Intra-industry trade : The case of Sweden

Zusammenfassung Intraindustrieller Handel: Das Beispiel Schwedens. — In diesem Aufsatz werden einige Hypothesen überprüft, die den Anteil des intraindustriellen Handels am gesamten Au\enhandel Schwedens mit verschiedenen L?ndern und Produkten der Jahre 1970 und 1977 erkl?ren sollen. Ein wichtiges Ergebnis ist, da\ der Anteil des intraindustriellen Handels am Warenaustausch mit solchen L?ndern besonders gro\ zu sein pflegt, deren Faktorausstattung und Pro-KopfEinkommen ungef?hr denen Schwedens entsprechen. Au\erdem nahm der intraindustrielle Handel zwischen 1970 und 1977 mit den L?ndern besonders stark zu, die sich am schnellsten dem schwedischen Einkommensniveau ann?herten. Ein anderes wichtiges Ergebnis ist, da\ der Anteil des intraindustriellen Handels bei den Produktgruppen in der Regel recht gro\ ist, deren Herstellung charakterisiert ist durch — einen niedrigen Mechanisierungsgrad, gemessen entweder an einer geringen Energieintensit?t oder einem hohen Anteil der Lohnkosten, was darauf hindeutet, da\ die Produkte nicht standardisiert sind. — hohe Kosten für E & F und einen hohen Anteil gelernter und gut bezahlter Arbeitskr?fte, was als ein Zeichen für eine hohe Innovationsrate und einen gro\en Bestand an firmenspezifischen technischen Kenntnissen angesehen wird, wodurch der Handel infolge einer technologischen Lücke intensiviert wird, und durch — eine Konzentration auf gro\e Betriebe, was auf Skalenertr?ge hindeuten k?nnte.

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Résumé Le commerce intra-industriel: Le cas suédois. — Dans cet article, on a examiné quelques hypothèses concernant la quote-part du commerce intra-industriel en commerce total avec des pays et des biens différents en utilisant des données pour le commerce suédois des années 1970 et 1977. Les résultats principaux sont, premièrement, que la quote-part du commerce intra-industriel semble être haute en commerce avec les pays dont la dotation en facteurs de production et le revenu per capita sont à peu près similaires à ceux de la Suède. De plus, le commerce intraindustriel s’augmentait le plus entre 1970 et 1977 avec les pays qui s’approchaient le plus rapidement du niveau de revenu suédois. Deuxièmement, la quote-part du commerce intra-industriel semble être haute pour les groupes des biens dont la production est caractérisée par — un degré bas de mécanisation, mesuré par une intensité basse d’énergie ou par une quote-part haute des co?ts de main-d’oeuvre, qui peut indiquer que les biens ne sont pas standardisés. — des co?ts hauts de R&D et par une quote-part haute de la main-d’oeuvre qualifiée et bien rémunérée, qui peuvent être interprétés comme indicateurs d’un taux haut d’innovation et d’un grand stock du savoir-faire spécifique de l’entreprise, intensifiant le commerce de la lacune technologique, et par — une concentration dans des grandes usines qui peut être un indicateur des économies d’échelle.

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Resumen Comercio intra-industrial: el caso de Suecia. — En este articulo se someten a prueba algunas hipótesis concernientes a la participación del comercio intra-industrial en el comercio total con diferentes países y en diferentes grupos de productos, sobre datos del comercio sueco para los a?os 1970 y 1977. Los principales resultados son, primeramente, que la participación del comercio intra-industrial tiende a ser alto en el comercio con paises donde la dotación de factores y el ingreso per cápita son bastante similares a los de Suecia. Además, el comercio intra-industrial creció más entre los a?os 1970 y 1977 con aquellos países que se estaban acercando más rápidamente al nivel de ingresos sueco. Segundo, la participación del comercio intra-industrial tiende a ser alta en grupos de productos caracterizados por — bajo grado de mecanización, medido por una baja intensidad en energia o una alta participación de costos laborales, lo que puede indicar que los productos no estan estandardizados. — altos costos de investigación y desarrollo (R&D) y alta participación de mano de obra calificada y altamente remunerada, lo que se interpréta como un signo de alto grado de innovaciones y un amplio stock de conocimientos técnicos específicos de la empresa, creando comercio de brecha tecnológica. — concentración hacia grandes plantas, lo que puede ser un signo de economías de escala.

     

Politische »Kultur«

The presentation of cultural topics in the feature pages of German newspapers did change much during the past two decades. Above all, the »policialization« of cultural news coverage leaps to the eye. Nevertheless, there can be no talk of basically new cultural pages. This is demonstrated by a longitudinal analysis of four daily newspapers within the period of 1983 to 2003. The journalistic offer in the feature pages of all four newspapers has not been reduced but instead it has been strongly extended. The amount of articles as well as their size has increased considerably. »Politics« has become the most important topic. In 2003, its share of all topics is 15 percent, but it does by no means supersede the classical topics like theatre, music, the fine arts and literature. With a share of about 50 percent, those topics still are the core of cultural news coverage. Obviously, journalists are more open to popular and entertaining forms where musical topics are concerned compare to, e. g., the theatre. The most frequent genre in the feature pages in 2003 is undisputably still the review. An »end of the critique« in favor of strongly personalizing, entertainment and service-accentuated forms of presentation cannot be proven.     

