News

Listen when Professor Diane Coyle argues that we need new ways to measure the economy. In a new podcast she, an internationally renowned scholar in the debate on how we best define and measure national economies, traces the history of GDP and tells us why this measurement is increasingly inappropriate for a twenty-first-century economy. The lecture was given in Stockholm on May 7, 2015.

IFN is part of the brand-new European project Financial and Institutional Reforms for the Entrepreneurial Society (FIRES). The researchers' task is to – based on solid research – propose policies that can make Europe more entrepreneurial. The project involves nine research institutions in as many countries – IFN is one and London School of Economics is another. The project is funded by a grant of roughly SEK 25 million from the European Commission. FIRES will be launched at a kick-off in Berlin in early September.

The 2015 Global Award for Entrepreneurship Research has been awarded to Professor Emeritus Sidney G. Winter, The Wharton School, and University of Pennsylvania. At the ceremony in Stockholm Winter received 100,000 euros and a sculpture by Carl Milles. Among other things, he was awarded the prize for his studies of how technological change within companies influence renewal. In his lecture he explained how progress involves long series of changes and improvements to products and processes – all based on previous experience.

GDP is problematic as a measure of growth, but this does not mean that GDP is useless, explained Professor Diane Coyle, University of Manchester, in a seminar organized by IFN May 7. Coyle said that GDP is insufficient as a measure and what is probably needed is a dashboard of indicators. At the seminar, she mentioned a number of existing alternative measures, including Social Progress Index, which was created in 2014.

In the brand new book Swedish Taxation (Palgrave Macmillan, New York), Magnus Henrekson and Mikael Stenkula (editors) take a historical approach to taxation. Swedish Taxation examines the development of taxation in Sweden since 1862.

This historic tax project has been headed by Mikael Stenkula, IFN. Additional participants in the research team are Gunnar Du Rietz, Dan Johansson, Magnus Henrekson and Daniel Waldenström. The taxes studied are tax on work, capital, property, inheritance and gifts, goods and services and real estate.

Transparency and the difference between accurate and more information in corporate communications, was the subject of a half-day conference organized by the FAR, IFN, Nasdaq and Transparency International Sweden. Professor Sidney Grey, co-author of the book Oxford Handbook of Economic and Institutional Transparency, was a speaker at the event. In the final panel discussion, the participants agreed that the current scope of corporate information should not increase but should focus more on societal development.

On Wednesday a new book Real Finnish Lessons: The True Story of An Education superpower authored by Gabriel Heller Sahlgren, an affiliate of IFN, was launched by the Centre for Policy Studies, London. In the book Heller Sahlgren shows that it is primarily socio-economic and historical factors that gave rise to the results in Finnish schools, for example the PISA surveys. The most important lessons for Sweden and other countries, he says, are in the fields of educational culture and teaching methods.

The 2015 Global Award for Entrepreneurship Research is awarded to Professor Sidney Winter, Deloitte and Touche Professor Emeritus of Management at Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Global Award is the leading international award in entrepreneurship research with a prize amount of 100 000 Euros. Professor Winter is awarded for his profound understanding of dynamic competition, how a company's ability to assimilate innovations creates various technological opportunities and the mechanisms driving competence building in firms. The Global Award is presented by the Swedish Entrepreneurship Forum and IFN.

On Monday the Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN) organized a roundtable discussion about energy in cooperation with the German CESifo . The starting point was the EEAG Report 2015,  chapter 2 with the title "The European Energy Conundrum: Power Failure". Professor John Driffill, Birkbeck College at the University of London, one of the report's authors, initiated the discussion. Among the almost 25 participants were Catherine Areskoug Mascarenhas, head of the European Commission Representation in Sweden, Martina Högberg, Deputy Director, Ministry of the Environment and Energy, and Mats Persson, Vice President Trading, Fortum.

Professor Lars Calmfors has been appointed to head a new independent labor market council, (arbetsmarknadsekonomiskt råd, AER), which has been formed on the initiative of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise. The Council will make assessments of the labor market and annually present a report on the subject. AER will have three additional members, one of whom is Per Skedinger, IFN. The other is Ann-Sofie Kolm, Stockholm University and Tuomas Pekkarinen VATT and University of Helsinki.

As of April 1st, Lars Calmfors, professor at the Institute for International Economic Studies, Stockholm University, is affiliated researcher at IFN. Calmfors has held numerous public and academic assignments, including as chairman of the Swedish Financial Policy Council.

