| 1. |
- Klionsky, Daniel J., et al.
(author)
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Guidelines for the use and interpretation of assays for monitoring autophagy
- 2012
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In: Autophagy. - : Informa UK Limited. - 1554-8635 .- 1554-8627. ; 8:4, s. 445-544
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Research review (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In 2008 we published the first set of guidelines for standardizing research in autophagy. Since then, research on this topic has continued to accelerate, and many new scientists have entered the field. Our knowledge base and relevant new technologies have also been expanding. Accordingly, it is important to update these guidelines for monitoring autophagy in different organisms. Various reviews have described the range of assays that have been used for this purpose. Nevertheless, there continues to be confusion regarding acceptable methods to measure autophagy, especially in multicellular eukaryotes. A key point that needs to be emphasized is that there is a difference between measurements that monitor the numbers or volume of autophagic elements (e.g., autophagosomes or autolysosomes) at any stage of the autophagic process vs. those that measure flux through the autophagy pathway (i.e., the complete process); thus, a block in macroautophagy that results in autophagosome accumulation needs to be differentiated from stimuli that result in increased autophagic activity, defined as increased autophagy induction coupled with increased delivery to, and degradation within, lysosomes (in most higher eukaryotes and some protists such as Dictyostelium) or the vacuole (in plants and fungi). In other words, it is especially important that investigators new to the field understand that the appearance of more autophagosomes does not necessarily equate with more autophagy. In fact, in many cases, autophagosomes accumulate because of a block in trafficking to lysosomes without a concomitant change in autophagosome biogenesis, whereas an increase in autolysosomes may reflect a reduction in degradative activity. Here, we present a set of guidelines for the selection and interpretation of methods for use by investigators who aim to examine macroautophagy and related processes, as well as for reviewers who need to provide realistic and reasonable critiques of papers that are focused on these processes. These guidelines are not meant to be a formulaic set of rules, because the appropriate assays depend in part on the question being asked and the system being used. In addition, we emphasize that no individual assay is guaranteed to be the most appropriate one in every situation, and we strongly recommend the use of multiple assays to monitor autophagy. In these guidelines, we consider these various methods of assessing autophagy and what information can, or cannot, be obtained from them. Finally, by discussing the merits and limits of particular autophagy assays, we hope to encourage technical innovation in the field.
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| 2. |
- Adermon, Adrian, 1981-, et al.
(author)
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Piracy and Music Sales : The Effects of An Anti-Piracy Law
- 2014
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In: Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization. - : Elsevier. - 0167-2681 .- 1879-1751. ; 105, s. 90-106
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The implementation of a copyright protection reform in Sweden in April 2009 suddenly increased the risk of being caught and punished for illegal file sharing. This paper investigates the impact of the reform on illegal file sharing and music sales using a difference-in-differences approach with Norway and Finland as control groups. We find that the reform decreased Internet traffic by 16% and increased music sales by 36% during the first six months. Pirated music therefore seems to be a strong substitute to legal music. However, the reform effects disappeared almost completely after six months, likely because of the weak enforcement of the law.
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| 3. |
- Adermon, Adrian, et al.
(author)
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Piracy, Music, and Movies : A Natural Experiment
- 2010
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Reports (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This paper investigates the effects of illegal file sharing (piracy) on music and movie sales. The Swedish implementation of the European Union directive IPRED on April 1, 2009 suddenly increased the risk of being caught and prosecuted for file sharing. We investigate the subsequent drop in piracy as approximated by the drop in Swedish Internet traffic and the effects on music and movie sales in Sweden. We find that the reform decreased Internet traffic by 18 percent during the subsequent six months. It also increased sales of physical music by 27 percent and digital music by 48 percent. Furthermore, it had no significant effects on the sales of theater tickets or DVD movies. The results indicate that pirated music is a strong substitute for legal music whereas the substitutability is less for movies.
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| 4. |
- Blomquist, Sören, et al.
(author)
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Individual Heterogeneity, Nonlinear Budget Sets, and Taxable Income
- 2014
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Reports (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Given the key role of the taxable income elasticity in designing an optimal tax system there are many studies attempting to estimate this elasticity. A problem with most of these studies is that strong functional form assumptions are used and that heterogeneity in preferences is not allowed for. Building on Blomquist and Newey (2002) we in this paper develop a nonparametric method to estimate expected taxable income as a function of a nonlinear budget set, taking multidimensional heterogeneity and optimization errors fully into account. We reduce the dimensionality of the problem by exploiting structure implied by utility maximization with piecewise linear convex budget sets. We apply the method to Swedish data and estimate for prime age males a significant net of tax elasticity of 0.6 and a significant income elasticity of -0.08.
