Browsing Department of Economics (ECON) by Title
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Veugelers, Reinhilde; Schneider, Cedric (København, 2008)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: Recent policy initiatives in the EU aim at supporting so-called Young Innovative Companies (YICs). This paper provides empirical evidence from German CIS data on the innovative performances of this specific type of firms, supporting why they matter. We first characterize YICs in the sample of innovation active firms. We show that firms that combine newness, smallness and high R&D intensity, are rare in the sample of innovative firms, but achieve significantly higher innovative sales than other innovative firms, especially innovative sales that are new to the market. Not surprisingly, YICs view financial constraints, both internal and external, as an important factor hampering their innovation activities, significantly more so than other innovation active firms. This access to finance problem is an often used motive for government intervention. In Germany, subsidies schemes for innovation are general and not particularly targeted at YICs. When assessing the effectiveness of these public funding schemes for our sample firms, we find that they are not effective to increase the innovative sales of YICs, unlike the average innovative firm in our sample. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7663 Files in this item: 1
wp4-2008.pdf (209.8Kb) -
Lund, Lars (København, 2006)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: The Greenland infrastructure for the airborne traffic uses Kangerlussuaq, Søndre Strømfjord, as hub. New scenarios may change that, and one possibility is the construction of a large airport at Nuuk with a 3000 m runway. The trunk line will then be between Copenhagen and Nuuk. In that case the village Kangerlussuaq will be abandoned. The paper analyses the size of the economic gain to Greenland of such a change. Using official statistics and information collected for the investigation a description is made of the employment structure and the income earned in the trades represented in Kangerlussuaq. It is then discussed to which extent people do tasks that will still be needed with the new structure and to which extent they will be set free to go into alternative production. The last possibility is regarded as a saving or as an increase in resources for Greenland, and the estimate is that this gain will amount to around 40 percent of the contribution to GDP in Kangerlussuaq. The saving is modified a little by the need of some new investments in Nuuk, mostly for housing. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7507 Files in this item: 1
wp1-2006.pdf (395.9Kb) -
Ghiglino, Christian; Tvede, Mich (København, 1999)[More information][Less information]
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Sørensen, Anders (København, 2006)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: Welfare ranking of policy instruments is addressed in a two-sector Ramsey model with monopoly pricing in one sector as the only distortion. When government spending is restricted, i.e. when a government is unable or unwilling to finance the required costs for implementing the optimum policy, subsidies that directly affect investment incentives may generate higher welfare effects than the direct instrument, which is a production subsidy. The driving mechanism is that an investment subsidy may be more cost effective than the direct instrument; and that the relative welfare gain from cost effectiveness can exceed the welfare loss from introducing new distortions. Moreover, it is found that the investment subsidy is gradually phased out of the welfare maximizing policy, which may be a policy combining the two subsidies, when the level of government spending is increased. Keywords: welfare ranking, indirect and direct policy instruments, restricted government spending JEL: E61, O21, O41 URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7581 Files in this item: 1
wp8-2006.pdf (362.5Kb) -
Blomgren-Hansen, Niels (København, 2008)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: In most countries labor is organzed in cooperating skill-speci c unions rather than in industrial unions or separately bargaining skill-speci c unions. Within an extremely simple model of a small open economy facing imperfect competition we show that this way of organizing labor can be explained as the outcome of rational (optimizing) behavior on the part of the unions and the employers. Organizing labor in local industrial cartels (regardless of skill) or a single economy wide cartel results in a real wage level that is inappropriately low both from the point of view of labor and the society as a whole unless labor has close to monopoly power in the wage setting process. Organizing labor in local or economy wide skill-speci c unions may result in a wage level that is too high. In addition, a labor market organized in non-cooperating unions is likely to be unstable. This dilemma calls for a compromise: A cartel of cooperating, independent skill-speci c unions. The degree and the form of the cooperation depend inter alia on the bargaining power of the employer, the number of skills and competing rms and the rigidity with which the unions enforce lines of demarcations. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7599 Files in this item: 1
