The effect of public ownership and deregulation in the Scandinavian airline industry

We analyse why deregulation resulted in a temporary strong reduction in prices in Sweden, whereas in Norway the prices did not change significantly. SAS and Linjeflyg merged when the Swedish market was deregulated, whereas attempts to merge SAS and Braathens SAFE did not succeed. Upon deregulation in Sweden some of the carriers operating charter markets or regional secondary routes decided to enter the main routes. This put pressure on prices. Similar entries did not take place in the Norwegian market. We analyse whether the duopoly between SAS and Braathens SAFE is characterised by tacit collusion.     

Spillovers and international competition for investments

Two jurisdictions compete to attract shares of the investment budget of a large multinational enterprise, whose investments confer positive spillovers on national firms. The firm has private information about its efficiency and about spillovers. It is shown that the firm may be harmed by tax competition. Relative to a cooperative tax agreement, tax competition may induce excessive investments in the country where the positive spillover effects are lowest. Also, with sufficiently asymmetric spillovers, investments under competition will be excessively spread out, not properly concentrated to the country where spillovers would be largest.     

Open access harvesting of the Northeast Atlantic minke whale

The purpose of this paper is to analyze open access exploitation of the Northeast Atlantic minke whale. In particular the question whether open access could lead to stock extinction is addressed. A bioeconomic model of the open access fishery is developed and estimated for data from Norwegian whaling. Numerical analysis shows that open access was not likely to have lead to stock extinction for the minke whale.     

The development of activity-based costing journal literature, 1987-2000

This paper contains an analysis of the activity-based costing (ABC) literature which has been accumulated in the UK and USA accounting journals over the fourteen-year period since the first articles on ABC emerged. This evidence is used both longitudinally and cross-sectionally to gain insights into how ABC started, how it has been communicated, how it has been researched, how it is constituted, how it has generated attention and how it has developed and changed. From the analysis conclusions are drawn on these issues and on the role of academic research when confronted by a new practical innovation of this type.     

International Management of North-Sea Herring

North-Sea herring is a transboundary resource,shared by the EU and Norway. The purpose ofthis paper is to investigate how the harvestsor total allowable catch quotas (TACs) for thisspecies should be divided between these twojurisdictions so that both parties aresatisfied. We apply a discrete-timegame-theoretic model in which we show that theEU should be allocated more than half of theTAC even if the EU has higher harvesting costs.This result is due to the distribution patternof the herring, with a larger share of herringlocated in the EU zone. However, we find thataccording to the Nash bargaining solution, thecurrent sharing allocates too large a share tothe EU.     

The Effect of Founding Family Influence on Firm Value and Corporate Governance

We examined a sample of 120 Norwegian, founding family controlled and non‐founding family controlled firms, to address two important research questions: (1) is founding family control associated with higher firm value; and (2) are there unique corporate governance conditions under which a founding family controlled firm can be more valuable? We find a positive association between founding family control and firm value for four alternative definitions of founding family control. We find that the association between founding family CEOs and firm value is stronger among younger firms, firms with smaller boards, and firms with a single class of shares. However, the impact of founding family directors on firm value is not affected by corporate governance conditions such as firm age, board independence, and number of share classes. We also find that the relation between founding family ownership and firm value is greater among older firms, firms with larger boards, and particularly when these firms have multiple classes of shares. Our results imply that founding family controlled firms are more valuable and governed differently than firms without such influence. Furthermore, our results also suggest that founding family CEOs can enhance firm performance when family influence does not create shareholder entrenchment or when their cash flow rights are more aligned with their control rights.     

Resistance to Change in the Corporate Elite: Female Directors’ Appointments onto Nordic Boards

In this empirical study, we investigate the variation in firms’ response to institutional pressure for gender-balanced boards, focusing specifically on the preservation of prevailing practices of director selection and its impact on the representation of women on the board of directors. Using 8 years of data from publicly listed Nordic corporations, we show societal pressure to be one of the determinants of female directorship. Moreover, in some corporations, the director selection process may work to maintain “a traditional type of board”. In such boards, demographic diversity among male members appears to be associated with a lower share of female directors, although we cannot establish wether this reflects discrimination or a desire to maintain critical competencies. With this paper we add to the theoretical understanding of the factors underlying female board appointments by adopting an institutional theory lens to study female board representation. Viewing the demands for gender-balanced boards in terms of societal pressure for the de-institutionalization of the prevailing norms and practices, we highlight preferences for maintaining established practices as a potentially important barrier to institutional change. On these grounds, we conjecture on the relationship between the gender diversity of boards and other diversity dimensions. We suggest that a board room gender quota (if implemented) is supplemented by policies to ensure the transparency of board changes, in order to prevent the crowding out of other diversity dimensions.     

The Significance of Borders in the East European Transition

This article addresses the recent proliferation of small-scale trading in East Europe with a special emphasis on the profits and perils associated with border-crossing. The political, economic and symbolic aspects of state borders have changed significantly since 1989, and the economic opportunities associated with border-crossing as ‘trader-tourists’ represent one of the major challenges to varying categories of the populations to engage in activities associated with the capitalistic spirit of the new era. With ethnographic material from Varna on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast and some comparative glimpses of Russian street trading in Northern Norway, the article discusses how the border, in representing opportunities as well as risks, regulates the relationship between ethnic categories taking part in the trade as well as that between the controllers and the citizens. Cet article a pour objet la prolifération récente du commerce de petite échelle en Europe de l’est et met l’accent sur les profits et dangers associés à la traversée des frontières. Les aspects politiques, économiques et symboliques des frontières d’état ont changé de façon significative depuis 1989, et les opportunités commerciales associées à la traversée des frontières en tant que ‘touristes-commerçants’ représentent, pour diverses catégories de population, un des principaux défis de s’engager dans des activités associées à l’esprit capitaliste de l’ère nouvelle. À partir de matériel ethnographique provenant de Varna, sur la côte bulgare de la Mer Noire, et de quelques aperçus comparatifs du commerce russe des rues en Norvège du nord, cet article montre comment la frontière, en représentant des opportunités ainsi que des risques, régularise les relations entre les catégories ethniques qui prennent part dans le commerce ainsi que les relations entre les contrôleurs et les citoyens.