Variances in staff-related management practices at eight European country subsidiaries of a global firm

The purpose of this study was to explore possible variances and commonalities in staff-related management practices at different country subsidiaries of the same multinational corporation (MNC). The study was exploratory, using data from ninety-six semi-structured interviews about current practices of management within eight European country subsidiaries. Results were based on 12,000 statements about management practices from staff in different countries. Analysis of the statements evidenced variances and commonalities in management practices in the country subsidiaries studied. It is suggested that variances are attributable to cultural factors, institutional pressures and other societal forces, and that commonalities might be explained by a common organizational culture. A theoretical model has been adapted to explain the conditions under which management practices take place in different country settings.     

Tax revenue and the marginal cost of public funds in Sweden

We assess the welfare cost of raising a marginal unit of tax revenue in a balanced-budget, general-equilibrium framework. The calculated social cost of an increment of public funds is sensitive to both the specific type of tax increase and the type of public spending used on the margin. ‘Best-guess’ assumptions on labor supply elasticities yield marginal costs of public funds for different fiscal mixes of between 0.67 and 4.51 at prevailing tax rates in Sweden. Alternative labor supply assumptions well within the range of current estimates substantially affect the results and can imply infinite marginal welfare costs. Marginal welfare costs are also sensitive to assumptions about both the income and substitution effects of labor supply.     

The competitive implications of the deployment of unique resources

The ‘resource‐based’ view focuses on unique resources as the fundamental sources of competitive advantage and superior profits. We use a game‐theoretic model to analyze the impact of the deployment of unique resources on product market competition, and the impact of unique resources and sustainable competitive advantages on profits when the competitive implications of resource deployment are taken into account. We find that some of the core propositions of the resource‐based view do not necessarily hold when the impact of resource deployment on product market competition is explicitly considered. Specifically, the accumulation and deployment of unique resources does not necessarily increase the firm's profit and the difference between its profit and competitors' profits. Furthermore, achieving a sustainable competitive advantage does not necessarily lead to higher profits. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Socialization and altruism

An important problem in theoretical biology is to explain how altruism can have positive selection value. We model socialization as a costly public good that raises altruism and we study evolution equations for altruistic preferences. Stable cultural (social) equilibria exist in which socialization is supplied privately and property rights exist without civil government. In equilibrium, agents are altruistic in ways not explained by traditional biological theories. The theory essentially formalizes the story in Adam Smith'sTheory of Moral Sentiments.     

Assessing the welfare change from a pension reform

We study the welfare implications of a hypothetical reform of the Swedish public pension system where eligibility to pension benefits is delayed by 3 years. Using an option value model, we consider the labor supply responses to the reform and develop a compensating variation (CV) measure to analytically assess the individual welfare changes in a random utility framework. We find that a purely budgetary calculation (neglecting individual labor supply responses) overestimates the welfare loss by more than 65%. We also develop a method for testing between a binary and a multinomial option value model, where the binary one is nested in the multinomial model in a Generalized Extreme Value (GEV) model framework. The binary model cannot be rejected.