News

Seventy years have passed since the Research Institute of Industrial Economics (former IUI, and changed to IFN) was founded. The institute has since then been a leading institution in applied research in Sweden and has also figured prominently in the economic policy debate since its inception.

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On September 10 - 11, the Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN) organized an international conference on the economics of ownership, organization and industrial development. The first purpose of the workshop was to contribute to the understanding of the interaction between ownership and organizational form and its effects on firm behavior. The second purpose was to enhance our understanding of the economic effects of private equity and venture capital activity. In particular, the focus was on real economic effects such as effects on innovation, restructuring, productivity, employment, and welfare.

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IFN has invited a group of researchers working on intangible investments for a meeting on September 28–29. The meeting is part of the EU project COINVEST which is financed by the European Commission. Economists from Belgium, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Great Britain, Portugal, and Sweden will come to Stockholm to measure and compare intangible investments. The meeting is organized by Harald Edquist and Henrik Jordahl.

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We are very sad to report that Robin Douhan passed away on 10 August 2009. He was outstanding both in research and in his personal qualities. Our deepest sympathies go to his family.
 

A well functioning schooling system is important for a number of reasons; for example, schooling is an input in the accumulation human capital, economic well-being and growth. On May 28–29, The Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN) organized an international two-day conference of alternative ways to improve schooling.

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As from April 1, 2009, Kristina Börjeson is Communications Officer at IFN. Kristina has eight years experience of Public Affairs, formation of public opinion projects and media relations. Her most recent position was at Trimedia, a Public Relations and Communications Consultancy, where she worked as a consultant focusing at Public Affairs, internal communication, and media relations. Kristina also has experience of working as Project Manager and Press Secretary for different Swedish nongovernmental organizations and Invest in Sweden Agency (ISA) in New York.

This year’s Global Award for Entrepreneurship Research has been awarded the American economist Professor Scott A. Shane. According to the motivation he receives the prize ”for publishing significant works that display superior conceptual acumen as well as empirical and methodological sophistication. His research covers virtually all major aspects of the entrepreneurship phenomenon: the individual(s), the opportunity, the organizational context, the environment, and the entrepreneurial process.”

For further information, see www.e-award.org.

During the year 2009, IFN (former IUI) celebrates its 70 years’ anniversary as a research institute. Ever since its foundation in 1939, the task has been to produce economic research of a high academic level, relevant to the business sector and accessible to the general public.

Joacim Tåg defended his thesis at Hanken School of Economics, Helsinki, in 2008 on the topic of business strategies, competition policy and regulation in the telecommunications, media and technology industries. At IFN, Joacim will primarily work within the entrepreneurship program on issues related to the real economy effects of private equity buyouts, to ownership patterns in the economy and to entrepreneurial innovations.
 

On December 5–6, 2008, IFN, The Leverhulme Centre for Research on Globalisation and Economic Policy and CIBER at Michigan State University arranged a workshop on globalization and labor markets. Trade models with heterogeneous firms have been a major focus of research for the past decade. More recently, some trade theorists have begun to enrich these models by incorporating heterogeneity in the labor market as well. Such research holds the potential to uncover connections between the nexus of worker and firm decisions with characteristics of the global environment. The idea of the workshop was to bring together a small group of theorists who are working on such models with empiricists who are familiar with matched worker-firm data sources.

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At a seminar on 23 October 2008, IFN and its partners FSF and Nutek launched the Global Award for Entrepreneurship Research. The award, which will be given annually, honors outstanding research contributions furthering our understanding of the role and importance of entrepreneurship and small business development. The research award, which is the foremost in its kind in the world, consists of a prize sum of 100 000 Euros and the statuette “The Hand of God”, created by Carl Milles. The extensive prize sum has become possible thanks to a generous donation by the Swedish entrepreneur and industrialist Rune Andersson and his holding company Mellby Gård.
 
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IFN has invited international researchers working on foreign direct investment in East Asia for a two-day workshop in Stockholm. East Asia is a major receiver of FDI and the participants will discuss how these inflows of foreign multinational firms affect producer concentration, productivity, exports, employment and other important economic factors. The focus was on the development in six East Asian countries: China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam. 

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Pär Holmberg defended his thesis at the Department of Economics, Uppsala University, in 2005 with a dissertation on strategic bidding behaviour in electricity markets. After the dissertation Pär worked with corporate taxation at the Ministry of Finance and later as a research fellow at Uppsala University. Before his career in economics, Pär Holmberg defended a dissertation in Power Engineering at Uppsala University and worked as a research scientist at ABB Corporate Research. At IFN, Pär Holmberg will work in the research program The Economics of Electricity Markets.

Frédéric Delmar is a professor in entrepreneurship at the Strategy and Organization Department at EM Lyon since 2005. He took his PhD at Stockholm school of Economics in 1996. His main research interest lies in the early development of new ventures as well as organizational growth. He finds the behavioral aspects of entrepreneurship to be particularly interesting.

His work has been published in a number of journals like Management Science, Strategic Management Journal, Strategic Organization, Journal of Business Venturing, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, and books.

From August 1, Mikael Stenkula is again a member of the IFN staff. Mikael Stenkula defended his doctoral thesis at Lund University in 2004 with a dissertation on monetary economics. His main research interests are in entrepreneurship and business dynamics and the importance of the institutional framework for economic development. Together with Magnus Henrekson, Mikael Stenkula has written the Swedish book Entrepreneurship.

Erik Lindqvist, IFN, was awarded a Young Economist Award at the EEA Annual Meeting in Milan for his paper "Privatization of Credence Goods: Theory and Evidence from Residential Youth Care".  The prize is awarded to outstanding papers by applicants under 30 years of age .

Henrik Jordahl, IFN, has been awarded the 2008 Peggy and Richard Musgrave Prize for his paper "Selfish and Prospective: Theory and Evidence of Pocketbook Voting" (co-authors Mikael Elinder and Panu Poutvaara). The price ceremony took place at the 64th Annual Congress of the International Institute of Public Finance (IIPF) in Maastricht, the Netherlands.

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IFN invited international researchers working on the economics of privatization to a two-day workshop in Stockholm. Privatization is broadly defined and includes theoretical and empirical perspectives on topics such as contracting for government services, public procurement, voucher systems, public-private partnerships, and the sale of government-owned companies. Steven Kelman of Harvard University presented his book Unleashing Change: A Study of Organizational Renewal in Government at the workshop. 

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The overall purpose of this two-day workshop in Stockholm was to stimulate cooperation and exchange of knowledge among Nordic researchers contributing to the field of electricity economics. Keynote addresses were held by professor Richard Green at University of Birmingham and professor Frank A. Wolak at Stanford.

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Family, Children and Work was the theme for the IFN Stockholm Conference 2008, which took place in Vaxholm in the Stockholm Archipelago on May 22–23.

An aging population and a declining birthrate have made the access to qualified work force a burning issue within most OECD countries. The conditions for combining career and family life are today as much a question about supply of human capital as equality and well-being for parents and children. About 20 leading international researchers presented and discussed high quality empirical and theoretical research on this topic.

Please contact Ph.D. Anna Sjögren in the organization committee for further information.