| 1. |
- Ljungbo, Kjell, 1962-
(författare)
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Language as a Leading Light to Business Cultural Insight : A Study on Expatriates' Intercultural Communication in Central and Eastern Europe
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Language competence is decisively important in international business and could increase efficacy, efficiency, sales and profits. Language is an underresearched area in business studies though language constitutes management and the managers building structures, processes, cultures and personalities being the most vital working tool to get things done and make them understandable. Since 1970 Swedish companies lose market shares globally and in Europe. In an era requiring better foreign language skills there is a declining trend among young Swedish business people and students in other languages than English. The aim of this study is to investigate and analyse the role of language in intercultural business communication between Swedish expatriates and locals in Serbia, The Czech Republic, Ukraine, Romania and Bulgaria and indirectly also Russia and Poland. To understand the business culture in these countries the author has learned the local language in these seven countries taking 3687 private language lessons. This improves the researcher’s understanding of the culture and its people giving directness and depth in communication, independence and receptivity. This ethnographically inspired hermeneutic study holds semi-structured interviews with expatriates. Better language skills among expatriates – particularly in the local language - could make them more self-dependent and win contracts and it strengthens closeness to customers, relationship and trust, strategic view and ability and also operational effectiveness and efficiency enabling their companies to gain market shares. Using Weber’s ideal types the cultural significance structures emerge featuring the cultures in these countries showing that expatriates have to strengthen the ability of the locals in the areas of trust, responsibility and initiative, independent thinking, holistic view, win-win thinking and reduce fear while the expatriates’ own abilities in these areas are strengthened if they speak the local language. Language strategies permitting the expatriate to be more communicatively and linguistically self-dependent are having a common company language, using multilingualism or having the expatriate speak or learn to speak the local language where the advantages, disadvantages and characteristics of these and other aspects of the role of language are given in ideal types.
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| 2. |
- Radón, Anita, 1980-
(författare)
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The Rise of Luxury Brands Online : A study of how a sense of luxury brand is created in an online environment
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Luxury brands have only recently tapped into the online market in an attempt to increase revenues and expand their businesses. This leap onto the online world has resulted in several new challenges, including the luxury brand paradox. The luxury brand paradox concerns the inherent difficulty for luxury brands to increase sales and expand their customer base while simultaneously maintaining an aura of mystery and exclusivity. The openness and accessibility of the Internet are believed to pose an extra challenging environment for luxury brands. This research explores how a sense of luxury brand is created in an online environment. Using methodology comprised of different online methods to comprehend what is taking place online, this study primarily concentrates on visual imagery and online communication. The online world of luxury brands is conceptualized into three distinct categories: brand websites, counterfeit websites and community websites. Using these three categories, the thesis demonstrates what role they each play in the creation of a sense of luxury brand. From this analysis, four themes emerge on the sense of a luxury brand (luxury history, authenticity, community and paradox). The concept of an online fair is used to illustrate the environment of luxury brands on the Internet. The online fair consists of a confluence of people involved in it as well as the various activities they perform. In addition, the fairground where the people participate and the activities that take place are described. In conclusion, this thesis proposes a move from the identity-image construct toward a view of handling and co-creation of sense of brand.
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| 3. |
- Ferguson, Shon, 1979-
(författare)
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Essays on Trade, Technology and the Organization of Firms
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- "Endogenous Sunk Costs, Exporting and Heterogeneous Firms" Empirical evidence shows that R&D spending is highly correlated with firm productivity and highly concentrated among large firms. This paper develops a model of quality competition with heterogeneous firms that can explain these patterns. The model makes two new predictions. The first prediction is that exporters upgrade while domestic firms downgrade when trade liberalizes. The second prediction is that quality competition reduces the effect of trade liberalization along the extensive margin. "Endogenous Product Differentiation, Market Size and Trade" Recent empirical evidence suggests that average export prices are higher when firms sell in large markets. This paper offers a theoretical explanation for why we do not always see pro-competitive market size effects in the trade data for differentiated goods. The model here proposes that export prices can in fact be higher in larger countries because firms have greater incentive to differentiate their products, which increases price-cost markups. In the two-country case the model predicts that larger countries sell manufacturing goods at higher price-cost markups than smaller countries. "Institution-Driven Comparative Advantage, Complex Goods and Organizational Choice" The theory of the firm suggests that firms can respond to poor contract enforcement by vertically integrating their production process. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether firms' integration opportunities affect the way institutions determine international trade patterns. We find that vertical integration lessens the impact of a country's ability to enforce contracts on the comparative advantage of complex goods. We also find that countries with good financial institutions export disproportionately more in sectors that produce complex goods and that have a high propensity for vertical integration.
