lerner index is used to estimate markups in eight industries. The econometric evidence suggests a deviation from competitive behavior in all industries. Moreover, the results demonstrate a trend of decreasing market power.
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