Determinants of indebtedness among young adults: Impacts of lender guidelines,explicit information and financial (over)confidence

For most people, borrowing money is a necessary aspect of life in the 21st century. Wisely handled, loans give consumers access to consumption too expensive for most individuals to purchase with cash, such as homes and cars. However, history shows that taking on too much debt can be detrimental for the individual consumer as well as society as a whole. In this paper, we investigate determinants of over‐indebtedness among young adults. We perform three studies in a setting focused on buying and borrowing money for a home. We show that, compared with an overall mortgage amount, explicit information about monthly payments reduces the tendency to take on too much debt (Study 1), that the amount borrowed depends on standards regarding the loan amount communicated through guidelines from the lender (Study 2), and that borrowers who are overconfident about their financial abilities tend to borrow more than less confident individuals (Study 3). These determinants and their policy implications are discussed.     

Getting a job when times are bad: recruitment practices in Sweden before,during and after the Great Recession

Research on recruitment shows that networks matter and are effective as search channels. The aim of this article is to analyse how recruitment practices varies over time, and specifically, how it has varied before, during, and after the Great Recession 2008–2009. The findings are that recruitment practices change both in the short term, in relation to labour supply, which we can call a cyclical effect, but also in accordance to a long-term, structural effects. Informal recruitment practices, such as recruitment through ‘friends and acquaintances’ and ‘employer made contact’, seem to increase during bad times. In the long run, the recruitment practices ‘direct application’, ‘friends and acquaintances’ and ‘formal private’ increase in relation to recruitment through the Swedish Public Employment Agency (SPEA). A reason for this may be that the labour market in the new knowledge economy demands a heterogenic workforce with high demands on non-cognitive skills and customisation. Here the new network recruitment practices seem to fit in.     

What type of cooperation with suppliers and customers leads to superior performance?

This research evaluates cooperation with key suppliers and customers, correlating cooperation to financial performance. Four cooperative behaviors represent cooperation as a multidimensional concept and the research explores the effect of each of these different dimensions of cooperation on performance. Results show that not all cooperative behaviors have similar and positive impacts on performance. Flexibility has no significant effect while shared problem solving has a negative effect. The other two cooperative behaviors, information exchange and restraint in the use of power, have positive impacts on performance. Results also indicate that cooperation with customers affects mostly firm growth while cooperation with suppliers affects firm profitability. Based on a survey of 124 packaging manufacturers, the analysis uses CFA (Confirmatory Factor Analysis) to validate the measurement of constructs and multiple regressions to analyze the relationships between the cooperative behaviors and financial performance.     

The EU-Korea FTA: anticipation,trade policy uncertainty and impact

Anticipatory trade effects of free trade agreements (FTAs) have been documented in various papers. One reason put forward trying to explain this phenomenon is reduced trade policy uncertainty. This paper is one of the first to explore the role of anticipation and trade policy uncertainty in the case of a recently concluded deep and comprehensive EU FTA, including significant behind the border measures. We use monthly data at a lower level of aggregation (8-digit level) compared to previous studies and we account for changes in the EU product classification over time. We also distinguish between the impact on products which are actually subject to liberalisation under the FTA as opposed to those which are already duty-free and we examine the effects on both the extensive margin and the intensive margin. We consider the impact of the FTA during three different periods of time (the start of negotiations, initialling of the agreement and entry into force), while comparing with the period before negotiations began. The results indicate that the FTA has had a positive impact on exports on both margins. The impact on the EU is somewhat higher indicating that EU exporters have more to gain in terms of increasing the predictability of the trade policy regime of the destination market and lowering its tariffs than vice versa. The results demonstrate that the impact of FTAs should not be assessed against the time period just prior to entry into force of the agreement, but much earlier to account for anticipation effects.     

The value of shorting

This paper assesses the effects of short-sale constraints on asset prices. The analysis focuses on a particular period in Sweden during which shorting stocks was impossible but stock options were traded. Firstly, the effect on both stock options and the underlying stock was investigated jointly by considering deviations from put-call-parity. Secondly, the effects on only the derivatives were investigated by considering their implied volatilites. The main findings are: (i) the impact on pricing are consistent with a short-sale constraint, (ii) these effects are much more pronounced when shorting is not possible, (iii) these effects are not solely attributable to the mispricing of the stock, as previous research indicates, and (iv) access to international shorting markets can alleviate local short-sale constraints.     

The Growth of Union Decertification: A Test of Two Nonnested Theories

This article tests two rival theories of the growth of union decertification: a neoclassical and an institutionalist. Both perform well when they are independently tested against the data. However, Cox nonnested hypothesis tests indicate that when these two theories are tested against each other, the institutionalist theory is superior to (i.e., variance encompasses) the neoclassical theory.     

中国纸制品消费趋势:城市化增长的效应分析和预测

基于对近期未来的人口―经济增长的预测,分析了城市化增长对未来纸制品消费的影响.用"自相关误差回归"的方法检验人口和城市化增长的不同发展路径对于纸制品消费的影响.中国的城市化过程对纸制品消费影响很大,更快的城市化进程,相应的影响会更强烈.比较人口变量和经济变量,城市家庭经济因素相对更加明显.在近期的未来,随着纸制品消费的增加,其对环境污染的压力也会增大.     

Public Preferences and Private Choices: Effect of Altruism and Free Riding on Demand for Environmentally Certified Pork

Sales of private goods with affiliated public good attributes have markedly risen in recent years. This fact is difficult to explain within the paradigm of purely self-interested behavior. This paper investigates factors influencing consumer demand for pork products with certifications related to the environment, animal welfare, and antibiotics. Using psychometric scaling techniques, we measure individuals’ degree of altruism and propensity toward free riding. Results of a random parameter logit model applied to choice data obtained from a nationwide survey in the United States indicates that more altruistic individuals are willing to pay more for pork products with public good attributes than less altruistic individuals and free riders. These results indicate that private purchases of goods with public-good attributes are not simply a result of individuals’ perceptions of the ability to mitigate private risks such as food safety, but that individuals are making private choices to affect public outcomes. Results have implications for policy makers weighing the relative costs and benefits of food labeling policies versus bans related to certain livestock production practices.