In this essay we model the returns for 14 large Swedish firms' stocks with a conditional multifactor model with time-varying beta terms. The data are monthly and the sample period is June 1992 to August 1997. The beta terms are modelled as linear functions of predetermined firm attributes, which...

The three “spheres” of society (governments, markets, and communities) are widely acknowledged yet the overall organization is analyzed only rarely, and interactions between the spheres have perhaps never been modeled. Fiske’s four relational models (community-sharing, authority-ranking,...

The literature on nation-building and nationalism suggests that nation-building affects economic and political performance, mitigates the problems associated with ethnic hetero- geneity, but that nationalism, an indicator of successful nation-building, is linked to dismal performance via...

We examine a central result in corporate finance – the Modigliani-Miller capital structure irrelevance proposition – from a Coasian property rights perspective. Building upon the work of Coase, Demsetz and Cheung, we develop an enabling methodology to study the impact of positive Coasian...

The paper analyzes stock-price reactions to stock recommendations published in printed Swedish media and also trading volumes at and around the publication day, bid/ask spreads, and the post-publication drift in recommended stocks for the period 1995-2000. Its small size and limited number of...

There is a danger that the CDM will fail to live up to its goals, namely reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and enhanced sustainable development. Sustainability labeling is a promising strategy to hedge against such failures. Labels could also serve as a business risk-hedging tool. The...

Using a repeated cross section for married prime age Swedish males for the years 1984, 1986 and 1988 produce drastically different labor supply elasticities. From 1984 to 1988 the Swedish tax system has reduced both tax levels and degree of progressivity, the numbers of kink-points have dropped...

There are several factors that may contribute to the decision to send a child to work, such as poverty, market imperfections and parental preferences. The aim of this paper is to determine empirically the relative importance of these diverse factors on the incidence of child labor in rural...

In this comment on AJR (2001), we argue that a bundling of all former colonies into one ‘colonial’ theory of comparative development is problematic for several reasons. During the mercantilist wave of mainly Latin American colonization between 1500-1830, strong capitalist institutions were...

Empirical studies of intergenerational transfers usually find that bequests are equally divided among heirs while inter vivos gifts tend to be compensatory. Using the 1992 and 1994 waves of the Health and Retirement Study, we find that only 4% of parents who give, divide their gifts equally...