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| 4. |
- Hirvonen, Lalaina, 1974-
(författare)
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Essays in Empirical Labour Economics : Family Background, Gender and Earnings
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- All three essays in this thesis are concerned with the interrelation of family, gender and labour market outcomes. The first paper investigates family earnings mobility between parents and sons, and parents and daughters, highlighting the role of assortative mating. The results suggest that daughters are more mobile than sons. I also find that Sweden has a higher degree of mobility compared to the U.S., and that assortative mating is an important underlying channel for earnings transmission. The difference in mobility between the two countries does not inherently depend on factors affecting the marriage match. Moreover, adult economic outcomes are more dependent on family background for those at the lower end of the earnings distribution. The second study analyses the long-run effects of an increase in family size on the 1980-2005 labour market outcomes of Swedish men and women. The decision to have (more) children is dependent on current and future labour market prospects. I use the exogenous variations in the sex composition of the first two children to overcome this endogeneity problem. My findings suggest that having an additional child has a stronger negative impact on earnings than on participation. However, mothers experience a substantial but not complete long-term recovery in earnings. The third paper illustrates the difficulty in disentangling the underlying channels of intergenerational earnings persistence using a path analysis model. On closer examination, such a model has a potential shortcoming since the covariates are correlated to other unobserved factors. The results suggest that education is the most influential mechanism in the earnings transmission process, while IQ, mental ability and BMI are of secondary importance. However, education is sensitive to the inclusion of other covariates and the order in which these are entered into the equation.
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| 5. |
- Bos, Marieke, 1974-
(författare)
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Essays on Household Finance
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The thesis consists of three self-contained essays on household finance. “Pawn Credit and the Importance of Financial Exclusion” explores the importance of access to regular credit to the demand for pawn credit. I find that the rejection of one's loan application by a regular bank increases the probability that one will take pawn credit, on average, by 9 percent, relative to individuals whose loan application has been granted. However, of all pawn credit borrowers, 73 percent do not even try to get regular bank credit first. For these borrowers, I find that 93 percent are implicitly excluded from regular bank credit at the time they decide to take pawn credit. “Should Credit Remark Be Forgotten? Evidence from a Legally Mandated Removal” (with Leonard Nakamura) analyzes what happens when Swedish law mandates the removal of credit remarks from credit reports after three years. We find that removal induces an abrupt improvement in individuals' credit scores, an improvement that is not reversed in the long run. Further, the excess loan applications caused by the boost in creditworthiness translate into significant access to new credit. We find evidence that only a minority of the individuals who received a credit remark may be inherently high risk which suggests that credit remark removal is welfare enhancing. “Accept or Reject: Do Immigrants Have Less Access to Bank Credit? Evidence from Swedish Pawnshop Customers” asks if immigrants have less access to mainstream credit than their Swedish born counterparts. I find that immigrants are six percent less likely to be accepted when applying for mainstream credit, relative to Swedish born. This holds in particular for immigrants of African descent, who are 15 percent less likely. This effect disappears for second-generation immigrants with African parents. Immigrant pawnshop borrowers that do not apply for mainstream credit before they take pawn credit are found to make well-informed decisions.
