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| 15. |
- Svaleryd, Helena, 1970-
(författare)
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Essays in finance, trade and politics
- 2002
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis consists of three essays in economics:Financial markets, industrial specialization and comparative advantage. Evidence from OECD countries. Due to underlying technological and organizational differences, industries differ in their need for external finance. Since services provided by the financial sector are largely immobile across countries, the pattern of industrial specialization should be influenced by the degree of financial development. We find this effect to be strong. In fact, the financial sector has greater impact on industrial specialization among OECD countries than differences in human and physical capital. We also show that causality indeed runs from the financial sector to specialization. Further, financial sectors are a source of comparative advantage in a way consistent with the Hecksher-Ohlin-Vanek model. Results are also presented on which aspects of financial systems are important for specialization and comparative advantage.Markets for risk and openness to trade: How are they related? examines if there is a relationship between a country’s financial development and its openness to trade. If protectionist trade policies aim to insure domestic industries against swings in world market prices, the development of financial markets could lead to trade liberalization. Likewise, trade liberalization could lead to the development of financial markets that help agents diversify the added risks. In this paper, we empirically address the hypothesis that there is a positive interdependence between financial development and liberal trade policies. We find a positive and economically significant relationship between the two, with causation running in both directions. The results are, however, somewhat dependent on the measure of trade policy being used.Female representation – Is it important for policy decisions? investigates if female representation on Swedish local councils affects local public expenditure patterns. Theoretically, the individual preferences of elected representatives may impact public expenditure if full policy commitment is not feasible. To empirically address the question, I first analyze the preferences expressed by elected local council representatives using survey data. This permits me to make precise predictions about the effects of female representation on spending. The subsequent panel study on the composition of public spending in Swedish municipalities supports the predictions derived from the survey. Using an instrumental-variable approach I establish that the findings are not a result of reverse causality or an omitted variable.
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| 16. |
- Ekberg, John, 1970-
(författare)
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Essays in Empirical Labor Economics
- 2004
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis consists of four self-contained essays in the field of empirical labor economics.The first essay, Nominal Wage Rigidity in the Swedish Labor Market, presents an empirical investigation of the extent of downward nominal wage rigidity on the Swedish labor market. The analysis shows that cuts in nominal basic wages are rare and the skewness of wage change distributions is negatively correlated with the median change, corroborating the existence of downward rigidity. The second essay, Nominal Wage Rigidity and Real Implications for the Swedish Labor Market, is based on a model of proportional downward wage rigidity. Real implications of the estimates are examined, in order to analyze the effects of downward nominal wage rigidity on the NAIRU under different inflation policies. The potential cost of downward rigidity on the long-run unemployment rate is found to be relatively moderate.The third essay, Firm Size -Wage Effect: Fact or Artifact?, investigates the employer size-wage premium. The inclusion of controls for specific occupations and hierarchies has a profound effect on the estimated effect. The control for hierarchies conditional on occupation results in an effect of size on wage that is not necessarily positive.The fourth essay, Sharing Responsibility? Short- and Long-term Effects of Sweden's "Daddy-Month" Reform. In 1995, the Swedish government reformed the parental leave system. The reform constitutes a natural experiment. Comparing two cohorts of newborns, their mothers and fathers over a period of eight years, we look at the number of days mothers and fathers take for parental leave and the number of days for care of sick children. We find that the reform had a strong short-term effect on parental leave by fathers, but that there are no long-run effects on fathers' willingness to increase their part in care for sick children.
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| 17. |
- Nilsson, Tobias, 1974-
(författare)
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Essays on Voting and Government Inefficiency
- 2004
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis consists of three self-contained essays on political economics.The first essay, The Effects on Political Rent-seeking of Allowing Campaign Contributions in Politics, presents a theoretical analysis of the effects on political rent-seeking of allowing campaign contributions in politics. I define rents as the difference between taxes and government spending. In a two-income group framework, I find that rents are higher when neither of the groups give campaign contributions, as compared to the case when both groups do. The mechanism behind this result is that candidates need campaign contributions in order to increase their probability of election success and voters will give campaign contributions to the candidate committed to the lowest level of rents. Rents are also found to be decreasing (increasing) in income inequality, when only the rich (poor) income group gives campaign contributions.The second essay, Government Inefficiency and Campaign Contributions, deals with campaign contributions and inefficiency in policy making. Intuitively, the interaction rests on a trade-off for political candidates between the need for campaign contributions (to win the election) and the effort associated with decreasing government inefficiency. Hence, voters will decrease the contributions to candidates likely to run a relatively less efficient policy. The main theoretical findings are that the inefficiency in the candidates' platforms is increasing in income inequality among voters, while their received campaign contributions are decreasing in income inequality. These predictions are empirically tested using US state level data for the period 1977-1995, and found to be statistically significant.The third essay, Explaining the Spending on Elderly Care in Swedish Municipalities Using Economic Theory, is, as indicated by the title, an empirical examination of local public spending in Sweden. This essay examines if the spending on elderly care in Swedish municipalities can be explained by the identity of the median voter using the voter characteristics (i) age, (ii) sex and (iii) income. The findings yield support for the median voter theory in the sense that the share of women in the population is found to negatively affect municipalities' spending on elderly care. On average, spending increases by 3-7 %, if the share of women in the population decreases by one standard deviation.
