Inter‐Organizational Cooperation Challenging Hierarchical Accountability: The Dominated Actors in a Municipal Joint Venture

New public management offers a number of solutions to the kinds of problems that public sector organizations experience. In taking an accountability perspective, this paper elaborates on how two of these – strict responsibility for performance, and inter‐organizational cooperation – may conflict. The setting for this study is a joint venture with a dominant municipality and six dominated municipalities as owners. The article examines how horizontal accountability processes may influence the dominated owners’ hierarchical accountability. The ability to account hierarchically for the quality of service within budgetary parameters is problematized, when dominated owners may dismantle their ability to demand horizontal accountability.     

The Relevant Market for Production and Wholesale of Electricity in the Nordic Countries: An Econometric Study*

We apply cointegration analysis to daily averages of Nord Pool prices covering the period 2001–2007 in order to empirically characterize the geographical dimension of the relevant market for production and wholesale of electricity. We reach the following econometric conclusions: (i) price areas Finland, Sweden, and Norway 3 unambiguously belong to the same relevant market; (ii) Denmark 2 belongs to this same market except for the subsample 2004–2007; (iii) Norway 1 and Denmark 1 define separate markets on their own. We find that the stochastic trends in Nord Pool prices originate in countries abundant in capacity to generate hydro power.     

Trust and growth: a shaky relationship

We conduct an extensive robustness analysis of the relationship between trust and growth by investigating a later time period and a bigger sample than in previous studies. In addition to robustness tests that focus on model uncertainty, we systematize the investigation of outlier influence on the results by using the robust estimation technique Least Trimmed Squares. We find that when outliers (especially China) are removed, the trust-growth relationship is no longer robust. On average, the trust coefficient is half as large as in previous findings.      

Social Comparisons and Optimal Taxation in a Small Open Economy

In this paper, we analyze how international capital mobility affects the optimal labor and capital income tax policy in a small open economy when consumers care about relative consumption. The main results crucially depend on whether the government can tax returns on savings abroad. If the government can use flexible residence‐based capital income taxes, then the optimal policy rules from a closed economy largely carry over to the case of a small open economy. If it cannot, then capital income taxes become completely ineffective. The labor income taxes must then indirectly also reflect the corrective purpose that the absent capital income tax would have had.     

Investment and Uncertainty: A Theory‐based Empirical Approach*

This paper provides empirical evidence on the dynamic effects of uncertainty on firm‐level capital accumulation. A novelty in this paper is that the firm‐level uncertainty indicator is motivated and derived from a theoretical model, the neoclassical investment model with time to build. This model also serves as the base for the empirical work, where an error‐correction approach is employed. I find a negative effect of uncertainty on capital accumulation, both in the short run and the long run. This outcome cannot be explained by the model alone. Instead, the results suggest that the predominant mechanism at work stems from irreversibility constraints.     

The Story-lines of Technological Change: Innovation, Construction and Appropriation

The paper contrasts three story-lines of technological change, which represent three different ways to think about technology as a social process. Each story-line, or discourse, or narrative strategy, has its own special terminology and is derived from particular academic fields and intellectual traditions. And each has different ways of considering the forms of social agency that are relevant in relation to technological change. For the story-line of innovation, the relevant agents are the producers of commercial products, often referred to as systems of innovation; for the story-line of construction, agency is conceptualized as those particular actors that have an interest in a particular artifact and its promulgation. For the story-line of appropriation, the social agency is differentiated into various user communities. When we analyze the relations between technology and society, it is important to know which kind of story we are telling and which story-line, or narrative strategy we are following.     

Identifying strategic interactions in Swedish local income tax policies

This paper uses data on Swedish local governments to test for strategic interaction in local tax setting. We make use of a number of indirect predictions from the theories of tax competition and yardstick competition in order to test for the presence of strategic interaction in these forms. Using such additional predictions of the theories serves a twofold purpose—first it helps us establish if the spatial coefficient is due to strategic interactions or merely reflecting spatial error correlation, and second, it helps identify the source of interaction. The analysis provides strong evidence for spatial correlation in tax rates among Swedish local governments. Moreover, we find weak evidence of tax competition effects in the setting of tax rates.     

Conceptualizing dysfunctional consequences of performance measurement in the public sector

ABSTRACT

Performance measurement (PM) has become increasingly popular in the management of public sector organizations (PSOs). This is somewhat paradoxical considering that PM has been criticized for having dysfunctional consequences. Although there are reasons to believe that PM may have dysfunctional consequences, when they occur has not been clarified. The aim of this research is to conceptualize the dysfunctional consequences of PM in PSOs. Based on complementarity theory and contingency theory we conclude that dysfunctional consequences of PM are a matter of interactions between PM design and PM use, between control practices in the control system and between PM and context.     

Trend model testing of growth convergence in 15 OECD countries, 1946-1997

A framework based on a linear deterministic trend function is introduced in order to model growth convergence. The approach is a practical solution to the nonlinearity and nonstationarity found in the convergence of output-per-capita gaps between the USA and 14 OECD countries in 1946–1997. Convergence is found to be a typical feature of European OECD countries and Japan, but for some major countries it altered since the beginning of 1980. Some evidence of divergence exists too. Valid statistical inference on trend-growth estimates is based on sample-size standardized t - and Wald-test statistics, since the model residuals are close to I(1). Small-sample test values are derived using bootstrap methods.     

The evolution of IT innovations in Swedish organizations: a Darwinian critique of ‘Lamarckian’ institutional economics

Fundamental correspondence and analogies between the evolution of technological and biological innovations call for an ‘innovation Darwinian’, ‘universal Darwinian’ or ‘memetic’ approach to understanding technology innovation. Neo-institutional, in fact pseudo-Lamarckian evolutionary economic theory, represented by North, Nelson and Winter, Freeman and others, is criticized. Pseudo-Lamarckian (“by volition”) evolution is explained and analyzed on Darwinian grounds (as intentional and artificial selection), as is Schumpeter’s definitions of creative and imitative innovation. Data from a web survey among Swedish public and private organizations in 1999 are studied. Data show that Darwinian co-evolutionary interaction between producers and users or clients provide essential conditions and stronger influence on creative IT innovations than both ‘Lamarckian’ strategies and competition.