Deunionization and job polarization – a macroeconomic model analysis for a small open economy

Declining unionization rates and job polarization are two important labor market developments of recent decades. A large body of literature has analyzed these phenomena separately, but little has been done to see whether there is a link between them. We employ a macroeconomic model for a small open economy with a large input–output core to analyze how deunionization may cause job polarization. Our analysis shows that medium-skilled workers are negatively affected by deunionization, mainly as a result of the heterogeneity of the elasticities of substitution between different types of labor. While the elasticities of substitution between high- and medium-skilled labor are relatively low, the elasticities of substitution between medium- and low-skilled are relatively high. As a result, when deunionization leads to increased wage dispersion, we find that demand for low-skilled increases at the expense of medium-skilled labor, thus yielding a more polarized labor market.     

Supply chain capabilities for facilitating the internationalisation of retailers – a multiple case study of three Swedish retail companies

ABSTRACT

Market-oriented aspects of retail internationalisation have received a lot of research attention since the 1990s. However, beyond these aspects lies also supply-chain oriented capabilities that are necessary for retailers to successfully internationalise into foreign sales markets. By using a perspective based on resource-based theories, this paper explores supply-chain oriented capabilities that facilitate retail internationalisation. The research is based on a multiple case study of three Swedish retailers. Through the perspective of research based theories, specifically capabilities, the empirical data is studied in a single-case as well as a cross-case analysis. Findings reveal three supply chain-oriented capability categories (leadership capability, integration capability and learning capability) of importance for retail internationalisation. Resources necessary for the capabilities are to be found internally at the retailer, but also externally at other firms. This research adds to the market-oriented knowledge on retail internationalisation by adding a supply-chain oriented perspective. Further, it provides an understanding of the early phases of retail internationalisation.     

Using choice experiments to value catchment and estuary health in Tasmania with individual preference heterogeneity*

Choice experiments (CE) have become widespread as an approach to environmental valuation in both Australia and overseas. However, there are few valuation studies that have addressed natural resource management (NRM) changes in Tasmania. Furthermore, few studies have focussed on the estimation of estuary values. The CE study described in this paper aims to analyse community preferences for NRM options in the George catchment, Tasmania. Catchment health attributes were: the length of native riverside vegetation; the number of rare native animal and plant species in the George catchment; and area of healthy seagrass beds in the Georges Bay, which was used as a measure of estuary condition. Mixed logit models with interactions between socio‐economic variables and the choice attributes were estimated to account for systematic and random taste heterogeneity across respondents. Results reveal considerable variation in preferences towards the attributes and show that value estimates are significantly impacted by the way in which we account for preference heterogeneity. Preference heterogeneity thus needs to be considered when estimating community willingness‐to‐pay for environmental changes. This study further shows little responsiveness to the presented changes in estuary seagrass area.     

The combined impact of managerial and relational capabilities on innovation in firms

In this paper, a survey of more than 1600 firms in the five largest city regions of Norway is described in order to examine how a firm's innovative capacity is affected by three types of factors: factors related to the manager, the structure of the firm and the broader geographical location. By combining perspectives from the fields of management and economic geography in a logistic regression analysis, we find that the two key drivers of firm-level innovation in Norway are the presence of open-minded managers and evidence of collaboration with international partners. Moreover, these two factors are mutually reinforcing, as firms with open-minded managers also tend to engage more with international partners and vice versa.     

Recent Trends in the Skill Composition of Legal U.S. Immigrants

We examine fluctuations in the predicted educational attainment of newly arrived legal U.S. immigrants between 1972 and 1999 by combining data from the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service with the Current Population Survey. A mid-1980s decline gave way to a noticeable improvement in the skill base of the immigrant population between 1987 and 1993. A short decline in the quality of immigrant skills—less severe than that of the mid-1980s—took place in the mid-1990s. In 1998, the trend reverses once more: The labor market quality of new legal U.S. immigrants improves. The primary sources of the fluctuations include changes in the quality and quantity of immigrants obtaining an adjustment and variations in the distribution of source regions and entry class types among new legal U.S. immigrants.     

Capital–skill complementarity and inequality: A sensitivity analysis

Krusell et al. in [Krusell, P., Ohanian, L., Ríos-Rull, J.V., Violante, G.L., 2000. Capital–skill complementarity and inequality: A macroeconomic analysis. Econometrica 68 (5), 1029–1053] analyzed the capital–skill complementarity hypothesis as an explanation for the behavior of the US skill premium. We refit Krusell et al.'s [Krusell, P., Ohanian, L., Ríos-Rull, J.V., Violante, G.L., 2000. Capital–skill complementarity and inequality: A macroeconomic analysis. Econometrica 68 (5), 1029–1053] model with two alternative capital equipment price series: One proposed by Greenwood et al. [Greenwood, J., Hercowitz, Z., Krusell, P., 1997. Long-run implications of investment-specific technological change. Amer. Econ. Rev. 87 (3), 342–362] and the official, revised National Income and Product Accounts (NIPA) data. We find that capital–skill complementarity is preserved, but other results were sensitive to the data used. Specifically, the fit of the model was similar to Krusell et al.'s [Krusell, P., Ohanian, L., Ríos-Rull, J.V., Violante, G.L., 2000. Capital–skill complementarity and inequality: A macroeconomic analysis. Econometrica 68 (5), 1029–1053] using the NIPA data, but not the Greenwood et al. [Greenwood, J., Hercowitz, Z., Krusell, P., 1997. Long-run implications of investment-specific technological change. Amer. Econ. Rev. 87 (3), 342–362] data. Also, both series produce estimates of the elasticity of substitution between unskilled labor and equipment that are substantially larger than Krusell et al.'s [Krusell, P., Ohanian, L., Ríos-Rull, J.V., Violante, G.L., 2000. Capital–skill complementarity and inequality: A macroeconomic analysis. Econometrica 68 (5), 1029–1053] estimates.     

Spatial and Scope Effects: Valuations of Coastal Management Practices

We explore how values for environmental management in the Kimberley region of Australia respond to changes in spatial scale and attribute scope. A discrete choice experiment was conducted that included the impacts of management on marine no‐take areas, Aboriginal rangers, recreational facilities, and coastal development. A split sample single‐site design was used to estimate values for the Kimberley region as a whole, and for two separate smaller sub‐regions, allowing us to test for spatial preference heterogeneity. Management outcomes for different regions were displayed on a map to show respondents explicitly where outcomes would occur. We show that willingness to pay results are similar between the two smaller sub‐regions, and that willingness to pay for the attributes increased when management occurred at the larger geographical scale. However, respondents were somewhat insensitive to changes in the scope of the two cardinal attributes: area of no‐take and number of rangers. We discuss the implications of this spatial and scope insensitivity for choice experiment research.