Getting a job when times are bad: recruitment practices in Sweden before,during and after the Great Recession

Research on recruitment shows that networks matter and are effective as search channels. The aim of this article is to analyse how recruitment practices varies over time, and specifically, how it has varied before, during, and after the Great Recession 2008–2009. The findings are that recruitment practices change both in the short term, in relation to labour supply, which we can call a cyclical effect, but also in accordance to a long-term, structural effects. Informal recruitment practices, such as recruitment through ‘friends and acquaintances’ and ‘employer made contact’, seem to increase during bad times. In the long run, the recruitment practices ‘direct application’, ‘friends and acquaintances’ and ‘formal private’ increase in relation to recruitment through the Swedish Public Employment Agency (SPEA). A reason for this may be that the labour market in the new knowledge economy demands a heterogenic workforce with high demands on non-cognitive skills and customisation. Here the new network recruitment practices seem to fit in.     

Wars are becoming less frequent: a response to Harrison and Wolf

Harrison and Wolf claim that interstate ‘wars are becoming more frequent’. This is an alarming claim deserving serious attention. It is also a highly surprising claim, since recent conflict research tends to find the opposite: incidences of violent conflict are becoming less frequent. We argue that Harrison and Wolf's claim is incorrect. We show empirically that interstate wars are in fact becoming less frequent. Other data on tensions between states below war, such as the Interstate Crises Behavior data, also suggest a decline in conflict between states. We detail how Harrison and Wolf's analysis is misleading, highlighting how their findings primarily arise as a likely artefact of their uncritical use of the Militarized Interstate Disputes (MIDs) data, and explaining why MIDs cannot be interpreted as ‘wars’. Given that Harrison and Wolf's basic premise is wrong, and wars are not becoming more frequent, we should be sceptical of their conclusions. We briefly revisit their suggested explanations for why wars may become more frequent in light of what we know about long‐term trends in warfare and research on interstate war.     

The EU-Korea FTA: anticipation,trade policy uncertainty and impact

Anticipatory trade effects of free trade agreements (FTAs) have been documented in various papers. One reason put forward trying to explain this phenomenon is reduced trade policy uncertainty. This paper is one of the first to explore the role of anticipation and trade policy uncertainty in the case of a recently concluded deep and comprehensive EU FTA, including significant behind the border measures. We use monthly data at a lower level of aggregation (8-digit level) compared to previous studies and we account for changes in the EU product classification over time. We also distinguish between the impact on products which are actually subject to liberalisation under the FTA as opposed to those which are already duty-free and we examine the effects on both the extensive margin and the intensive margin. We consider the impact of the FTA during three different periods of time (the start of negotiations, initialling of the agreement and entry into force), while comparing with the period before negotiations began. The results indicate that the FTA has had a positive impact on exports on both margins. The impact on the EU is somewhat higher indicating that EU exporters have more to gain in terms of increasing the predictability of the trade policy regime of the destination market and lowering its tariffs than vice versa. The results demonstrate that the impact of FTAs should not be assessed against the time period just prior to entry into force of the agreement, but much earlier to account for anticipation effects.     

WHEN PATERNALISM MEETS BOGUS ECONOMICS: THE NEW ECONOMICS FOUNDATION'S 21 HOURS REPORT

A New Economics Foundation (NEF) report proposes a gradual reduction of the standard working week to 21 hours within about a decade, to achieve three goals: make society more equal, increase wellbeing and drastically reduce carbon emissions. This paper shows that the NEF proposal would not achieve the first two goals at all, and the third one only at tremendous cost. The trade‐off that people make between leisure and consumption is an entirely private matter. There is no economic rationale for third‐party interference.     

The value of shorting

This paper assesses the effects of short-sale constraints on asset prices. The analysis focuses on a particular period in Sweden during which shorting stocks was impossible but stock options were traded. Firstly, the effect on both stock options and the underlying stock was investigated jointly by considering deviations from put-call-parity. Secondly, the effects on only the derivatives were investigated by considering their implied volatilites. The main findings are: (i) the impact on pricing are consistent with a short-sale constraint, (ii) these effects are much more pronounced when shorting is not possible, (iii) these effects are not solely attributable to the mispricing of the stock, as previous research indicates, and (iv) access to international shorting markets can alleviate local short-sale constraints.     

The Growth of Union Decertification: A Test of Two Nonnested Theories

This article tests two rival theories of the growth of union decertification: a neoclassical and an institutionalist. Both perform well when they are independently tested against the data. However, Cox nonnested hypothesis tests indicate that when these two theories are tested against each other, the institutionalist theory is superior to (i.e., variance encompasses) the neoclassical theory.     

中国纸制品消费趋势:城市化增长的效应分析和预测

基于对近期未来的人口―经济增长的预测,分析了城市化增长对未来纸制品消费的影响.用"自相关误差回归"的方法检验人口和城市化增长的不同发展路径对于纸制品消费的影响.中国的城市化过程对纸制品消费影响很大,更快的城市化进程,相应的影响会更强烈.比较人口变量和经济变量,城市家庭经济因素相对更加明显.在近期的未来,随着纸制品消费的增加,其对环境污染的压力也会增大.     

Supply chain risk identification with value-focused process engineering

Together with numerous benefits that were brought about by the transition from the silo enterprise perspective towards the process-based supply chain view of contemporary business, new sources of risk appeared due to the complex systemic nature of the supply chains. The need to reduce the increased level of supply chain vulnerability has been identified as a key research issue in the domain of supply chain management. In this paper, a novel value-focused process engineering methodology for process-based supply chain risk identification is proposed with the aim to increase value to supply chain members and supply chain as a whole. The proposed methodology is illustrated with a generic supply chain scenario example.     

Public Preferences and Private Choices: Effect of Altruism and Free Riding on Demand for Environmentally Certified Pork

Sales of private goods with affiliated public good attributes have markedly risen in recent years. This fact is difficult to explain within the paradigm of purely self-interested behavior. This paper investigates factors influencing consumer demand for pork products with certifications related to the environment, animal welfare, and antibiotics. Using psychometric scaling techniques, we measure individuals’ degree of altruism and propensity toward free riding. Results of a random parameter logit model applied to choice data obtained from a nationwide survey in the United States indicates that more altruistic individuals are willing to pay more for pork products with public good attributes than less altruistic individuals and free riders. These results indicate that private purchases of goods with public-good attributes are not simply a result of individuals’ perceptions of the ability to mitigate private risks such as food safety, but that individuals are making private choices to affect public outcomes. Results have implications for policy makers weighing the relative costs and benefits of food labeling policies versus bans related to certain livestock production practices.