wp3-2008.pdf (467.4Kb) -
Bennedsen, Morten; Schultz, Christian (København, 2003)[More information][Less information]
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Evidence from Unexpected Inheritance due to Sudden DeathAndersen, Steffen; Meisner Nielsen, Kasper (Frederiksberg, 2010)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: We use a natural experiment to investigate the impact of participation constraints on individuals' decisions to invest in the stock market. Unexpected inheritance due to sudden deaths results in exogenous variation in financial wealth and allows us to examine whether fixed entry and ongoing participation costs cause non-participation. We have three key findings. First, windfall wealth has a positive effect on participation. Second, the majority of households do not react to sizeable windfalls by entering the stock market, but hold on to substantial safe assets—even over longer horizons. Third, the majority of households inheriting stock holdings actively sell the entire portfolio. Overall, these findings suggest that participation by many individuals is unlikely to be constrained by financial participation costs. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8169 Files in this item: 1
wp3-2010.pdf (254.6Kb) -
Bennedsen, Morten (København, 1999)[More information][Less information]
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Mayer, Wolfgang; Raimondos-Møller, Pascalis (København, 1999)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: Why do donor countries give foreign aid? The answers found in the literature are: (i) because donor countries care for recipient countries (e.g. altruism), and/or (ii) because there exist distortions that make the indirect gains from foreign aid (e.g. terms of trade effects) to be larger than the direct losses. This paper proposes a third answer to the above question, namely that aid is determined through the domestic political process of the donor country. The paper demonstrates how foreign aid affects the donor country’s income distribution and how, in a direct democracy, the majority of voters might benefit from foreign aid giving even though the country’s social welfare is reduced. JEL Classification: F35 Keywords: foreign aid, politics, majority voting. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7488 Files in this item: 1
1999_4.pdf (89.81Kb) -
Risager, Ole (København, 2004)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: Price-earnings ratios are part of the toolkit that is used for assessing the valuation of individual firms on the stock market as well as the entire market itself. This paper presents consistent P/E series for the liquid Danish shares adjusted for share buybacks. The results show that over the period from 1969 to 2003, the average (trailing) P/E equals 13.5. The P/E reaches its lowest level in 1980, which is likely to be due to a soaring oil price, high wage increases and interest rates approaching 20 percent. Notwithstanding optimistic equity pricing also in Denmark in the late 1990s, the upturn in Danish valuations was more moderate than in the US. The correction that sets in subsequently reversed essentially the gains in the Danish P/E in the 1990s. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7620 Files in this item: 1
wpec132004.pdf (395.4Kb) -
Separating the Impact of Dual Class Shares, Pyramids and Cross-ownership on Firm Value Across Legal Regimes in Western EuropeBennedsen, Morten; Meisner Nielsen, Kasper (København, 2005)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: Recent policy initiatives within the harmonization of European company laws have promoted a so-called "principle of proportionality" through proposals that regulate mechanisms opposing a proportional distribution of ownership and control. We scrutinize the foundation for these initiatives by analyzing the use of instruments to separate ownership from control across legal regimes in a sample of over 4,000 publicly traded firms from 14 Western European countries. First, we confirm the negative impact on firm value from disproportional ownership structures previously established in a sample of Asian firms by Claessens et al. (2002). Second, we show that dual class shares have a larger and more significant negative effect on firm value than pyramids and cross holdings. Third, we find that the impact of disproportionality and the underlying instruments is inversely related to the level of investor protection. Thus, dual class shares and pyramids substitute legal protection in countries with inadequate investor protection. Fourth, we find no evidence of a significant effect of disproportionality instruments on earnings performance. Finally, we discuss policy implications of these findings in relationship to the process of harmonization of the European capital markets. JEL classifications: G30, G32, G34 and G38 Keywords: Ownership Structure, Dual Class Shares, Pyramids, EU company laws. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7544 Files in this item: 1
