Utilization of R&D Results in the Home and Foreign Plants of Multinationals

This paper analyzes the utilization of R&D results in the home and foreign plants of Swedish multinational enterprises (MNEs). The findings indicate that firms' R&D undertaken in the home country is used as an input in both the home and foreign plants of the MNEs. This suggests that technology is transferred to the foreign plants. Around four-fifths of the gain in value-added attributed to home R&D was realized in the MNEs' home plants, while the remaining fifth benefitted the foreign plants. R&D in foreign affiliates does not appear to be used as an input in home plants.     

Within-family inequalities in human capital accumulation in India

We investigate within-family inequalities in human capital accumulation in India. Indicators of the children's current stock of human capital and of investment into their continued human capital accumulation are analyzed, distinguishing between time investments and pecuniary investment into school quality. We employ a within-family model using sibship fixed effects, and find mostly negative birth order effects; that is, earlier-born children are better off. However, for time investments there is a tendency toward more positive birth order effects, especially in poor and large families. This suggests that that opportunity cost of child time matters; in poor and large families the older, more productive, siblings often need to work. The most plausible explanation for negative birth order effects in general is resource dilution at an early age. Older siblings were only children at an early age, and therefore benefited from more parental resources.     

Globalization and school enrollment in a panel of countries

As the process of globalization has gained momentum in the past few decades, so too has interest in the effects of globalization on various socioeconomic outcomes grown. In this paper, I investigate the relationship between globalization and primary school enrollment. Both the economic globalization and social globalization measures from the KOF Index of Globalization are utilized in the analysis in order to capture the broad nature of globalization. The results of the panel data analysis indicate that there is a weak relationship between economic globalization and primary school enrollment, whereas the relationship between social globalization and primary school enrollment is both robust and highly significant. Examining the data by groups of countries indicates that relationship between economic globalization and school enrollment is positive and significant in Latin America and the Caribbean and in Asia, while it is weakly negative in Eastern Europe. The positive relationship between social globalization and school enrollment on the other hand is driven by countries in Latin America and the Caribbean and the Middle East and Africa.     

Estimates of the return to schooling in Sweden from a large sample of twins

A large sample of twins was used to examine whether conventional estimates of the return to schooling in Sweden are biased because ability is omitted from the earnings–schooling relationship. Ignoring measurement error, the results indicate that omitting ability from the earnings–schooling relationship leads to estimates that are positively biased. However, reasonable estimates of the measurement-error-adjusted returns are both above and below the unadjusted estimates, showing that the results depend crucially on a parameter not known at this time. However, an estimate of the reliability ratio was obtained using two measures on educational attainment. With this estimate of the reliability ratio, the measurement-error-adjusted estimate of the return to schooling in the sample of identical twins indicates that there is at most a slight ability bias in the conventional estimates of the return to schooling. The fundamental assumption of this kind of study is that within-pair differences in educational attainment are randomly determined. This assumption was also tested, but no strong evidence to reject it was found.     

Marginal taxation on labour income in Sweden from 1862 to 2010

This paper presents annual Swedish time series data on the top marginal tax wedge and marginal tax wedges on labour income for a low-, average- and high-income earner for the period 1862–2010. These data are unique in their consistency, thoroughness and timespan covered. We identify four distinct periods separated by major tax reforms. The tax system can be depicted as proportional, with low tax wedges until the Second World War. Next follows a period featuring increasing tax wedges. During the third period, starting with the 1971 tax reform and continuing throughout the 1980s, the efforts to redistribute income culminated and tax wedges peaked. The high-income earner started to pay the top marginal tax wedge which could be as high as almost 90%. The main explanations for this development are temporary crises leading to permanent tax increases, expansion of the public sector, distributional ambitions, increased local taxes, bracket-creep and the introduction of social security contributions paid by employers. The 1990–1991 tax reform represents the beginning of a new and still continuing period with decreasing marginal tax wedges.