This paper concerns the attractiveness for member ship in Swedish golf clubs. A representative voter model is derived and the attractiveness for member ship in golf clubs estimated using a unique data set on qualities of the golf course, the quality of neighboring courses and characteristics...

Many quality dimensions are hard to contract upon and are at risk of degradation when services are procured rather than produced in-house. However, procurement may foster performance-improving innovation. We assemble a large data set on elderly care services in Sweden between 1990 and 2009,...

We study a reform by which a standardized model of choice and competition was introduced in tax-financed home care in a majority of Swedish municipalities. The market for home care is of particular interest since it is close to the ideal quasi-market. For identification, we exploit the different...

This paper gives an exploratory description of the regional growth pattern in Sweden during the period 1981-1999. The main issue is to test the hypothesis that municipalities with higher average income growth and net migration rates are more clustered that could be caused by pure chance. The...

This paper investigates factors that determine the average income growth and net migration rates in Swedish municipalities during the period 1981 to 1999. The main issue is to test the hypothesis that, conditional on a set of other possible determinants of regional growth, the growth rate in one...

A key challenge in cartel enforcement is identifying collusive agreements. We study two major Nordic procurement cartels that operated in the asphalt paving market. We find evidence that during the cartel period bids were clustered and the winning bid was isolated. We implement two cartel...

Does the Church Tower Principle, i.e. geographical proximity between borrowing firm and lending bank, matter in credit risk management? If so, the bank might expose itself to a greater risk by lending to distant firms and should therefore respond by rationing them harder. In this paper we...

Despite the central role of payments in theoretical and policy oriented economics, there is surprisingly little known about the costs of different payment instruments. We estimate social and private costs of cash, debit and credit card payments in Sweden in 2002. The combined social cost of...

According to the essential facilities doctrine, competition law requires an infrastructural monopoly to provide access. Under the "Bronner criterion", proposed by the EC Court, the doctrine is only applicable when an infrastructural duopoly is non-viable. This paper uses a simple model to...

This paper analyses the effects of price and market size variables on the investment propensities in the pulp and paper industry. A panel of 15 European countries in the time period 1984 - 1997 is used in the regression analysis. We find the wages, the US/ECU exchange rate, the price of paper...