Budget in a cold climate

This paper attempts to trace connections between budget processes taking place in concrete organizations and the cultural context in which the organizations are located. The examples are taken mainly from studies of the Swedish public sector. The research perspective adopted depicts budgeting as a symbolic performance rather than a decision-making process; a means of conversion rather than a means of control; and an expression of values rather than an instrument for action. From this point of view, linking budgeting to a cultural context means looking at which symbols, what language and which values are represented in particular budget processes. Budget processes are seen as a ritual of reason, reflecting the high value which is attached to rationality in Sweden in general and in the public sector in particular. We also claim that budgeting — a language of numbers — is also a language of consensus, which permits the handling of potential conflicts without confrontation. Finally, we analyze the recurrent changes of dominant budget forms as being congruent with the culture of “reformism” which seems to typify the area in which we are interested.     

Is the income elasticity of environmental improvements less than one?

We estimated the income elasticity of environmental improvements for a number of European data-sets. The value of this parameter is consistently found to be less than one, with few exceptions. Our findings are compared with state-of-the-art contingent valuation studies from other countries. We also compared our findings with those reported in the literature on charitable donations and corporate donations. These studies show a similar pattern; donations decrease as a percentage of income, as income increases.     

LAPM: A Liquidity-Based Asset Pricing Model

The intertemporal CAPM predicts that an asset's price is equal to the expectation of the product of the asset's payoff and a representative consumer's intertemporal marginal rate of substitution. This paper develops an alternative approach to asset pricing based on corporations' desire to hoard liquidity. Our corporate finance approach suggests new determinants of asset prices such as the distribution of wealth within the corporate sector and between the corporate sector and the consumers. Also, leverage ratios, capital adequacy requirements, and the composition of savings affect the corporate demand for liquid assets and, thereby, interest rates.     

Price and quantity in international comparisons of health care expenditure

An important omission from earlier cross-national comparisons of health care expenditure has been the failure to distinguish between price and quantity. Using recent data on purchasing power parities, the purpose of this article is to report some preliminary results regarding health care expenditure and quantity across 22 OECD countries. The article concludes that, contrary to what has been suggested in some recent articles, the relative price of health care is not correlated to the aggregate per capita income. The fraction of the national income that is devoted to health care provision increases with the per capita income regardless of whether health care is measured in terms of expenditure or quantity. The relative price of health care has a rationing effect on the quantity of health care that is offered, with a price alasticity close to minus one. The latter finding means that the health care expenditure is not greater in countries with higherprices. Furthermore, the differences in health care expenditure or quantity between countries persist after correction for the relative price and the income level. Part of these differences can be explained by differences in the definition of health care in the various countries.     

An Integrated System for Management and Policy Analysis

This paper develops an analytical framework to simulate management- and policy-driven environmental changes in Swedish mountain environments. The framework is based on a dynamic model that includes economic connections between timber and reindeer. Economic benefits are obtained in the timber sector and the reindeer sector, by harvesting forest and reindeer stocks and selling the harvests in markets. Unharvested forest and reindeer stocks provide benefits outside of markets. Reindeer stocks provide benefits by supporting the reindeer husbandry lifestyle for members of the indigenous Saami population. The paper analyzes decisions made by a hypothetical planner of a geographical area corresponding to a Swedish sameby (Saami village). Decision outcomes are measured using the present value of net benefits measured in economic terms, and are obtained both inside and outside of economic markets. The final section gives examples of management and policy decisions that might be simulated for Swedish mountain environments, such as market-based policies to increase the economic welfare derived from private timber and reindeer harvests.     

Abatement investments and green goodwill

This paper develops and estimates a dynamic model that links profits to green goodwill. Assuming that abatement investments generate green goodwill, and using data from the Swedish pulp industry, we are able to test the effects of green goodwill on firm level output price and profits. The results suggests that Swedish pulp plant output prices and profits may be positively related to changes in green goodwill. Furthermore, no evidence is found to support the existence of adjustment costs due to abatement investments.     

Windfall Gains on the Swedish Housing Market: The Effects of Queueing for a Cooperative Dwelling

The cooperative housing sector in Sweden consists of one market for new dwellings where the downpayment and rent is fixed, and where the dwellings are allocated through a queue, and one market for used dwellings, where all units are bought and sold freely with a transaction price determined by market conditions. As the transaction price usually exceeds the down-payment, substantial windfall gains accrue to those achieving a dwelling through the queue. Regression analysis reveals that this ratio is on average nearly three. The ratio varies, however, depending on the local housing market situation. It is argued that the ratio is a better indication on the demand situation in the local housing market than is provided through information on the length of the queue at the municipal exchequer.
A logit analysis is used to find out which households receive these windfall gains. It is shown that the probability of acquiring a dwelling through the queue, and thus capturing the windfall gain, is positively correlated with income and family size. The conclusion is that the cooperative queues do not have a redistributive effect on wealth in society, quite opposite the housing policy intention upon which the Swedish cooperative movement was founded.     

International dissemination of new drugs: A comparative study of six countries

The times at which new drugs were licensed since 1960 have been compared for Sweden and five other countries, and the differences in licensing time between these countries have been evaluated statistically. Also, the time required for the Swedish authorities to process the licence applications has been studied and compared with the small number of similar studies available from other countries. A relationship between the delay in licensing and the processing time is discussed.     

Will new technology be sufficient to solve the problem of air pollution caused by Swedish road transport?

In this article, levels of future specific vehicle emissions and the energy efficiency required to match long-term environmental targets are estimated. The possibility of reaching these targets is also evaluated. It appears to be possible to achieve sufficiently large reductions in both nitrogen oxide (NO_x) and non-methane volatile organic compound (NMVOC) emission to meet long-term Swedish environmental requirements even with continuing transport growth. Combining sufficiently large carbon dioxide reductions with transport growth seems to be more difficult and would require major breakthroughs regarding drive systems, materials and vehicle construction. Such technological developments cannot, however, be entirely ruled out.