The utility of a common coinage: Currency unions and the integration of money markets in late Medieval Central Europe

This paper employs a new method and dataset to estimate the effect of currency unions on the integration of financial markets in late Medieval Central Europe. The analysis reveals that membership in a union was significantly correlated with well-integrated markets. We also examine whether currency unions were endogenous. Our results indicate that where unions were established, markets had been significantly better integrated already in the preceding period. In addition, we show that currency unions created by autonomous merchant towns were better integrated than unions implemented by territorial rulers. The overall implication is that monetary diversity was a corollary of weakly integrated markets in late Medieval Central Europe.     

Financial constraints of private firms and bank lending behavior

We investigate whether and how financial constraints of private firms depend on bank lending behavior. Bank lending behavior, especially its scale, scope and timing, is largely driven by bank business models which differ between privately owned and state-owned banks. Using a unique dataset on private small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) we find that an increase in relative borrowings from local state-owned banks significantly reduces firms’ financial constraints, while there is no such effect for privately owned banks. Improved credit availability and private information production are the main channels that explain our result. We also show that the lending behavior of local state-owned banks can be sustainable because it is less cyclical and neither leads to more risk taking nor underperformance.     

Measuring service experience: Applying the satisfaction with travel scale in public transport

It is argued that favorable customer service experiences are crucial for the success of a company's offering, and research on the subject is growing rapidly. However, instruments for measuring service experience are not readily available. This study applies and validates the Satisfaction with Travel Scale (STS) for measuring the service experience in public transport. The results confirm that service experience is multidimensional, consisting of a cognitive dimension related to service quality and two affective dimensions related to positive activation, such as enthusiasm or boredom, and positive deactivation, such as relaxation or stress.     

Flow and consumers in e-based self-services: New provider–consumer relations

This paper examines how consumers' attention can be captured and maintained in an e-based self-service relationship. We investigate how a consumption environment can be constructed that uses ‘flow’ to capture the attention of the consumer. By means of two case studies, the article explores how knowledge services can be appropriated along these lines given that the service is delivered in the form of a self-service. We argue that the service must remain in ‘flow’ at various points of consumption, which are critical; this is in order to produce the positive reactions of ‘improvement’ and ‘voice’. Whether this happens depends on the ‘flow competencies’ of the consumer.     

Same Service,Different Ad Claims: The Moderating Role of Need for Cognition

Advertisers can choose among different ad claims when framing commercial messages about a new service offer. Two alternative ad claims are functional ad claims, focusing on product or service attributes and benefits, and experiential ad claims, focusing on future experiences with the product or service. This article proposes that different ad claims evoke different memory structures (semantic vs. episodic), and that different memory structures require different types of cognitive processing (system 1 vs. system 2). In two experiments using need for cognition as a dispositional trait of level of cognitive processing, this article shows that a new service entrant with experiential ad claims will be less favorably evaluated when consumers engage in more effortful, or system 2, processing, than when consumers engage in less effortful processing (system 1). For functional claims, however, the evaluation of the new service does not differ between the two types of cognitive processing (system 1 vs. system 2).     

Decentralized Taxation and the Size of Government: Evidence from Swiss State and Local Governments

According to the Leviathan Model, fiscal federalism is a binding constraint on revenue‐maximizing government. The competitive pressure of fiscal federalism reduces public sector size, as compared to unitary states. This study uses panel data of Swiss cantons from 1980 to 1998 to empirically analyze the effect of different instruments on government revenue and its structure. Because of the considerable tax autonomy of sub‐national Swiss governments, it is possible to investigate different mechanisms by which fiscal federalism may influence government size. The results indicate that tax exporting has a revenue‐expanding effect; whereas, tax competition favors a smaller size of government. Fragmentation has no robust effect on the size of government revenue for Swiss cantons. The overall effect of revenue decentralization leads to fewer tax revenues but higher user charges. Thus, revenue decentralization favors a smaller size of government revenue and shifts government revenue from taxes to user charges.     

An historical wealth assessment – measuring the Swedish national wealth for the nineteenth and twentieth centuries

This article provides historical account of wealth accumulation and composition in Sweden during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. A detailed account on capital formation during the industrialisation process shows that produced capital grew faster than natural capital from the 1850s. Natural capital was changing from a predominance of forest towards crop land as the main asset in the early twentieth century. Produced capital was largely bounded in the agriculture sector up till the second half of the nineteenth century. Heavy investments in the infrastructure sector and later in the manufacturing section changed the produced capital structure and thereby lowered transport costs and return of investment in manufacturing and services; providing incentives for accumulating the stock of produced capital and enhance consumption and living standard. The return on capital was dispersed from the outset of the period but has converged over time.     

The diversity of high-frequency traders

The regulatory debate concerning high-frequency trading (HFT) emphasizes the importance of distinguishing different HFT strategies and their influence on market quality. Using data from NASDAQ-OMX Stockholm, we compare market-making HFTs to opportunistic HFTs. We find that market makers constitute the lion's share of HFT trading volume (63–72%) and limit order traffic (81–86%). Furthermore, market makers have higher order-to-trade ratios and lower latency than opportunistic HFTs. In a natural experiment based on tick size changes, we find that the activity of market-making HFTs mitigates intraday price volatility.