Über eine Abrundungsmethode bei Berechnung von Pensionsraten

Abstract

Zufolge des Gesetzes über Volksrentenversicberung vom 28. Juni 1935 — das das Gesetz tiber allgemeine Rentenversicherung vom 30. Juni 1913 ersetzte — erhält jeder schwedische Staatsangehörige im Alter von 67 J abren oder bei vorheriger dauernder Arbeitsunfähigkeit Anspruch teils auf eine Grundrente, deren Höbe nur von den von einem jeden entrichteten Rentenprämien abhängig ist, teils auf eine Zusatzrente, die u. a von dem auf besondere Weise abgeschätzten Jahreseinkommen eines jeden abhängig ist.     

Does Gibrat's law hold for retailing? Evidence from Sweden

Gibrat's Law predicts that firm growth is a purely random effect and therefore should be independent of firm size. The purpose of this paper is to test Gibrat's law within the retail industry, using a novel data-set comprising all surviving Swedish limited liability companies active at some point between 1998 and 2004. Very few studies have previously investigated whether Gibrat's Law seems to hold for retailing, and they are based on highly aggregated data. Our results indicate that Gibrat's Law can be rejected for a large majority of five-digit retail industries in Sweden, since small retail firms tend to grow faster than large ones.     

Big business and small states: Unilever and Norway in the interwar years1

In 1930, Unilever tried to take control of Lilleborg, Norway's most important producer of soap and vegetable oil, with the aim of wiping out most of Norway's independent margarine and soap industry. However, as the purchase was dependent on government concession, Unilever became embroiled in a power struggle with the Norwegian political authorities. The company was strongly criticized by Norwegian nationalists. The question of whether or not to let Unilever go forward became one of the most contested questions in Norwegian politics in the period. In the end, Unilever was allowed to go ahead with the purchase, but in return the company was forced to make substantial concessions. Expanding on Jones's framework for understanding the balance of power between multinationals and host governments, in this article it is argued that we must look beyond firm specific assets and a cost‐benefit oriented analysis of the relationship between multinationals and host countries to understand the end result. In this case, nationalism had a decisive impact. Unilever's acquisition of Lilleborg and the Norwegian response thus contributes to our understanding of the nature of multinational enterprise in the interwar period and of the political economy of foreign direct investment in general.     

Empirical evidence on the two-gap hypothesis: A revised analysis

This paper reconsiders the problem, analyzed by Weisskopf (1972a), of empirically classifying a set of low-income countries as having had their growth performance primarily constrained by the availability of foreign exchange or of domestic savings. Ambiguities in Weisskopf's procedure are noted, and an alternative, based on the extension of classical likelihood-ratio methods to the case of regression parameters subject to linear inequality constraints, is suggested. Reclassifying a subset of countries from Weisskopf's sample, we find stronger evidence against the importance of an independent foreign exchange constraint than indicated by Weisskopf's original results.     

Neglected and overemphasized risks: the opinions of risk professionals

Research on risks has mainly been devoted to detailed analyses of such risks that are subject to public debate and policy decision making. However, many if not most of the risks that are now the subject of regulation were once neglected. Experts in conjunction with regulators have a crucial role in putting risks on the policy agenda. But what views do experts have on the matter of attention to risks? In order to answer this question risk assessment experts were asked to list the risks they considered to be over‐emphasized, respectively neglected. Radiation risks constituted the largest category of risks reported to be over‐emphasized. Other risks often reported to be over‐emphasized included BSE, GMOs, amalgam, and air traffic. Lifestyle risks were the largest category of risks reported to be neglected. Other risks often listed as neglected included radon (as an exception within the radiation category), road traffic, socio‐economic risks, energy production excluding nuclear power, and local accidents (including fires and workplace accidents). Risks mentioned about equally often as neglected and over‐emphasized included chemicals and crime. There was a correlation between perceived risk and neglect: risks considered to be neglected were also judged as larger. For a comparison, the topics of articles in the journal Risk Analysis from 1991–2000 were categorized into the same risk categories that were used for the questionnaire. The risks most commonly treated in the journal (chemicals and cancer) coincided with the risks which experts in our survey considered to be overemphasized rather than neglected.     

Does adaptation pay off?

Adaptation has been taken as self-evident in earlier research. However, adaptation is vital between a buyer and seller in order to make the relationship more productive. The purpose of this paper is to analyse a win-win situation for both the supplier and the buyer. In such a situation the suppliers' adaptation results in an improved quality of produced products, consequently leading to a stronger position on the market. This paper describes a unique form of adaptation, which is both joint and individual among a group of suppliers.     

Discrimination in Scientific Review: A Natural Field Experiment on Blind versus Non‐Blind Reviews*

Using papers submitted to an international conference on economics held in Sweden in 2008, we analyze how gender, as well as other characteristics of the authors and reviewers, affects the grading of these papers by the reviewers. Correcting for other variables, including the country and research field, as well as the academic level of the author, we focus on the difference in grades between blind and non‐blind review treatments. We find that non‐blind reviewing has little effect, and there is no significant evidence of gender discrimination. Furthermore, we do not find any significant difference between the average grading by female and male reviewers.     

Conformity and the Demand for Environmental Goods

The existing literature on eco-labeling and green consumerism has been framed within a classical market context where price and quality are the drivers of consumer choice. However, it seems possible that consumers are also concerned about the choices made by other consumers. In fact, it is unclear that people’s consumption decisions are made independently of social context. For instance, under the desire to conform to certain social norms—or in the presence of status concerns—some individuals may be willing to pay a higher price premium for green products the more widespread green consumerism is in society. We test this hypothesis using a choice experiment where the respondents were asked to choose among coffee products varying with respect to their share of ecological beans, share of fair trade beans, and price. Three treatments were used, differing only in the information given about the choices made by other consumers. We find different responses to the treatments across individuals and we can only confirm our hypothesis of conformity for women, although men appear to have stronger preferences for ecological coffee than women have.