Technology education in preschool: providing opportunities for children to use artifacts and to create

In recent years, technology has been emphasized as an important area in early childhood curricula; however, in many countries preschool does not have the tradition of teaching specific subjects, and research shows that many preschool staff members are unsure about what teaching technology should include and how it should be taught. Therefore, with the ambition of outlining recommendations for both preschool practice and the preschool-teacher program, we investigated what elements staff members include in educating preschool children in technology. We investigated the research question What do preschool staff members include as elements of technology education in preschool? through open-ended items on a questionnaire completed by 102 preschool teachers and daycare attendants in Sweden. The answers were analyzed inductively, resulting in a set of seven categories: Artifacts and systems in children’s environments, Create, Problem solving, The concept of technology, Experiments, Techniques/Motor skills, and Natural science. Some key results emerged. First, artifacts have a central place in preschool technology education, and at least three verbs relate to how these artifacts are addressed: use, create, and understand. Second, the content of technology education in government regulatory documents is described to varying extents by the participants, and sometimes not at all. Third, expected elements like play and the important role of the staff are not expressed in the answers. Possible explanations and implications for the results are discussed.     

Determinants of capital budgeting methods and hurdle rates in Nordic firms

We study the determinants for the choice of capital budgeting methods and the setting of hurdle rates (WACCs) in five Nordic countries. Combining survey data with a rich set of determinants, including ownership data, CFO characteristics, and financial data, we find that the use of the Net Present Value method and the sophistication of the capital budgeting are related to firm characteristics, variables proxying for real option features in investments and CFO characteristics (age and education). We also find support for significantly higher hurdle rates than motivated by economic theory. The premium is weakly positively related to managerial short‐term pressure and strongly negatively related to the sophistication level of the firm’s capital budgeting.     

Domestic Activity and Knowledge Development in the Internationalization Process of Firms

This paper is based on behavioral theory on internationalization, examining the effect of firms operations in the domestic market on experiential knowledge development in the internationalization of the firm. Five hypotheses are developed on the effects of business operations in the domestic market on: internationalization knowledge, business knowledge and institutional knowledge. The LISREL analysis of 206 firms shows that domestic operations effect the accumulation of experiential knowledge in internationalizing firms. We found that it is harder for a firm with long domestic experience to change their mental models and processes in the internationalization process.     

The compulsory public pension and the demand for life insurance: the case of Sweden, 1884–1914

We employ cost‐of‐living surveys, business archives, and firm data to examine the impact of the compulsory pension on the demand for life insurance in Sweden from 1884 to 1914—a period that covers the implementation of the first public compulsory old‐age pension reform and the take‐off of industry life insurance. As predicted on the basis of the contemporary literature on crowding‐out effects, we find that the compulsory pension reduced the demand for life insurance. Our panel‐data analysis of lapse rates on insurance policies shows a significant crowding‐out effect of pension payments. We conclude that the introduction of the general compulsory pension had a crowding‐out effect on households’ holdings of insurance policies.     

Human capital,innovation, and growth

This paper explores the interaction between human capital and innovation in the process of economic growth. Using a model of endogenous growth, we focus on how taxes and other policy instruments affect the incentives to invest in human capital. In contrast to many other growth models we find that the taxation of human capital has a substantial negative effect on its accumulation. This in turn reduces innovation and, consequently, the income growth rate. More surprisingly, other policies that are intended to stimulate growth may have opposing effects on innovation and the accumulation of human capital. For example, while subsidies to research and to intermediate inputs do have positive effects on innovation and growth, they lead to a lower stock of human capital, in the empirically relevant case when the elasticity of intertemporal substitution in consumption is low.     

Export Market Participation,Investments in R&D and Worker Training,and the Evolution of Firm Productivity

This paper uses micro panel data for firms in the Taiwanese electronics industry in 1986, 1991 and 1996 to investigate a firm's decision to invest in two sources of knowledge – participation in the export market and investments in R&D and/or worker training – and assess their effect on the firm's future productivity. The firm's decisions to export and invest in R&D and/or worker training are modelled with a bivariate probit model that recognises the interdependence of the decisions. The effect of these investments on the firm's future productivity trajectory is then modelled while controlling for the selection bias introduced by endo‐genous firm exit. The findings indicate a significant interaction effect between exporting and R&D investments and future productivity, after controlling for size, age and current productivity. Firms that undertake both investment activities have significantly higher future productivity than firms that do one or neither. In addition, these firms are more likely to continue investing in these activities leading to further productivity gains. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that export experience is an important source of productivity growth for Taiwanese firms and that firm investments in R&D and worker training facilitate their ability to benefit from their exposure to the export market.     

Empirical Patterns of Firm Growth and R&D Investment: a Quality Ladder Model Interpretation

We present a partial equilibrium model of endogenous firm growth with R&D investment and stochastic innovation as the engines of growth, drawing on the quality ladder models in the macro growth literature, and the literature on patent races and the discrete choice models of product differentiation. The model fits a number of empirical patterns well, including: (i) a skewed size distribution of firms with persistent differences in firm sizes, (ii) firm growth independent of firm size, as stated in the so-called Gibrat's law, and (iii) R&D investment proportional to sales.     

Price Adjustments by a Gasoline Retail Chain

We use daily data to examine price responses in the Swedish gasoline market to changes in the Rotterdam spot price, exchange rates and taxes. The distribution of price adjustments by a leading retail chain, for the period January 1980 to December 1996, is symmetric with no small adjustments. An error correction model shows that, in the short run, prices gradually move towards the long-run equilibrium in response to cost shocks. There is some evidence that, also in the short run, prices are stickier downwards than upwards. Prices respond more rapidly to exchange rate movements than to the spot market price. Our analysis emphasizes that to fully understand price adjustments it is necessary to examine data sets where the sample frequency at least matches that of price adjustments.
JEL classification: C 22; E 31; F 14; L 71     

High‐Performance Management Practices and Employee Outcomes in Denmark

High‐performance work practices are frequently considered to have positive effects on corporate performance, but what do they do for employees? After assessing the correlation between organizational innovation and firm performance, this article investigates whether high‐involvement work practices affect workers in terms of wages, wage inequality and workforce composition. The analysis is based on a survey directed at Danish firms matched with linked employer–employee data and also examines whether the relationship between high‐involvement work practices and employee outcomes is affected by the industrial relations context.     

R&D and productivity in Danish firms: some empirical evidence

The aim of the paper is to examine the relationship between R&D capital and productivity using microdata for Danish manufacturing firms. The influence of factors such as ownership, innovative characteristics and source of funding accounted for. The return to accumulated R&D capital is estimated to be in the neighbourhood of 9–12%, whereas the short-run effect of R&D is insignificant. Furthermore, the direct influence from foreign ownership, source of funding accounted for, innovative characteristics and ownership dispersion on productivity are analysed. However, none of the factors seem to have an impact on firm productivity. The same is the case for the indirect influence coming from interaction with accumulated R&D capital.