Exchange rates dynamics revisited: a panel data test of the fractional integration order

We test the possibility that exchange rates from nine developed countries have a unit root against the alternate possibility that they are fractionally integrated. Theoretically, exchange rates are only expected to follow a random walk under restrictive assumptions. However, most traditional unit root tests cannot reject a unit root in exchange rates, and time series tests that allow for fractional integration have given inconclusive results. To increase the power of the test of the integration order we develop two panel data tests of the fractional integration order. Monte Carlo simulations show that these tests are correctly sized and have relatively high power compared to other similar tests. Moreover, our empirical results show that we can reject a unit root in exchange rates with a high probability, but the integration order is close to one. This indicates that exchange rates are mean-reverting, although the reversion is slow, resulting in long swings.     

Infrastructural change and secular economic development

Long-term economic development is determined by changes to the infrastructure, especially material and non-material infrastructural networks that link agents in different locations. The infrastructure consists of the slowly changing, collective arena that supports production, exchange, and consumption, such as the built environment, transport networks, and institutions. In the short run the infrastructure can be regarded as fixed. Changes to the infrastructure are under normal conditions small enough to be disregarded by producers and consumers. With the creation of a critical link of a network, there will however be a revolutionary restructuring of the arena. Critical links are here defined as additions to infrastructural networks that create opportunities for new information and transport flows between previously unconnected regions. Such a revolutionary restructuring of infrastructural networks has been called a logistical revolution. Certain institutional pre-conditions are necessary for a logistical revolution, while the creation of a critical link is both a necessary and a sufficient condition. This paper discusses the three logistical revolutions that occurred in the 13th century, around 1600, and in the 19th century, which each had crucial similarities with the current “information revolution.”     

Labor income and risky investments: can part-time farmers compete?

In the developed countries, a majority of farm households receive at least as much income from nonfarm sources as from the farm. Such part-time farms have survived inspite of lower returns than full-time farms. This paper considers when lower returns to part-time farming could be compensated by risk-reduction due to diversification of income sources. The paper uses a dynamic portfolio choice model with labor income. The model and results could be applied in other contexts as well.     

Property Prices and Exposure to Multiple Noise Sources: Hedonic Regression with Road and Railway Noise

This study examines the effect of road and railway noise on property prices. It uses the hedonic regression technique on a Swedish data set that contains information about both road and railway noise for each property, and finds that road noise has a larger negative impact on the property prices than railway noise. This is in line with the evidence from the acoustical literature which has shown that individuals are more disturbed by road than railway noise, but contradicts recent results from a hedonic study on data of the United Kingdom.     

Cost effectiveness of benralizumab for severe,uncontrolled oral corticosteroid–dependent asthma in Sweden

Abstract

Aim: We investigated cost effectiveness of benralizumab vs. standard of care (SOC) plus oral corticosteroids (OCS) for patients with severe, eosinophilic OCS-dependent asthma in Sweden.

Materials and methods: A three-state, cohort-based Markov model of data from three Phase III benralizumab clinical trials (ZONDA [NCT02075255], SIROCCO [NCT01928771], and CALIMA [NCT01914757]) was used to assess the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio of benralizumab vs. SOC plus OCS. Health outcomes were estimated in terms of quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs). The model included costs and disutilities associated with extrapolated OCS-related adverse events. Patients with severe asthma were defined as those receiving OCS ≥5?mg/day.

Results: Benralizumab demonstrated a cost-effectiveness ratio vs. SOC plus OCS of 2018 Swedish Kronor (SEK) 366,855 (€34,127) per QALY gained, based on increases of 1.33 QALYs and SEK 488,742 (€45,344) per patient. Benralizumab treatment costs contributed most to incremental costs. The probability of benralizumab’s being cost-effective with willingness-to-pay (WTP) thresholds between SEK 429,972 (€40,000) and SEK 752,452 (€70,000) ranged from 75% to 99%.

Limitations: Potential limitations of these analyses include the use of combined data from three different clinical trials, a one-way sensitivity analysis that did not include mortality and transition estimates, and Observational & Pragmatic Research Institute (OPRI) data from the UK as a proxy of the Swedish health care system.

Conclusions: The results of these analyses demonstrate that benralizumab has a high probability of being cost-effective compared with SOC plus OCS for a subgroup of patients with severe, eosinophilic asthma receiving regular OCS treatment and may support clinicians, payers and patients in making treatment decisions.     

Assigning Refugees to Landlords in Sweden: Efficient,Stable, and Maximum Matchings*

In this paper, we investigate the problem of finding housing for refugees once they have been granted asylum. In particular, we demonstrate that market design can play an important role in a partial solution to the problem. More specifically, we investigate a specific matching system, and we propose an easy-to-implement mechanism that finds an efficient, stable, and maximum matching. Such a matching guarantees that housing is efficiently provided to a maximum number of refugees, and that no refugee prefers another specific landlord to their current match when, at the same time, that specific landlord prefers that refugee to their own current match.     

Are Gay Men and Lesbians Discriminated against in the Hiring Process?

This article presents the first field experiment on sexual orientation discrimination in the hiring process in the Swedish labor market. Job applications were sent to about 4000 employers in 10 different occupations in Sweden. Gender and sexual orientation were randomly assigned to applications. The results show that sexual orientation discrimination exists in the Swedish labor market. The discrimination against the gay male applicant and the lesbian applicant varied across different occupations and appears to be concentrated in the private sector. The results also show that the gay male applicant was discriminated against in typical male‐dominated occupations, whereas the lesbian applicant was discriminated against in typical female‐dominated occupations. Theoretical implications are discussed.     

Doing Unto Others: The Reciprocity of Helping Behavior in Organizations

Reciprocity is a fundamental aspect of social life, and a phenomenon studied from a wide variety of philosophical, theological, and social scientific perspectives. In this study, we use social exchange theory to investigate why employees help other employees. We hypothesize, based on the norm of reciprocity (Gouldner, 1960), that a significant cause of an employee's helping behavior is how much organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) the employee has received from coworkers. To provide evidence of the discriminant validity of OCB received as an antecedent of helping behavior, we also assess its effects on another form of extra-role behavior, voice, as well as in-role performance. We found, in a sample of 157 employee-supervisor dyads, that OCB received was related to helping behavior after controlling for several antecedents of helping behavior identified in past research, and was less related to voice and in-role behavior, as hypothesized. Implications for theory and practice are presented.     

Corporate strategy financialized: Conjuncture,arbitrage and earnings capacity in the S&P500

The conjuncture that ushered in the era of shareholder value served to embed capital market expectations into corporate governance aligning management and shareholder interests. Market arbitrage focussed on modifying contractual relations with stakeholders to extract a (higher) return on invested capital. In this article we focus on cash earnings on capital employed generated by the S&P 500 survivor group of firms covering the period 1990–2008. We use this financial data to construct three complementary perspectives on corporate financial performance: firm, firm-relative and macro. Within this framework the financial numbers and perspectives are analogous to a ‘hall of mirrors’ where ambiguity and contradiction are in play frustrating straightforward performative narratives that connect purpose with financial transformation an era of shareholder value.