Competition, Market Structure and Job Turnover

Does internationalization mean increased reallocation of employment among plants and thus higher adjustment costs? This paper studies the reallocation of jobs among plants in the Swedish economy 1986–97 using micro data. It turns out that the rate of job turnover is high in industries with high rates of innovation and employment growth, and low in concentrated industries with limited competition. However, we find no evidence for the view that increased openness to international competition would increase job turnover. In fact turnover is lower in export oriented industries where foreign ownership is frequent.     

The Pro-competitive Effect of Two-Part Tariffs

Two producers delegate sales of differentiated products to common retailers, each with a monopoly position. Each producer can offer either a linear or a two-part tariff. In the single-period game each producer's dominant strategy is to use a two-part tariff. If the two producers' products are sufficiently close substitutes and the discount factor is sufficiently high, both producers offering linear tariffs can be sustained as an equilibrium outcome in an infinitely repeated game.     

In search of advice for participants in matching markets which use the deferred-acceptance algorithm

Many centralized entry-level labor markets use the firm-proposing deferred-acceptance (DA) algorithm to compute the matching that is implemented among workers and firms. We propose a definition of the strategic options a worker faces in the DA-algorithm. Then we develop a theory to advise workers who distinguish between the firms from which they believe not to receive a proposal, the firms from which they might receive a proposal, and the firms from which they certainly receive a proposal. If a worker is not able to deduce which new proposals she receives after having rejected others, then it is not profitable for her to submit a list that reverses the true ranking of any two acceptable firms. Furthermore, it is not beneficial for her to include a firm in her submitted list that is unacceptable to her.     

Low cost country sourcing and its effects on the total cost of ownership structure for a medical devices manufacturer

In this paper, we describe a total cost of ownership (TCO) method as an activity-based costing (ABC) application along the value chain to measure and analyse the costs of international sourcing activities. We further describe the method's implementation for a manufacturer of high-tech medical devices. For this case study, we analyse the effects of shifting purchasing volume from traditional procurement market suppliers to low cost country suppliers on the cost structure of purchasing projects. We find that particularly costs at component and supplier level gain importance over traditionally dominating unit level costs. Furthermore, we identify low cost country sourcing as a decision with extensive impact on value chain entities other than purchasing. Finally, a considerable part of costs in low cost country sourcing accrue at the beginning of a purchasing project due to problems stemming from unsatisfactory initial quality, language barriers and intercultural communication.     

Efficient priority rules

We study the assignment of indivisible objects with quotas (universities, jobs, or offices) to a set of agents (students, job applicants, or professors). Each agent receives at most one object and monetary compensations are not possible. We characterize efficient priority rules by efficiency, strategy-proofness, and reallocation-consistency. Such a rule respects an acyclic priority structure and the allocations are determined using the deferred acceptance algorithm.     

Trust breeds trust: How taxpayers are treated

Tax compliance has been studied in economics by analysing the individual decision of a representative person between paying and evading taxes. A neglected aspect of tax compliance is the interaction of taxpayers and tax authorities. The relationship between the two actors can be understood as an implicit or “psychological” contract. Studies on tax evasion in Switzerland show that the more strongly the political participation rights are developed, the more important this contract is, and the higher tax morale is. In this paper, empirical evidence based on a survey of tax authorities of the 26 Swiss states (cantons) is presented, indicating that the differences in the treatment of taxpayers by tax authorities can be explained by differences in political participation rights as well. Received: June 2000 / accepted: November 2000