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| 5. |
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| 6. |
- Edmark, Karin, et al.
(author)
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Evaluation of the Swedish earned income tax credit
- 2012
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Reports (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Over the last twenty years we have seen an increasing use of in-work tax subsidies to encourage labor supply among low-income groups. In Sweden, a non-targeted earned income tax credit was introduced in 2007, and was reinforced in 2008, 2009 and 2010. The stated motive of the reform was to boost employment; in particular to provide incentives for individuals to go from unemployment to, at least, part-time work. In this paper we try to analyze the extensive margin labor supply effects of the Swedish earned income tax credit reform up to 2008. For identification we exploit the fact that the size of the tax credit, as well as the resulting average tax rate, is a function of the municipality of residence and income if working. However, throughout the analysis we find placebo effects that are similar in size to the estimated reform effects. In addition, the results are sensitive with respect to how we define employment, which is especially true when we analyze different subgroups such as men and women, married and singles. Our conclusion is that the identifying variation is too small and potentially endogenous and that it is therefore not possible to use this variation to perform a quasi-experimental evaluation of the Swedish EITC-reform.
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| 7. |
- Liang, Che-Yuan
(author)
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Distribution-Free Structural Estimation with Nonlinear Budget Sets
- 2014
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Reports (other academic/artistic)abstract
- I develop a structural method for evaluating labor supply in nonlinear budget sets that does not require any distributional assumptions. The model only requires that preferences are convex on the budget frontier. It can be extended to account for features such as fixed costs of work and the stigma cost of welfare participation. It can also be adapted for estimation of earnings, hours of work, and functions that depend on the labor supply distribution, including tax revenue and cumulative distribution functions. The method is applied to estimate the effects of taxes on various labor supply outcomes in the U.S. and Sweden.
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| 8. |
- Liang, Che-Yuan
(author)
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Is there an incumbency advantage or cost of ruling in proportional election systems?
- 2013
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In: Public Choice. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0048-5829 .- 1573-7101. ; 154:3-4, s. 259-284
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This paper investigates the effects of political representation on electoral outcomes at the party and coalition levels in proportional election systems using data from Swedish local government elections. There are two notions of representation, namely, to hold seats and to belong to the ruling coalition. I refer to the effect of the former as the incumbency effect and the effect of the latter as the ruling effect. The discontinuous variation in the seat share as the vote share varies for parties is used to isolate exogenous variation in incumbency. The discontinuous variation in ruling at the 50% seat share cutoff for coalitions is used in order to exogenous variation in ruling. I find that incumbency determines the distribution of 12% of the total vote, which is similar to the advantage found in majoritarian systems. I find no ruling effect, contrary to the commonly found cost of ruling in proportional systems.
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| 9. |
- Liang, Che-Yuan, et al.
(author)
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Merged municipalities, higher debt : on free-riding and the common pool problem in politics
- 2010
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In: Public Choice. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0048-5829 .- 1573-7101. ; 143:1-2, s. 157-172
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This paper uses the Swedish municipal amalgamation reform of 1952 to study the common pool problem in politics. The amalgams were common pools and the municipalities had incentives to free-ride on their amalgam partners by increasing debt prior to amalgamation. We find that municipalities that merged in 1952 increased their debt between 1948 and 1952 when the reform could be anticipated. The increase amounted to 52% of new debt issued or 1.5% of total revenues in the merged municipalities. But contrary to the “law of 1/n”, free-riding did not increase in common pool size.
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| 10. |
- Liang, Che-Yuan
(author)
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Nonparametric structural estimation of labor supply in the presence of censoring
- 2012
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In: Journal of Public Economics. - : Elsevier BV. - 0047-2727 .- 1879-2316. ; 96:1-2, s. 89-103
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This paper extends the nonparametric structural method to estimate labor supply developed by Blomquist and Newey (2002) to handle cases in which there are individuals who do not work. The method is then applied to married women in Sweden from 1973 to 1999. I find an uncompensated wage elasticity of 0.98 and an income elasticity of -0.10, with the participation margin accounting for one third of the wage elasticity and two thirds of the income elasticity. The elasticities vary, however, a lot over time due to differences in tax systems and demographics. I also find results consistent with tax rates being around the net government revenue maximizing rates.
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