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| 6. |
- Folke, Olle, 1979-
(författare)
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Parties, Power and Patronage : Papers in Political Economy
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis consists of three empirical essays in political economics."Shades of Brown and Green: Party Effects in Proportional Election Systems" is the first paper to develop a method for estimating the causal effect of party representation in proportional election systems. This method is applied to Swedish municipalities. The results show that party representation has a large effect on immigration policy and environmental policy. Parties profiling themselves in a policy area also have the largest effects on it. There is no evidence for party representation having an effect on tax policy."Midterm Slumps in US State Elections: Coattails, Power Balancing, or Referenda?" examines midterm slumps in US state legislatures and the mechanisms that cause them. The results show that the party of the governor systematically loses legislative seats in the midterm elections. Through the use of a regression discontinuity design it can be ruled out that this is caused by a surge-and-decline type mechanism. Instead, the results suggest that the midterm slump can be attributed, in about equal shares, to the midterm elections being a referendum on gubernatorial performance and the voters using the midterms for balancing of power."Patronage and Elections in U.S. States" examines if control over patronage jobs increased a political party's probability of winning elections in US States. A patronage system is a practice where a political party, after winning an election, reward their supporters by giving them government jobs. The essay provides evidence that patronage does -- or, rather, did -- help U.S. parties in power to retain it. There is also evidence for an "entrenched" party in power for a longer time period can use patronage more effectively than a "weak" party that usually is out of power.
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| 7. |
- Gränsmark, Patrik, 1972-
(författare)
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Essays on economic behavior, gender and strategic learning
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This doctoral thesis consists of four papers. Strategic behavior across gender: A comparison of female and male expert chess players analyzes gender differences in risk behavior in chess. We use a panel data set with 1.4 million games. Most notably, the data contains an objective measure of individual playing skill. We find that women are more risk averse and that men choose riskier strategies when playing against female opponents even though this reduces their winning probability. Gender differences in time preference and inconsistency among expert chess players presents findings on gender differences in time preference and inconsistency in chess. Impatience is estimated by measuring preferences for game durations while inconsistency by exploiting the 40th move time control. The results reveal that men are more impatient while women are more time inconsistent. Moreover, the difference in impatience increases with expertise while the difference in inconsistency decreases. Beauty queens and battling knights: Risk taking and attractiveness in chess explores the relationship between attractiveness and risk taking in chess. We examine whether people use riskier strategies when playing with attractive opponents and whether this affects performance. Our results suggest that male, but not female, chess players choose significantly riskier strategies when playing against an attractive female opponent, although this does not improve their performance. Strategic Learning in Repeated Chess Games, examines if chess players in repeated games with the same opponent, learn about the opponent’s type and adapt future strategies accordingly. It also shows how matching background characteristics affect the choice of strategy. The findings show that chess players learn about the opponent’s type. Players with similar background characteristics coordinate better than players of different gender or nationality but this difference decreases as the players update their beliefs.
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| 8. |
- Klingelhöfer, Jan, 1976-
(författare)
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Models of Electoral Competition : Three Essays on Political Economics
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis consists of three essays in theoretical political economics. In "The Swing Voters' Blessing", I model elections with quality differences between two ideological candidates. The quality differences are only observable to a limited number of informed voters. I show that if uninformed voters follow an optimal strategy of only making their voting decisions dependent on their ideological position relative to the median voter, the candidate who is preferred by the median voter wins. Furthermore, I show that the existence of boundedly rational uninformed voters who always support the candidate whose policy offer is most attractive increases the welfare of the majority of voters. It forces candidates to announce positions closer to the median voter's bliss point."Lobbying and Elections" contributes to the literature on lobbying. Besley and Coate (2001) use their well-known citizen candidate framework and find that if citizen candidates with sufficiently extreme preferences are available, lobbying has no influence on implemented policy. I show that this result does not apply in a more realistic model with ideological parties instead of citizen candidates because the parties cannot adjust their policy positions. In a two-party system, even if forward-looking voters are aware that lobbying will take place, their choice between policies is different when lobbies do and do not exist. "Lexicographic Voting" reconsiders the division of the literature into models with forward-looking voters and models with backward-looking voters by developing a model that incorporates motives from both literatures. As long as there is no uncertainty about preferences and parties can commit in advance to the ideological dimension of policy, but not to a maximal level of rent extraction, voters can constrain the latter to the same extent as in a purely backward-looking model. At the same time, the policy preferred by the median voter is implemented.
