苹果、蜜蜂与合同:正溢出效应下的科斯-张定理

本文通过经济的“核”分析，以形式化的方式研究了科斯-张定理。特别地，本文说明了在某些条件下，德布鲁-斯卡夫的核收缩定理可应用于有正生产溢出效应的经济中。     

Non-standard Employment in Sweden

In Sweden, as in many other countries, marginal groups tend to be overrepresented in non-standard employment. A decomposition of the employment rate of full-time workers on permanent contracts reveals that non-standard employment contributes to a substantially weaker labour market attachment for females and the foreign born than suggested by conventional employment figures alone. Our econometric analysis shows that the negative wage premia associated with fixed-term employment are considerably smaller in Sweden, both for natives and foreign born, than those that have been found for other countries. This may be due to a highly compressed wage structure and extensive coverage of collective bargaining in Sweden. On the whole, the type of fixed-term contract seems not to matter for the estimated wage premia.     

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.     

Metamodelling phosphorus best management practices for policy use: a frontier approach

This article presents a modelling system for synthesising heterogeneous productivity and nutrient loading potentials inherent in agricultural cropland for policy use. Phosphorus abatement cost functions for cropland farmers in a southeastern Minnesota watershed are metamodelled using frontier analysis. These functions are used to evaluate policies aimed at reducing nonpoint phosphorus discharges into the Minnesota River. Results indicate an efficiently targeted policy to reduce phosphorus discharge by 40% would cost US$167,700 or 844 per farm.     

Investment-Specific R and D and the Decline in the Relative Price of Capital

The relative price of capital has declined at a rapid rate in the postwar period.This article provides a candidate explanation for this relative price decline—research and development that are embodied in new, more efficient investment goods. The model mimics the secular aspects of the data, and it has the property that the long-run growth rate of consumption is nontrivially determined as a function of the R and D efforts. Because growth is driven by investment in durable goods in the present model, it seems natural to assume that R and D is product-specific and that the firms producing these goods are long-lived profit centers that internalize the dynamic gains from R and D. A result of this assumption is that the growth rate in the decentralized economy is too low: the so-called business stealing effects that may cause the equilibrium growth rate to be too high in other models is internalized here in the form of planned obsolescence.     

Conspicuous Leisure: Optimal Income Taxation When Both Relative Consumption and Relative Leisure Matter*

In previous studies on public policy under relative‐consumption concerns, leisure comparisons have been ignored. In this paper, we consider a two‐type optimal non‐linear income tax model, in which people care about both their relative consumption and their relative leisure. Increased consumption positionality typically implies higher marginal income tax rates for both ability types, whereas leisure positionality has an offsetting role. However, this offsetting role is not symmetric; concern about relative leisure implies a progressive income tax component (i.e., a component that is larger for the high‐ability type than for the low‐ability type). Leisure positionality does not modify the policy rule for public‐good provision.     

Exploiting globalization potential: U.S. and japanese strategies

This paper develops a model of global strategy that includes the constructs of industry globalization potential, the use of global strategy, the role of organization and management and the performance consequences of using global strategy. Propositions are developed as to why American and Japanese MNCs might differ in their perceptions of industry globalization potential, in their desired global strategy response, in their organizationally-derived ability to implement global strategy and in their resulting performance. The model and arguments are examined in extensive interviews with senior executives at 36 worldwide businesses belonging to some of the largest American and Japanese MNCs. Data are analyzed using a partial least squares causal model. The results show that the Japanese firms have more globalized stategies than do the Americans, and that this factor affects their performance favorably.     

Pre-auction offers in asymmetric first-price and second-price auctions

We consider first-price and second-price auctions with asymmetric buyers, and examine whether pre-auction offers to a subset of buyers are profitable. A single offer is never profitable prior to a second-price auction, but may be profitable prior to a first-price auction. However, a sequence of offers is profitable in either type of auction. In our model, suitably chosen pre-auction offers work because they move the assignment when bidder valuations are “near the top” closer to the optimal, revenue-maximizing assignment.     

Individual Demand for Local Public Schooling: Evidence from Swedish Survey Data

In this paper we investigate the demand for local public school expenditures in Sweden using survey data, a method previously never applied to Swedish data. We compare our results to those of earlier US studies, where the same method is used in a different institutional setup. Estimating a linear demand specification, we find that demand is inelastic with respect to income and taxprice, much in line with previous Swedish findings in a median voter framework. Estimation of a log-linear demand specification indicates that the elasticities of demand for schooling are higher in Sweden than in the US. Testing the hypothesis that municipal employees tend to have a higher demand for public spending than others, we conclude that income, as well as taxprice and grants, enters the demand function differently for the two groups of employees.     

EXPLAINING THE UTILIZATION OF RELATIVE PERFORMANCE EVALUATION IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT: A MULTI-THEORETICAL STUDY USING DATA FROM SWEDEN

One of the more lasting imprints that New Public Management (NPM) has made in the public sector is an increase in the popularity of performance measurement. In Sweden, performance measurement has gained popularity in the public sector, not least at the local government level with the use of relative performance evaluation (RPE). Because utilization of RPE is a decentralized and optional mode of governance, a somewhat heterogeneous practice has evolved. The aim of this paper is to examine the causes of this differentiated practice. We jointly examine economic, political and institutional/cultural explanations in order to account for the utilization of RPE. The empirical material consists of archival data and a questionnaire sent to all Swedish municipalities in late 2005. We show that RPE adoption and use partly has different antecedents and that the institutional/cultural perspective appears to have greater explanatory power than economic and political, not least as a consequence of the potential to explain decoupling and the importance of change facilitating capabilities. The investigation contributes specifically to the literature on the utilization of RPE in local governments and more generally to the literature on why and to what extent management accounting practices are utilized.