Warning labels on junk food: experimental evidence

Unhealthy food choice is one of the main causes of being overweight. Nutritionists blame a particular category of food: junk food. Several authors have proposed a fat tax for reducing the junk food demand, but others have demonstrated that these taxes must be very high in order to be effective. Therefore, a warning label about calorie content may be an alternative way to reduce the consumption of junk food. In this exploratory study, using students as respondents, a high‐calorie warning label is explored with an incentive compatible valuation method. The results indicate that a high‐calorie warning label has little effect on respondents’ choices, even when they have no prior familiarity with the food.     

Increased coordination in public transport—which mechanisms are available?

After several years of New Public Management reforms within public transport, coordination seems to receive increased attention. With examples of actual as well as suggested changes taken from Denmark, Sweden and the UK the aim of the article is to analyse and classify the mechanisms utilized and suggested to increase coordination between core stakeholders within passenger railway services and bus services. Four distinctive mechanisms of coordination are suggested, namely organisational coordination, contractual coordination, partnership coordination and discursive coordination. Each coordination mechanism has its strengths and failures. The article also debates to what extent the mechanisms conflict with three core characteristics of New Public Management: Unbundling of the public sector into corporatized units; more contract-based competitive provision; and greater emphasis on output controls.     

Differences in the degree of unionization as a source of comparative advantage in open economies

This paper considers two integrated countries that differ only in their labour markets: one country hosts unions, whereas the other one pays competitive wages. These institutional differences are a source of comparative advantage, which crucially impact inter‐industry trade and welfare in the open economy. In this setting, deunionization exerts opposing welfare effects in the two economies. Increasing product market competition is beneficial for the unionized country and detrimental for its trading partner. Finally, we conduct an empirical analysis that provides strong support for the main hypotheses of our theoretical model.     

Globalisation and union opposition to technological change

Trade unions have a rational incentive to oppose the adoption of labour-saving technology when labour demand is inelastic and unions care much for employment relative to wages. Trade liberalisation typically increases trade union technology opposition. These conclusions are reached in a model of unionised international duopoly with two-way trade. We also find that the incentive for technology opposition is stronger in the more technologically advanced country and in the country with the larger home market, complementing earlier explanations for technological catch-up and leapfrogging.     

The stock market and investment in the small and open Norwegian economy

The relationship between the stock market and investment is analyzed by utilizing a multivariate vector autoregressive model, which also includes fundamentals represented by production and the bank interest rate. Two important results appear on the basis of data from the small, open economy of Norway. The financial market has no lead effect on real activity, as neither the stock market nor the credit market can predict future investment or production. On the contrary, current stock returns correlate negatively with lagged growth in investment, and positively with current growth in production. In addition, changes in the bank interest rate have a positive effect on future stock returns, production leads investment positively, and both production and the bank interest rate become exogenous variables in our model. First version received: November 1997/Final version received: October 2000     

Optimal capacity with stochastic demand

A model focusing on the choice of capacity in an environment with stochastic demand is presented. The paper establishes the conditions under which bias in traditional econometric measures of capacity utilization may occur. As illustration, the model is applied to the Norwegian vessel-building industry. The results from traditional econometric studies in this industry are adjusted using the results from the model presented. The analysis indicates an upward bias in the traditional capacity utilization index; the excess capacity in the analyzed industry, as determined by deviation from the optimal, stochastically-adjusted level of capacity, is higher than that determined by traditional econometric measures. However, the author is reluctant to draw definitive conclusions from the empirical part of the paper due to uncertainty regarding data and assumptions made. The empirical implementation is primarily illustrative and should be interpreted as such.     

我们并肩前行

我们是谁？我们是北欧警务及海关事务联络处目前的3名成员：Frc，deZ．Olsen，59岁，来自丹麦警方，已有34年的警务执法经验；JyrkiKaipanen，41岁，拥有19年的芬兰警务执法经验；AIexilndrltWang，33岁，联络处的助于和翻译.     

Reducing Costs of Censuses in Norway Through Use of Administrative Registers

The purpose and methodology of the Norwegian census has changed considerably during the last 35 years. While the census was previously the main source of socio-demographic information, it is to day just one of several sources. After an identification number for each individual was introduced and used in various administrative registers, the dominating role of the census has changed dramatically. For some years it has been the policy of Statistics Norway to collaborate with various governmental agencies in order to use administrative registers in statistics production. This policy has been supported politically, and a new Statistics Act has been useful in these efforts. The purpose of this paper is to present the strategy and methodology used to produce statistics in general, census statistics in particular, when based on a combined use of administrative registers and directly collected data. Experiences from Norwegian censuses since 1960 will be presented.