In a new book – Universitetsreform! – så kan vi rädda och lyfta den högre utbildningen (University Reform! How to Save and Boost Higher Education) – six professors and authors, among other things, highlight the fact that the perception of study discipline and knowledge has changed in recent decades. This book presents several concrete reform proposals. The authors suggest, for example, that grades should be set by external examiners, and that the grading system should be standardized across the country. ”We need a system through which universities can be ranked and institutions of higher education can be compared,” said Patrik Engellau, Den Nya Välfärden, when he opened the seminar.

Private companies should be tested and then given permission to start operations in the welfare sector, explained the special investigator Christina Eriksson Stephanson when she presented the Ownership Assessment Inquiry's (ägarprövningsutredningen) results. Stephanson presented her conclusions at a seminar organized by the SNS as part of IFN and SNS’ joint research program, From Welfare State to a Welfare Society. Patrik Attemark, CEO Solhagagruppen, Johan Fredriksson, president and CEO Praktikertjänst and Ulla Hamilton, acting CEO National Association of Independent Schools also participated in the ensuing discussion.

Olle Folke, Columbia University and IFN affiliate, Torsten Persson, Stockholm University, and Johanna Rickne, IFN, have been awarded the Myrdal Prize 2014 (in memory of Professor Gunnar Myrdal), for their article "Personröster och politisk makt” (Preference voting and political power) published in Ekonomisk Debatt No. 1, 2014.

In the New York Times Professor Tyler Cowen writes about research by Niclas Berggren and Therese Nilsson, IFN, in which they have studied tolerance. "One of their most striking findings is that societies characterized by greater economic freedom and greater wealth do indeed exhibit greater tolerance toward gay people, a tendency suggesting that gay rights, including gay marriage, will spread globally as national economies liberalize and develop."

Professor Christian Bjørnskov, Aarhus University in Denmark, is a new affiliated researcher at IFN. He is part of the Economics of Institutions and Culture research program. His research focuses on social trust, happiness, development aid and institutions. Researchers within said  IFN-program study how moral values and attitudes influence human behavior and, thereby, the way the economy functions. They also focus on how the economy in turn influences morality, norms and social attitudes.

In 2014 IFN celebrated its 75th anniversary. The milestone was commemorated on November 17, with the presentation of three new books about the Institute and its research. At the same event a short film about IFN was presented. Click on the holiday gift to see the movie.

A brand new working paper published by Magnus Henrekson and Tino Sanandaji, IFN, is the subject of a blogpost written by James Pethokoukis on the American Entreprise Institute's website. The IFN-researchers argue that the overwhelming majority of self-employed individuals are not entrepreneurial in the Schumpeterian sense. "Europe has a higher self-employment rate than the United States and East Asia. At the same time, Europe has a lower entrepreneurship rate than competitive regions. Europe underperforms in entrepreneurship despite having advantages such as a skilled labour force, good infrastructure, large markets, and strong performance in technological innovation," Henrekson and Sanandaji assert.

Shaker Zahra, Professor at the Carlson School of Management at University of Minnesota, USA, received the Global Award for Entrepreneurship Research 2014 on Wednesday. This Prize has been awarded annually since 1996 with a prize sum of EUR 100,000. Shaker Zahra is best known for his work on "the role of corporate entrepreneurship in knowledge creation, absorption, and conversion". In his prize lecture he explained the importance of hubs or informal networks to promote entrepreneurship in existing companies.

At a research seminar Michael Stenkula, IFN, presented the last component of the first systematic survey of the Swedish tax system – from 1862 to the present day. He showed how the Swedish tax system and its structure has been the subject of transformation and radical changes over the past 150 years. Tax structure and its impact on the economy were, for example, completely different 150 years ago. "1862 you paid one percent in national income tax. The proportion was gradually increased thereafter and temporary taxes [for example, those imposed during the two World Wars] became permanent in due time," explained Michael Stenkula.

The Social Democrats, the Green Party and the Left Party recently announced an agreement on "welfare without profit motive". A commission will submit proposals on how the revenue can be limited in firms producing publicly financed services, such as health care, education and elderly care. This was the topic of a speech by Ardalan Shekarabi, Minister for Public Administration, at a seminar organized by the SNS. Instead of profit vs non-profit in the welfare sector, he said, we should discuss how to implement "a control system that drives quality". Shekarabis talk was commented by Henrik Jordahl, IFN, Jonas Vlachos, Stockholm University and IFN, Thomas Berglund, Capio, and Lars Henriksson, Stockholm School of Economics.