A Matchmaking Component for the Discovery of Agreement and Negotiation Spaces in Electronic Markets

This paper presents the design of an extended matchmaking component for electronic markets, which is able to identify negotiable agreements and the issues that are subject to the negotiation, in the case where basic matchmaking fails to find agreements that satisfy the constraints of the seller and the buyer. The foundation for this functionality is the introduction of negotiable constraints within the offer specification process. The extended matchmaking component complements our SilkRoad design and implementation framework for electronic negotiations. This framework also features other negotiation service components such as a mediation service, which may use the feedback from the extended matchmaking operation on agreement candidates and negotiation spaces, to suggest fair agreements on the basis of the Adjusted Winner algorithm for dispute resolution.     

Local flexibility in wage setting: evidence from the Norwegian local public sector

The public sectors in the Scandinavian countries have been prominent examples of centralized wage-setting systems. In Norway, more room for local flexibility was implemented by a wage frame system introduced in 1990 in which the national wage scale system merely works like a minimum wage system. We analyze the effect of this reform using a unique database where we can track employees and their local government over time and explore the consequences of controlling for fixed individual effects and fixed employer effects. We find that the wage dispersion increased across local governments after 1990, and that wages to some extent became more responsive to local government income, monopsony power and other local government characteristics after the reform. However, the numerical effects of the reform are estimated to be quite small.     

Valuation before and after tax in the discrete time, finite state no arbitrage model

We establish necessary and sufficient conditions for a linear taxation system to be neutral—within the multi-period discrete time “no arbitrage” model—in the sense that valuation is invariant to the exact sequence of tax rates, realization dates as well as immune to timing options attempting to twist the time profile of taxable income through wash sale transactions.

“In the study of investments, taxes are largely a source of embarrassment to financial economists.” (Introduction to Dybvig and Ross 1986) “Accordingly, my approach in this chapter is to examine the restrictions on the income measurement rules applicable to financial instruments implied by the requirement that the rules be linear. . . . Linearity is a desideratum of a tidy tax system.” (Bradford 2000, p. 373–374)

     

Do antitakeover provisions harm shareholders?

We reexamine the negative relation between firm value and the number of antitakeover provisions a firm has in place. We document that firms with characteristics indicating low power to bargain for favorable terms in a takeover, but also indicating high potential agency costs, have more antitakeover provisions in place. We also find that for these firms, Tobin's Q increases in the number of adopted provisions. These findings are robust to several methods that control for endogeneity. Our evidence suggests that adopting more antitakeover provisions is beneficial for certain firms and challenges the commonplace view that antitakeover provisions are universally harmful for shareholders.     

Make and Use Approaches to Regional and Interregional Accounts and Models

Institutional, or sector-by-sector input–output tables have traditionally been used in regional and interregional modelling. This paper examines the origins of this tradition and argues instead, both theoretically and empirically, for the integration of make and use submodels within models of production, demand and interregional trade, outlining the manner in which they can be integrated. Further, it is argued that structural rather than reduced-form models represent a sounder theoretical base. Finally, a Danish interregional model (LINE) based on a social accounting matrix framework that employs these principles is presented. The paper also deals with the issue of data construction at the regional and interregional levels, based on the make and use approach. It is argued that when data are constructed at a low level of sectoral and spatial aggregation under accounting consistency constraints, data quality and validity are high.     

Unequal Labour Market Impacts of COVID-19 in Sweden — But Not Between Women and Men

Intereconomics - So, when asked if men and women in the Swedish labour market have been differently affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, our overall conclusion would have to be “no”.     

On how to increase safety innovations

In this action research study, we show by several cases that a synthetic innovation style in combination with an entrepreneurial culture might increase innovations for safety. Rational decisions and early product specifications were replaced by a natural selection of ideas in an acting reality to have the most fitted ideas among the actors. The forthcoming ideas actually ruled the development of the process and the business set-up like in an entrepreneurial culture. With financial support from the Swedish research funds, Vinnova and SBUF, a laboratory for both research and innovation was implemented at the Karolinska Institutet. The laboratory emanated from an initiative of Professor Leif Svanstr?m in developing a multidisciplinary collaboration on design and consumer safety. In this review, we present our promising findings.     

Applying a CRESH aggregate labour index to generate age-wage profiles

This article shows how a CRESH (Constant Ratios of Elasticity of Substitution, Homothetic) labour index can generate more realistic optimal wage profiles than traditional (restrictive) functional forms. The CRESH index function allows for age-specific elasticities of substitution that are implied by a proper choice of CRESH parameters. The ability to generate plausible optimal age-wage profiles can be useful in, for example, calibrating demographic macroeconomic models. The CRESH analysis also provides one explanation for the well-established divergence of actual relative wages by age from the relative age-specific intensity parameters of a simple additive labour index. Moreover, CRESH labour index may explain the increasing relative wages for middle-aged workers as a result of employing larger numbers of older workers (population aging).     

How suboptimal are linear sharing rules?

The objective of this paper is to analyze criteria for portfolio choice when two investors are forced to invest in a common portfolio and share the proceeds by a linear sharing rule. A similar situation with many investors is typical for defined contribution pension schemes. The restriction implies two sources of suboptimal investment decisions as seen from each of the two investors individually. One is the suboptimal choice of portfolio, the other is the forced linear sharing rule. We measure the combined consequence for each investor by their respective loss in wealth equivalent. We show that significant losses can arise when investors are diverse in their risk attitude. We also show that an investor with a low degree of risk aversion, like the logarithmic or the square root investor, often applied in portfolio choice models, can either inflict or be subject to severe losses when being forced to participate in such a common investment pool.