Factors affecting the price of Swedish forest land, 1965–1987

A model for the determination of the price of forest land is estimated for Sweden from 1965–1987, when (except for a few years) private non-industrial forest owners could finance their holdings at a negative real after-tax borrowing rate. It is assumed that credit has been limited by the value of mortgage security, assessed independently of the price settlement. The estimated coefficients of the regression equation are used for a calculation of the average real rate of discount of forest owners and the average value of amenities. The model also evaluates the effect of the temporary land price regulation from 1979–1987.     

THE HEALTHCARE VOUCHER: EMERGENCE,FORMATION AND DISSEMINATION

Market‐inspired healthcare reforms have been introduced in Sweden: Freedom of Choice in Healthcare in 1989 and the National Healthcare Guarantee in 2005. After the general election 2006 the idea of the Healthcare Voucher has followed. Built on a theoretical framework composed of Foucault's concept of 'discursive formation' supported by Butler's concept of the ‘performativity of discourse’ the purpose is to analyse the emergence, formation and dissemination of this idea into healthcare in Sweden. The Voucher is disseminated in a form reminiscent of a chain linking a series of texts, referring to each other and building on each other's formulations strengthening each other's messages. It circulates under designations such as healthcare voucher and money and seems to be disseminated by being combined with 'freedom of choice' forming the theme customer choice. The Healthcare Voucher then becomes a means of being able to realise an idea of a political nature, building markets in healthcare. The paper offers a way of analysing how ideas influence the policy agenda, in particular for the voucher/s. Distinctions could be made between the voucher idea and 'money following the patient' in quasi markets. A critical issue in introducing choice and competition, not explored here, is the issue of ‘cream skimming’.     

Cost Accounting and Performance Measurement in a Just-in-Time Production Environment

There are normative statements in the literature, backed up by case observations and anecdotal evidence, which indicate that manufacturing companies operating just-in-time (JIT) production management systems should also change their cost accounting systems and place greater reliance on non-financial performance indicators. This study provides empirical evidence suggesting that JIT manufacturing companies which have made some degree of modification to their costing system demonstrate higher performance than JIT companies which have not made changes. The results also suggest that greater use of non-financial performance indicators is associated with higher performance irrespective of the production management system adopted.     

Self-perceptions, government policies and tax compliance in Germany

The policy of choice to fight tax non-compliance is an increase in deterrence, i.e. fines and audits, which seems to be well-grounded theoretically as the economics of crime justifies such an increase of the expected costs of illegal activities. In this paper, the impact of subjectively perceived deterrence on undeclared work is analyzed for the German case. Germany is particularly interesting because it considerably increased deterrence to fight tax non-compliance recently. The data set used for this analysis contains several waves of survey data conducted between 2004 and 2008. According to our evidence, (subjectively perceived) deterrence has an impact on undeclared work, but the influence of social norms is similarly important.     

Do Alternative Real Estate Investment Vehicles Add Value to REITs? Evidence from German Open-ended Property Funds

Besides the more commonly used REITs, German investors can also invest in a lesser-known real estate vehicle, Open-ended Property Funds. OPFs are considered a compromise between listed and direct real estate investments. OPF fund managers generally provide daily (perfect) liquidity. However, if liquidity falls below 5%, share redemptions in these funds can be temporarily suspended for a period of up to two years. During this time, investors will only be able to sell shares on the secondary market (exchange), and are thus subject to significant liquidity risk. The objective of this paper is to analyze whether OPFs add value to investor portfolios above that provided by REITs. We show that OPFs have a diversification advantage over REITs in low-risk portfolios, despite their larger potential liquidity risk. REIT liquidity is comparable to that of ordinary common stock, but OPFs exhibit an average initial discount to funds’ NAV of about 6% when share redemptions are temporarily suspended. However, in the long-run, this potential redemption suspension does not negatively influence OPF performance (in case OPFs reopen again). This makes OPFs an attractive investment alternative to REITs for investors who have a high level of risk aversion and a long-term investment horizon, such as endowments, insurance companies, and pension funds.     

User Toolkits for Innovation: Consumers Support Each Other

User toolkits for innovation were recently proposed as a means to eliminate (costly) exchange of need-related information between users and manufactures in the product development process. The method transfers certain development tasks to users and thereby empowers them to create their own desired product features. This article examines the implications of different levels of opportunities for consumer involvement (OCI) in product development to learn what happens when firms pass design tasks on to consumers. It explores this issue by studying the relation between the employment of user toolkits and the need for firms to support their consumers. An analysis of 78 computer games products and the amount of support given by firms to the consumers of these products suggests that a share of the costs firms save on information acquisition by letting consumers "do it themselves" may eventually reemerge as costs in consumer support. In other words, an increase in opportunities for consumer involvement seems to increase the need for supporting consumers. A promising solution to the problem of support costs is identified, namely, the establishment of consumer–consumer support interaction. A case study of an outlier in terms of firm support to consumers—Westwood Studios—shows that consumers who use toolkits may be willing to support each other. Such interactive problem solving in a firm-established user community is advantageous to the firm, because the process reduces the amount of resources that the firm itself needs to dedicate to the support of consumers using toolkits. Generally, consumer-to-consumer interaction can facilitate problem-solving in the consumer domain, can aid the diffusion of toolkit related knowledge, and potentially can enhance the outcomes produced by the toolkit approach.     

Gender and self-selection into a competitive environment: Are women more overconfident than men?

Using a large running race in Sweden, this study shows that there are male-dominated environments in which the selection of women who participate are more likely to be confident/competitive and that, within this group, performance improves equally for both genders in absolute terms.     

The development of models of accounting information systems in Sweden

Traditionally, accounting has evolved as a technique. Practitioners and academics have striven to improve the technical features of accounting. Now, accounting is conceived increasingly as an organizational artefact which interacts with other organizational practices in shaping organizational reality. Taking a broad perspective of management control, this paper aims at contributing to our knowledge of accounting in this second sense and identifying some Swedish contributions to the tool-box of accounting. In reviewing the development of models of accounting information in Sweden mainly since World War II, different factors explaining the evolution of each model are identified. Analyses of these factors reveal that different groups of actors have been engaged in the development of different parts of the accounting information system (AIS). It is also noted that the introduction of models that are widely applied has delayed the emergence of new models better adapted to the current situation in business. Comparisons will be made with the development in some other countries.