wp22-2005.pdf (414.4Kb) -
Blomgren-Hansen, Niels (København, 1998)[More information][Less information]
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Lund, Lars (København, 2003)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: Abstract: The balance of payments of Greenland has special features due to an important current transfer, bloktilskud, from Denmark. The trade balance does not exhibit a deficit of this order of magnitude but comparison of the bloktilskud and the deficit is difficult as official figures are available for the merchandise trade only. Figures for services are missing. However, guesses about the size of a deficit in the services’ trade do not easily discard the impression of a large surplus on the current account. Over a ten year period it is suggested that accumulated surpluses could be twice the level of Greenland’s GDP. This seems unlikely, but the available data raise a puzzle that ought to be addressed as it nourishes suspicion of unobserved accumulation of wealth. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7550 Files in this item: 1
wpec052003.pdf (304.0Kb) -
a welfare-theoretical approachOlai Hansen, Bodil; Keiding, Hans (København, 1999)[More information][Less information]
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Junge, Martin; Severgnini, Battista; Sørensen, Anders (Frederiksberg, 2012)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: The role of product and marketing innovation for productivity growth is addressed using survey and register data for the Danish economy. It is argued that marketing and product innovation are complementary inputs and that innovation activities are skill-intensive. It is found that product and marketing innovation in skill-intensive firms results in significantly faster productivity growth than in unskilled-intensive firms that introduce this combination of innovation activities. More precisely, an increase in the share of educated workers of one percentage point, increases productivity growth by around 0.1 percentage point in firms with product and marketing innovation. In addition, it is found that firms that engage in product innovation but not in marketing innovation or the other way around do not demonstrate a growth effect from their innovation activities. It is also found that product and marketing innovation has an independent role in productivity growth that cannot be attributed to organisational changes, even though the majority of innovative firms engage in this latter innovation type. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8468 Files in this item: 1
JungeSevergniniSoerensen-WP-1-2012.pdf (417.0Kb) -
Andersen, Torben M.; Skaksen, Jan Rose (København, 2003)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: Product Market Integration, Comparative Advantages and Labour Market Performance* In a two-country model with trade driven by comparative advantages, it is considered how imperfectly competitive labour markets are affected by lower frictions in international goods trade. Easier goods trading is equivalent to increased mobility of employment across countries and thus a change in the trade-off between wages and employment faced by wage setters. While the effects of product market integration on the trade-off between wages and employment in general is ambiguous, it is shown that product market integration works like a general improvement in productivity via the specialization it allows through trade. Unambiguously, real wages and employment and welfare improve upon reductions in trade frictions, and therefore workers are better off irrespective of whether the market power of unions is enhanced or muted. JEL Classification: F15, J30, J50 Keywords: trade frictions, wage formation, employment, welfare gains URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7506 Files in this item: 1
dp698.pdf (424.7Kb) -
Andersen, Torben M.; Rose Skaksen, Jan (København, 2004)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: In this paper, we set up a two-country general equilibrium model where trade unions have wage bargaining power. We show that a decrease in trade distortions inducing further product market integration gives rise to specialization gains as well as a labour market reform effect. The implications of the specialization gains are similar to an increase in labour productivity, whereas the labour market reform effect is similar to an increase in the degree of competition in the labour market. Wages, employment and welfare increase as a result of further product market integration. It is interesting to note that the labour market reform effect of product market integration is achieved despite an increase in the wage level. JEL Classification: F15, J30, J50. Keywords: Trade frictions, wage formation, employment, welfare gains. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7655 Files in this item: 1
