Obstacles to transnational trade union cooperation in Europe—results from a European survey

This article analyses obstacles to transnational union cooperation within Europe. It is based on a survey of unions in 14 European countries and all members of the European Trade Union Confederation. The result shows that ‘hard’ industrial relations factors are generally more important obstacles to transnational cooperation than ‘softer’ factors such as cultural, linguistic, ideological and religious differences and that there are sectoral differences in experiences of obstacles to transnational union cooperation: unions in the manufacturing sector tend to emphasise differences in industrial relations and a lack of organisational resources for transnational union cooperation, whereas low organisational priorities are held to be of more importance in the services sector and for unions for professional workers.     

Is the income elasticity of environmental improvements less than one?

We estimated the income elasticity of environmental improvements for a number of European data-sets. The value of this parameter is consistently found to be less than one, with few exceptions. Our findings are compared with state-of-the-art contingent valuation studies from other countries. We also compared our findings with those reported in the literature on charitable donations and corporate donations. These studies show a similar pattern; donations decrease as a percentage of income, as income increases.     

International specialization and structural change in the Swedish Manufacturing Industry, 1969–1992

International Specialization and Structural Change in the Swedish Manufacturing Industry, 1969–1992. — The increasing trade orientation of Swedish manufacturing 1969–1992 was mainly caused by increasing intraindustry specialization with most industries. Intraindustry specialization was found to be related positively to the skill intensity of the industry and negatively to average plant size and the incidence of trade barriers. The paper evaluates the links between specialization and inter-as well as intraindustry structure. It was found that changing patterns of relative international competitiveness among industries accounted for more than half of the total interindustry structural change in employment in 1969–1992. The mean plant size tends to increase with intraindustry specialization.     

Hedging Foreign Exchange Exposure: Risk Reduction from Transaction and Translation Hedging

Using a sample of Swedish firms we investigate the risk reducing effect of foreign exchange exposure hedging. Further, we investigate risk reduction from using different hedging instruments, and particular interest is directed towards the impact of transaction exposure hedges and translation exposure hedges respectively. We find that firms' foreign exchange exposure is increasing with the level of inherent exposure, measured as the difference between revenues and costs denominated in foreign currency, and that it is decreasing with firm size. We find a significant reduction in foreign exchange exposure from the use of financial hedges. The evidence suggests that the usage of foreign denominated debt as well as currency derivatives reduce firms' foreign exchange exposure. Further, we find that transaction exposure hedges significantly reduce exposure, and that translation exposure hedges also reduce exposure. A possible explanation for the latter is that translation exposure approximates the exposed value of future cash flows from operations in foreign subsidiaries (i.e. economic exposure). If so, by hedging translation exposure, economic exposure is reduced.     

Estimating individual action dispositions using binary and frequency egocentric sexual network data

The degree distribution of nodes in a sexual network has been under thorough investigation, as has its implications for the spread of sexually transmitted infections. However, not only the structure of the network is of importance in regulating the propagation of an infection. Two nodes connected by an edge may take actions that reduce the transmission probability through that edge. Condom use is one such action. In this article, we derive models for individual action dispositions, and how they together generate an outcome on the edge connecting two nodes. We derive two main models: One where two connected nodes generate one outcome together (suitable for casual sex partners), and one where they generate several outcomes together (suitable for steady sex partners). We model different disposition distributions and different rules on how the dispositions generate outcomes, using an egocentric network dataset on condom use behavior.     

Tax policy and entrepreneurship: empirical evidence from Sweden

This paper examines the relationship between income taxes and the decision to become self-employed using data from Sweden. By making it possible to track a large number of individuals over extended time periods and across a number of tax rate changes while controlling for important additional determinants, available tax-return information from Sweden allows for statistical estimation of the influence that income taxes have on the probability of becoming self-employed. The changing tax rate structure combined with the fact that the Swedish tax system does not provide additional tax benefits to small-business entrepreneurs compared with those who work as employees provides a powerful setting through which to examine the tax rate structure’s influence on individuals’ choice to become self-employed. Contrary to many earlier studies based on US data, this paper finds that both average and marginal taxes have a negative impact on the decision to become self-employed.     

Do firms learn by exporting or learn to export? Evidence from small and medium-sized enterprises

Using a matching approach, we compare the productivity trajectories of future export-entrants and matched nonentrants. Future exporters have higher productivity than do nonentrants before entry into international markets, which indicates self-selection into exports. More interestingly, we also observe a productivity increase among export-entrants relative to nonentrants before export entry. This might be explained by higher investments in physical capital prior to export entry. We find no evidence that the productivity gap between export-entrants and nonentrants continues to grow after export entry. Our results suggest that learning to export occurs but that learning by exporting does not. In contrast to previous studies on Swedish manufacturing, we focus particularly on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).     

Socialization and altruism

An important problem in theoretical biology is to explain how altruism can have positive selection value. We model socialization as a costly public good that raises altruism and we study evolution equations for altruistic preferences. Stable cultural (social) equilibria exist in which socialization is supplied privately and property rights exist without civil government. In equilibrium, agents are altruistic in ways not explained by traditional biological theories. The theory essentially formalizes the story in Adam Smith'sTheory of Moral Sentiments.     

LAPM: A Liquidity-Based Asset Pricing Model

The intertemporal CAPM predicts that an asset's price is equal to the expectation of the product of the asset's payoff and a representative consumer's intertemporal marginal rate of substitution. This paper develops an alternative approach to asset pricing based on corporations' desire to hoard liquidity. Our corporate finance approach suggests new determinants of asset prices such as the distribution of wealth within the corporate sector and between the corporate sector and the consumers. Also, leverage ratios, capital adequacy requirements, and the composition of savings affect the corporate demand for liquid assets and, thereby, interest rates.