Berghs betraktelser

Bergh, A. and Fink, G. (2008) "Higher education, Elite Institutions and Inequality," European Economic Review, forthcoming.

Abstract
We develop a model of higher education to analyze the effects of elite institutions on individual educational decisions and aggregate labor market outcomes. Elite institutions allow the most talented of a given population to separate themselves from the larger pool of agents enrolled in higher education, and to earn the associated wage premium in the labor market. As elite institutions engage in cream skimming, the returns to publicly accessible education decrease, and enrollment in public higher education declines. The resulting effect on income inequality is ambiguous, since elite education increases income dispersion at the top of the income distribution, and decreases income dispersion at the bottom.

Kommentar: Skönt att den här skummisen inte behövde vara min senaste publikation särskilt länge. Och om någon undrar varför jag postar publikationer, är det bl a för att den här kategorilänken ska funka som ett dynamiskt CV. Och det börjar arta sig!

 

Det papper som för två år sedan i en tidig version dryftades här, har äntligen landat i en tidskrift:

Bergh, A. 2008. A critical note on the theory of inequity aversion. Forthcoming in Journal of Socio-Economics.

Sammanfattning i två meningar: Fehr & Schmidts QJE-artikel från 1999 har fått bisarrt stort genomslag i förhållande till hur lite den faktiskt förklarar. Människors benägenhet att ibland dela med sig kan istället förstås som ett resultat av två stundom konflikterande normer: omfördelningsnormen (effektiv av försäkringsskäl under riskaversion) och äganderättsnormen (effektiv av incitamentsskäl).

Den vakne inser genast att båda normerna är sårbara för free-riding. Det löser jag i nästa papper :-)

Bergh, Andreas and Gissur Erlingsson. 2008. "Liberalization without retrenchment: Understanding the consensus on Swedish welfare state reforms." Forthcoming, Scandinavian Political Studies.

Goda nyheter för de 7 personer (jodå, upp 3 sen januari!!) som förra månaden kikade på detta working paper: En rejält reviderad version är nu på väg ut i Scandinavian Political Studies.

Här kommer ett abstract, för den som vill citera oss omedelbart bums :-)

In 1980, Sweden was a highly regulated economy with several state monopolies and low levels of economic freedom. Less than 20 years later, liberal reforms turned Sweden in to one of the world’s most open economies with a remarkable increase in economic freedom.

While there is resilience when it comes to high levels of taxes and expenditure shares of GDP, there has been a profound restructuring of Sweden’s economy in the 1980s and 1990s which previous studies have underestimated. Furthermore, the degree of political consensus is striking, both regarding the welfare state expansions that characterized Sweden up to 1980, as well as the subsequent liberalizations.

Since established theories have difficulties explaining institutional change, we seek to understand how the Swedish style of policy-making produced this surprising political consensus on liberal reforms. We highlight the importance of three complementary factors: (i) Policy-making in Sweden has always been influenced by, and intimately connected to, social science. (ii) Government commissions have functioned as ‘early warning systems’, pointing out future challenges and creating a common way to perceive problems. (iii) As a consequence, political consensus has evolved as a feature of Swedish style of policy-making. The approach to policy-making has been rationalistic, technocratic and pragmatic. We conclude that the Swedish style of policy making does not only explain the period of welfare state expansion – it is also applicable to the intense reform period of the 1980s and 1990s.

 

Slutligen, ett stort tack till min festliga medförfattare!

Bergh, Andreas & Fink, Guenther (2007). "Higher Education Policy, Enrollment and Income Inequality". Forthcoming in Social Science Quarterly.