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| 9. |
- Lachowska, Marta, 1981-
(författare)
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Essays in Labor Economics and Consumer Behavior
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis consists of three essays on labor economics and consumption behavior. “Consumption and Information: A Study of Consumer Behavior using Daily Data” studies the joint dynamics of information and consumption using data on a daily frequency. I find that spending reacts sharply to informational shocks, but in contrast to previous research findings, this reaction fades in a very short period of time. Additionally, my data allow me to move beyond representative agent models in studying the response of individuals facing different levels of income stability. Unlike papers using aggregate data, I am able to contrast the reactions of different types of consumers. I find that individuals who face less secure income streams cut back more than those with a secure income. I argue that this behavior of consumption cannot be adequately explained using canonical consumption theories, such as the permanent income hypothesis model or the buffer stock model. “The Importance of Outside Options for Wage Formation: Survey Evidence” considers a central prediction of the matching model of Diamond-Mortensen-Pissarides. This model suggests that outside options of the worker and the firm matter for wage formation. This prediction has recently been questioned on theoretical grounds. In this essay, I address this issue empirically by using data from unique survey questions to assess the importance of outside options for hourly wages. My findings imply that the disutility of being unmatched matters for wage formation. Together with other research documenting the prevalence of wage bargaining on the labor market, my results imply good news for the Nash bargaining solution of the Diamond-Mortensen-Pissarides model. “Give Me a Break. A Longitudinal Analysis of On-the-Job Leisure” addresses predictions of models of wage formation. Models of efficiency wages predict that pay and monitoring are substitutes in motivating workers to exert effort. If worker autonomy is the reverse of monitoring, a positive relationship between autonomy and wages is implied. If, on the other hand, workers obtain utility from autonomy in a perfectly competitive market, the market will reduce any advantages of holding autonomous jobs. Thus, there will be a negative correlation between autonomy and wages. In this essay, I analyze a common, but little-studied feature of worker autonomy: how much leisure employees can take at work. I find a positive relationship between on-the-job leisure and pay in the 1960s and 1970s, but a negative correlation since the 1980s. This change could be due to a labor market structure described by the neoclassical model or lower monitoring costs.
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| 10. |
- Lindblad, Hans, 1960-
(författare)
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Essays on Unemployment and Real Exchange Rates
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In the first essay, Persistence in Swedish Unemployment Rates, we study if there is no or weak tendency in unemployment rates to revert back to previous levels. Persistence is caused by: natural rate shocks, long unemployment cycles, and spill-over from cyclical to permanent unemployment. We find evidence of high persistence. The results suggest that the quick rise of unemployment rates during 1992-1994 was caused by large permanent and cyclical shocks in combination with spill-over effects. In the second essay, The Equilibrium Rate of Unemployment in a Small Open Economy, we challenge the common and simplifying assumption that the economy is closed. We set up and estimate a structural unobserved components open economy model for the unemployment rate and the real exchange rate. Our estimates indicate that the foreign sector is of substantial importance when explaining movements in the NAIRU. In the third essay, A Simultaneous Model of the Swedish Krona, the US Dollar and the Euro, we simultaneously estimate the real exchange rates between the Swedish Krona, the US Dollar and the Euro. The exchange rate movements are well explained by potential output, the output gap, terms of trade, the fraction of prime-aged people in the population, and structural government budget deficits. The models work well in an out of sample exercise. In the last essay, Wages, Employment, and Unemployment: The Effect of Benefits, Taxes and Labor Mobility, we study how wages and employment are affected by unemployment insurance and labor mobility. We show that the wage effect of higher unemployment benefits can be either positive or negative, depending on the specification of union utility function and the taxation scheme for financing the benefits. The common claim that wages are lower when a sector bears a higher fraction of unemployment costs does not hold in general. We also show that labor mobility across sectors and increased competition reduces wages and unemployment.
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