Measuring Price Effects of Concentration in Mixed Oligopoly: An Application to the Swedish Beef-slaughter Industry

Empirical studies of market power focus exclusively on industries with private firms. Yet, it is not uncommon to find private firms competing with public firms or cooperatives (coops) within the same market. We develop an empirical procedure for measuring market-power and cost-efficiency effects of concentration in mixed oligopoly consisting of coops and investment-owned firms (IOF) and apply the procedure to the Swedish beef-slaughter industry. We find that the cost-efficiency effect of coop concentration more than offset its market power effect, resulting lower beef prices. IOFs are found to be price-takers in both cattle procurement and beef sales.      

Impacts of the Productive Safety Net Program in Ethiopia on livestock and tree holdings of rural households

We evaluated the impacts of the Ethiopian Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP) on rural households' holdings of livestock and forest assets/trees. We found no indication that participation in PSNP induces households to disinvest in livestock or trees. In fact, households that participated in the program increased the number of trees planted, but there was no increase in their livestock holdings. We found no strong evidence that the PSNP protects livestock in times of shock. Shocks appear to lead households to disinvest in livestock, but not in trees. Our results suggest that there is increased forestry activity as a result of PSNP, and that improved credit access encourages households to increase their livestock holdings.     

芬兰明珠拉彭兰塔市

TheCityofLappeenrantahasalonghistoryasaniagnetfortourists,thegatewaytotheuniquelybeautifullakedistrictofEasternFinland.Nowadays,withnearly60,000inhabitantsLappeenrantaisamodernindustrial,administrativeandeducationalcentreoftheSouthKarelianRegion.Lappeenra…     

A fundamental asymmetry of asymmetric shocks

A simple N-country specific-factor-type model with imperfectly mobile labour is developed. It is shown that the effects of country-specific productivity shocks hitting a small country have fundamentally asymmetric effects: A positive shock will be accommodated by a moderate wage increase and sizeable in-migration, whereas a negative shock will be accommodated by a significant decrease in wages and moderate out-migration. It is argued that the results of the model are consistent with the recent Irish experience. The welfare effects of small economic fluctuations are also discussed.     

Spatial dynamics and metropolitan change

"This special issue presents contributions to a collaborative effort to analyze 'the dynamics of metropolitan processes and policies'....[It] contains four papers which focus on industrial change and economic restructuring; two papers deal with population relocation and migration processes; one paper contains a study of economic cycles in space and one paper treats the assessment of urban investment and urban renewal projects." The geographic focus is on the developed countries.     

Short notes on Charlier's method for expansion of frequency functions in series

Abstract

1. In 1905 Charlier outlined some methods for the expansion of functions in series. ¹ C. V. L. Charlier, Über die Darstellung willkürlicher Funktionen (Meddelanden från Lunds Observatorium, Ser. I, nr 27). Particularly he was dealing with frequency functions, but the method has a more general application. As is well known there were two kinds of developments considered, namely in terms of the differentials and in terms of the differences of a conveniently chosen developing function. The outstanding examples are — respectively — the expansions of the so called types A and B. The difference series has later gained a special attention by its deduction being attached to the theory for generating functions. ² I. V. Uspensky, On Ch. Jordan's Series for Probability (Annals of Mathematics, Vol. 32, 1931). The true pivotal function in this respect seems, however, to be the moment generating function. In the following notes it will be shown that the differential series as well as difference series built up by the advancing and the central differences are obtainable in a similar way. By employing some convenient cumulants the different expansions can be written down compactly in symbolic forms which reveal their mutual formal relations. It will further be observed that Charlier's method of expansion is the inversion of a method indicated by Abel.     

Multiprofessional Cooperation and Accountability Pressures

Abstract

This article examines how multiprofessional healthcare teams, working as a post-New Public Management (post-NPM) reform, respond to accountability pressure resulting from the implementation of NPM reforms. The team members use three strategies to respond to this pressure: responsibility avoiding that results in conflict; responsibility ignoring that results in parallel work and responsibility sharing that results in cooperation. Depending on how the professionals respond to different contextual factors, the choice of strategies can either foster or inhibit cooperation in multiprofessional teams. Achieving holistic patient care is threatened when accountability pressure increases for teams that have not yet developed their internal routines of cooperation.     

Sealed bid auctions versus ascending bid auctions: an experimental study

This paper considers two multi-item auction formats (ascending and sealed bid) which both identify the minimum Walrasian equilibrium prices and where truthful preference revelation constitutes an equilibrium. Even though these auction formats share many theoretical properties, there are behavioral aspects that are not easily captured. To explore this issue in more detail, this paper experimentally investigates what role the design of the auction format has for its outcome. The results suggest that the sealed bid mechanism performs weakly better in all of the investigated measures (consistent reporting, efficiency etc.). In addition, we find that the performance of the ascending auction is increasing over time, whereas the sealed bid auction shows no such tendency.     

The role of accident theory in injury prevention - time for the pendulum to swing back

Injury prevention is a branch of safety sciences. While comprehensive theoretical developments occurred in the wider field in the last decades, little of these developments reached and influenced the injury prevention community. Instead, a clear retro trend 'back to basics' is seen among injury prevention scholars, especially to Dr William Haddon's pioneering work some 50 years ago. This paper intends to draw attention to this polarisation and discuss possible explanations. It is argued that the strong campaign against the accident concept among leading injury prevention groupings became a serious hindrance for theoretical exchange. The underlying process is interpreted in terms of a struggle for ownership over this truly interdisciplinary field of research, unfortunately at the expense of theoretical stagnation in injury prevention circles and lessened interest in collaboration from other scientific areas. This paper is written as a tribute to Professor Leif Svanstr?m and his scientific contributions, with special regard to his genuine interest in interdisciplinary research.