wpec082004.pdf (310.3Kb) -
En analyse på baggrund af en detaljeret uddannelsesopdeling. Teknisk baggrundsnotatFosse, Henrik Barslund; Højbjerg Jacobsen, Rasmus (Frederiksberg, 2013)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: CEBR har for Djøf udført en opgave, der har bestået i at få klarlagt produktivitetseffekter af uddannelse på et relativt højt detaljeniveau. Opgaven omfatter to dele: Den første del er en klarlægning af såkaldte egen- og fælleseffekter på 16 uddannelsesgrupper defineret ud fra fire uddannelseslængder og fire uddannelsesretninger. Beregningerne er udført på brancheniveau og inden for sektorerne privat fremstilling og privat service. Den anden del af opgaven omfatter en konsekvensberegning af at løfte Danmark op i OECD’s top 5, når det gælder andel af personer på arbejdsmarkedet med en videregående uddannelse. CEBR har beregnet produktivitetseffekter inden for sektorerne privat fremstilling og privat service. Endelig har Djøf ønsket, at de samlede produktivitetsgevinster af et uddannelsesløft omsættes til populære størrelser i velfærdsdebatten. Dette notat indeholder en beskrivelse af beregninger af uddannelseseffekter. Beregningerne tager udgangspunkt i allerede estimerede marginaleffekter og følger tidligere anvendte metoder. Notatet inddelt som følger: Kapitel 2 er et kort teknisk kapitel, der informerer om data samt kort opremser litteraturgrundlaget og de anvendte metoder til at beregne effekterne af uddannelse. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8742 Files in this item: 1
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En analyse på baggrund af en detaljeret uddannelsesopdelingFosse, Henrik Barslund; Højbjerg Jacobsen, Rasmus; Lykkebo, Ole Bech; Brandt, Kathrine Marie Skou (København, 2013)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: Denne rapport handler om den ekstra værdi, som højtuddannede er med til at skabe i de virksomheder, hvor de er ansat. En ekstra værdi som sætter virksomhederne i stand til at levere kunderne serviceydelser og produkter i en højere kvalitet eller til en lavere pris end ellers. Den ekstra værdi kan opstå på mange forskellige måder afhængigt af uddannelse og branche. Eksempelvis skaber det ekstra værdi, at kvinden med boret er uddannet tandlæge, når man sætter sig i tandlægestolen for at få en omfattende og måske bekostelig behandling. For en familie, der køber og renoverer et gammelt hus, har det også ekstra værdi, at det er en uddannet el-installatør, som udfører el-arbejdet. Det kræver loven i øvrigt også. Ligesom det har værdi for en dansk vækstvirksomhed, som opkøber en udenlandsk konkurrent, at uddannede jurister har styr på kontrakten, så investeringen sker på det rette grundlag. Denne rapport sætter for første gang i en dansk sammenhæng krone og ører på den ekstra værdi – også kaldet højere produktivitet – som samlet er forbundet med alle de meget forskellige kategorier af videregående uddannelser i den private sektor1. Analyserne viser effekterne opdelt på uddannelseslængde, fagretning og branche. Mere uddannelse skaber højere værditilvækst pr. præsteret time i den private sektor. Dermed er der udsigt til højere produktivitet ved at øge uddannelsesniveauet. Samtidig foretages en samlet beregning som viser, at velstanden i Danmark vil stige betydeligt i form af øget BNP, hvis en større andel af de privatansatte har en videregående uddannelse. Flere højt-uddannede privatansatte vil forbedre virksomhedernes produktivitet og dermed styrke konkurrenceevnen. Det vil også kunne få en gunstig indvirkning på eksport og beskæftigelse. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8741 Files in this item: 1
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Hansen, Bodil O.; Keiding, Hans (København, 2006)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: We consider a model of commercial television market, where private broadcasters coexist with a public television broadcaster. Assuming that the public TV station follows a policy of Ramsey pricing whereas the private stations are profit maximizers, we consider the equilibria in this market and compare with a situation where the public station is privatized and acts as another private TV broadcaster. A closer scrutiny of the market for commercial television leads to a distinction between target rating points, which are the prime unit of account in TV advertising, and net coverage, which is the final goal of advertisers. Working with net coverage as the fundamental concept, we exploit the models of competition between public and private price and quantity in order to show that privatization of the public TV station entails a welfare loss and results in TV advertising becoming more expensive. Keywords: TV broadcasting, imperfect competition, Ramsey pricing, welfare comparison. JEL classification: L11, L82, L33 URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7501 Files in this item: 1
wp2-2006.pdf (146.8Kb)