Designing social security - a portfolio choice approach

Public social security systems may provide diversification of risks to individuals’ life-time income. Capturing that a pay-as-you-go system (paygo) may be considered as a “quasi-asset”, we study the optimal size of the paygo system as well as the optimal split between funded and unfunded pension saving by means of a theoretical portfolio choice framework. A low-yielding paygo system can benefit individuals if it contributes to hedge other risks to their lifetime resources. Numerical calculations indicate that optimal social security systems should be at least partly paygo financed in many economies. The optimal magnitude of the paygo system depends on the specified risk concept as well as the stochastic properties of stock market returns and implicit paygo-returns.     

Procurement auctions with entry of bidders

In procurement auctions with a fixed number of bidders there is a tradeoff between cost efficiency and rent extraction. An optimal mechanism, therefore, entails distortions of effort (Laffont and Tirole, 1987). If potential suppliers must sink an entry investment before they can participate in the auction, then decreasing the firms' rent may imply reduced entry. We show that if potential bidders are uninformed before entry, commitment to a plain, nondistortive auction is optimal. In contrast, if potential bidders learn all their private information before entry, the optimal mechanism entails the same distortions as in Laffont and Tirole's static model.     

Dominated choices in a simple game with large stakes

This paper examines data from the Norwegian television game show Joker, where contestants make well-specified choices under risk. The game involves very large stakes, randomly drawn contestants, and ample opportunities for learning. Central models of risk choice, including expected utility theory, give a simple prediction of choice under weak conditions, as one decision is always first-order stochastically dominating. We document frequent, systematic and costly violations of dominance. Many contestants appear to have a systematic expectation bias that can be related to Tversky and Kahneman’s (Cogn. Psychol. 5(2):207–232, 1973) “availability heuristic”. In addition, contestants seem to make systematic calculation errors that are well captured by the so-called Fechner model.     

The impact of service innovation on firm-level financial performance

This article empirically investigates if firms focusing on service innovation perform better financially than firms not focusing on service innovation. Analysis of the financial performance of 3575 Norwegian firms in the manufacturing industries supports the proposition that firms focusing on service innovation have significantly higher growth of operating results than firms not focusing on service innovation. However, this proposition is not supported in a corresponding analysis of 1132 Norwegian firms in the service industries. We elaborate on these results by investigating a variety of performance measures and by comparing the effects of service innovation between manufacturing and service industries. The article contributes to the service innovation measurement literature and to a better general understanding of the determinants of service innovation performance effects.     

Organizational buying in the offshore oil industry

A model of organizational buying is advanced based on interview data from the offshore oil industry. The variable linking complexity and organizational participation was the criteria of evaluation in the buying process.     

Human capital investment and optimal portfolio choice

We analyze how an individual should optimally invest in human capital when he also has financial wealth. We treat the individual's possibilities to take more education as expansion options and apply real option analysis. In addition, we characterize the individual's optimal consumption strategy and portfolio weights. The individual has a demand for hedging financial risk, labor income risk, and also wage level risk.     

Category characteristics' effects on brand extension attitudes: A research note

Prior studies on attitudes towards brand extensions focus mainly on the effects of the perceived fit between the brand extension and the extension category. This exploratory paper contributes by describing two studies of how the following four extension category characteristics affect consumers' attitudes towards brand extensions: (1) the awareness set size; (2) the perceived similarity among existing brands; (3) the perceived category familiarity; and (4) overall category attitudes. Results from two studies suggest that consumers evaluate brand extensions more favorably when the awareness set size is small or when their attitude towards the extension category is favorable. Consequently, brand managers must analyze the extension category carefully when developing brand extensions.     

Mass production, flexible specialization and just-in-time : Future development trends of industrial production and consequences on conditions of work

For many years, industrial mass production has been criticized for its consequences on conditions of work. Today, this mode of production is facing another crisis caused by its inability to respond to changing market demands. According to some observers a new mode of production—flexible specialization—is seen as an answer to both these crises. Moreover, it is also seen as a dominant paradigm of industrial production for the years to come. One can question such a claim. Another mode of production—often labelled just-in-time—seems to represent a competing paradigm. This mode of production represents a probable solution to the required responsiveness of the firm. It does not, however, automatically mean an end to Taylorized conditions of work.     

Institutional spending policies: implications for future asset values and spending

University endowments, sovereign wealth funds, and foundations support spending. In this paper, we analyze how different spending policies affect future asset values and spending opportunities. We show that the covariance between the asset returns and the spending rate implied by the spending policy is important in this regard. Many of the spending policies used in practice aim at smoothing the spending level by letting current spending be a function of both current asset values and earlier spending levels. One feature of these types of spending policies is that the funds can be depleted. Depleted funds cannot support spending.     

Public Employment and Regional Risk Sharing*

We provide an empirical analysis of regional risk sharing in Norway over the period 1977–90. The approach of Asdrubali, Sørensen and Yosha (1996) is extended to take public employment into account as a possible shock absorber. The other channels of risk sharing are capital markets and commuting, taxes and transfers, and credit markets. The estimated degree of regional consumption insurance is very high. We cannot reject the hypothesis that there is full interregional risk sharing in the short term. Public employment absorbs up to 25 percent of private sector output shocks in our analyses. Generally, central government insurance against regional shocks is relatively more important, the more permanent the shocks are, and vice versa for market‐based risk‐sharing channels.