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| 18. |
- Pavlos, Petroulas, 1972-
(författare)
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International Capital Flows : Effects, Defects and Possibilities
- 2004
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Short-Term Capital Flows and Growth in Developed and Emerging Markets: A lot of attention has been directed towards recent financial crises. Empirical studies have found that short-term flows increase financial fragility and also increase the probability of financial crises. This study takes a macro-oriented approach and shows that large and volatile short-term flows may be growth inhibiting for emerging markets, while no effect is apparent for rich countries. The results in this study indicate that opening up emerging markets capital accounts, which implies increased short-term capital flows, is not a clear-cut way to prosperity.Macroeconomic Effects of Capital Controls on Short-Term Inflows: The financial turbulence of the last decade has led to a reanimated interest in capital controls as means to reduce volatile capital flows and exchange rate movements in emerging markets. A theoretical framework is set up where the effects on the return to capital, due to a tax on short-term capital inflows, are incorporated into a modified Dornbush model. Empirical findings in the form of GARCH and VAR estimations corroborate the theoretical assumptions and predictions of this simplified open economy model, when it comes to real and nominal exchange rates, interest rates and prices.The Effect of the Euro on Foreign Direct Investment: The recent effect of the European Monetary Union on inward FDI-flows is examined here. We use a difference-in-differences approach and fixed effects with common time controls. The estimated results of the latter approach show that the introduction of the Euro raises inward FDI by 17 percent within the Euro-area and by 9 and 12 percent to and from non-member countries respectively. Moreover the geographical effects of the Euro are explored. The results show partial agglomeration tendencies for the euro area. There are also some indications of increased importance of vertical specialization in the sample.
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| 19. |
- Razo Perez, Carlos, 1972-
(författare)
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Mergers, Congestion and Collusion : Essay on Merger Policy
- 2004
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis consists of four essays on merger policy.An Econometric Analysis of the European Commission's Merger DecisionsUsing a sample of 96 mergers notified to the EU Commission and logit regression techniques, this essay analyses the Commission's decision process. The study finds that the probability of a phase 2 investigation and of a prohibition of the merger increases with the parties' market shares. The probabilities increase also when the Commission finds high entry barriers or that post-merger collusion is easy. We do not find significant effects of "political" variables, such as the nationality of the merging firms.Merger Policy with Alternative Mergers and Efficiency GainsThis essay models the behaviour of a Competition Authority (CA) that takes into consideration alternative future mergers when deciding whether to approve a current merger notification. The result is a more stringent CA that demands higher merger-efficiencies than those needed to restore pre-merger welfare, thereby opening the possibility of challenging a merger reducing prices. However, in the absence of entry and exit, a merger policy considering alternative mergers is never consumer welfare decreasing. Additionally, CA's merger-efficiencies expectations play an important role in the stance adopted by the CA (tougher or laxer). Finally, the paper suggests that even when alternative mergers could have positive effects on consumer welfare, CAs should exercise caution in adopting such merger policy, given the significant side-effects.Mergers in Congested MarketsThe novel feature of this study is the focus on consumer-side merger efficiencies. It is argued that mergers may create efficiencies directly affecting utility, for example in terms of reduced waiting time, rather than indirectly through reductions in price. Specifically, we analyse the effects of mergers on prices and welfare in markets facing congestion and derive conditions under which a merger is consumer welfare improving, even in the absence of marginal cost savings. In our context, a merger basically has two effects. First, it obviously increases market concentration and second, it makes the new entity a more aggressive competitor. The paper shows that mergers entailing a more efficient use of installed capacity can result in important price reductions. Moreover, even when the post-merger price of the new merged entity increases, outsiders may respond by decreasing prices and the overall effect may be a consumer welfare gain. Thus, the current merger policy may be inappropriate in these types of markets. From a policy perspective, it could thus be argued that the competition authorities should demand less in terms of "standard" merger-efficiencies in order to approve the merger in a congested market, especially when there are synergies in terms of capacity utilization.Coordinated Merger Effects in Congested MarketsThis paper contributes to the analysis of congested markets. In particular, the analysis focuses on the impact of a merger on firms' incentives to tacitly collude or deviate from a collusive agreement in markets with firm-level congestion. Unilateral merger effects in this type of markets have been analysed by Häckner and Razo (2004). This paper complements their work by concentrating on coordinated merger effects in congested markets. The main findings are that even though a merger reduces the number of firms in the market, which in itself facilitates collusion, the capacity increase of the merged entity creates a market asymmetry that may hinder collusive behaviour.
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