Dis-Ag-reement: the construction and negotiation of risk in the Swedish controversy over antibacterial silver

What constitutes a potentially hazardous object is often debated. This article analyses the polemic construction and negotiation of risk in the Swedish controversy over the use of antibacterial silver in health care and consumer products. This debate engages the media, government agencies, parliament and government, non-governmental organizations and companies. Texts and websites from these actors were studied using content analysis. Antibacterial silver is construed by some actors as a risk object with harmful effects on a series of objects at risk: the environment, public health, organisms and sewage treatment. In contrast, other actors deny that antibacterial silver is a risk object, instead construing it as mitigating risk. In such a schema, antibacterial silver is conceived of as managing the risk objects of bacteria and micro-organisms, in turn managing the risk objects of infection, bad smell and washing, and in turn helping the environment and public health (objects at risk). The structure of the debate suggests two basic modes of risk communication. First, antibacterial silver is construed as a risk object, endangering a variety of objects at risk, such as organisms, public health, the environment and sewage treatment. Second, this association between antibacterial silver and objects at risk is obstructed, by denying that antibacterial silver is a risk object or by associating silver with the benefit of mitigating risk.     

Optimal Harvesting of an Age-Structured Schooling Fishery

Biologists have criticized traditional biomass models in fishery economics for being oversimplified. Biological stock assessment models are more sophisticated with regard to biological content, but rarely account for economic objectives. This study includes a full age-structured population model for studying schooling fisheries and extends the delayed difference approach used in earlier studies. We take the total harvest as the choice variable, resulting in a simple analytical structure. The model produces optimal steady states that may be higher or lower compared to the delayed-difference formulation. The model is applied to the Baltic sprat fishery. Both ecological and harvesting cost data support specifying Baltic sprat as a schooling fishery. Given nonlinear harvesting costs, the optimal solution is a path toward a steady state with smooth annual harvest and population age structure. Sensitivity analysis shows that the optimal solution is highly dependent on the population level of the sprat’s main predator Baltic cod. A linear cost function and an interest rate below 9 % imply pulse fishing instead of smooth continuous harvesting. Given nonlinear harvesting cost, the optimal steady state yield is rather insensitive to changes in the interest rate. However, under a high cod scenario, interest rates of 10 % or higher implies that no optimal steady state exists.     

Model-independent bounds for option prices—a mass transport approach

In this paper we investigate model-independent bounds for exotic options written on a risky asset using infinite-dimensional linear programming methods. Based on arguments from the theory of Monge–Kantorovich mass transport, we establish a dual version of the problem that has a natural financial interpretation in terms of semi-static hedging. In particular we prove that there is no duality gap.     

Poverty and the shadow economy: The role of governmental institutions

This paper examines the impact of poverty on the size of the shadow economy using cross-country panel data for over 100 countries for the period 1991–2015. The results show that poverty has a positive and significant effect on the size of the shadow economy. Furthermore, we argue that the quality and size of governmental institutions matter in moderating the impact of poverty on the shadow economy. Considering the interactions between poverty and government quality and size, we find that poverty has the largest effect on the size of the shadow economy when government quality is the lowest and the size of the government is the largest. These results withstand a battery of robustness checks.     

Radicalness of blockchain: an assessment based on its impact on the payments industry

Blockchain is receiving considerable attention among practitioners and academics. However, a detailed analysis investigating how the impact of blockchain is going to unfold is still missing. Our article sets out to assess the radicalness of blockchain at an early stage of its development and substantiates the analysis with evidence from the payments industry. We start by distilling five key aspects of radical innovation from extant literature. Our analysis of blockchain then focuses on the payments industry, which represents a major business field of banking and the cradle of this technology. The results of a Delphi study provide 17 statements about the current development of blockchain. The statements deliver insights into the impact of blockchain on the payments industry and reveal the radicalness of the technology. Based on these insights, we investigate how blockchain affects the five key aspects of radical innovation and develop contributions from an innovation management’s perspective.     

Private Sector Debt,Financial Constraints,and the Effects of Monetary Policy: Evidence from the US

We characterize the response of U.S. real GDP to monetary policy shocks conditional on the level of private sector debt and the degree to which financial constraints are binding. To incorporate state-dependent effects of monetary policy, we use the local projection framework. We find that although the amount of private sector debt potentially weakens the monetary policy transmission mechanism, policy shocks exert substantially larger effects on output when high private debt coincides with binding financial constraints.     

Measuring the size of the shadow economy in 30 provinces of China over 1995–2016: The MIMIC approach

Applying the multiple indicators and multiple causes (MIMIC) approach, the present paper measured the size of the shadow economies in China's provinces over 1995–2016. The results show that the average size of the shadow economy in 30 provinces of China increased from 13.55% in 1995 to 14.39% in 2009, and then decreased to 12.30% in 2016. There are obvious variations in the size of the shadow economies in different districts of China. The average size of the shadow economy is lowest in provinces in the eastern district and highest in the western district. In addition, the causes and consequences of the shadow economies in China's provinces have also been analysed using the MIMIC approach, and the results show that tax burden, complexity of the tax system, intensity of regulation, unemployment, employment in the agricultural sector and economic openness have significant positive effects on China's shadow economy, while the ratio of direct taxes to indirect taxes, fiscal autonomy and income levels have significant negative effects on China's shadow economy. Using the growth rate of energy consumption as the benchmark indicator, the MIMIC analysis shows that the shadow economy has significant positive effects on the development of the official economy and income inequality while having a significant negative effect on the labour participation rate.     

The political economy of trade and migration: Evidence from the U.S. Congress

We compare the drivers of U.S. congressmen's votes on trade and migration reforms since the 1970s. Standard trade theory suggests that trade reforms that lower barriers to goods from less skilled‐labor abundant countries and migration reforms that lower barriers to low‐skilled migrants should have similar distributional effects, hurting low‐skilled U.S. workers while benefiting high‐skilled workers. In line with this prediction, we find that House members representing more skilled‐labor abundant districts are more likely to support trade and migration reforms that benefit high‐skilled workers. Still, important differences exist: Democrats are less supportive of trade reforms than Republicans, while the opposite is true for migration reforms; welfare state considerations and network effects shape votes on migration, but not on trade.     

The advantages of a small European Monetary Union

The question whether European Monetary Union should include all the EC countries from the start or should initially be limited to a few core countries is again being discussed more intensely. What advantages would a small EMU have from an economic point of view? Which countries should be its founder members?