We study a positive theory of stagnation and growth aimed at understanding the large variations in growth outcomes across actual economies. The theory points to the fundamental role played by vested interests in determining policies which are key to the growth process: some agents seek to prevent the adoption of new technologies. We develop a model of technology adoption, and show how technological innovation may sow the seeds of its own destruction. In particular, we find that the equilibrium is characterized by a long cycle of stagnation and growth. Over this cycle, incumbents are phased out of the economy will new innovation occur. In formalizing our theory we make a methodological contribution by characterizing dynamic voting equilibria when voters must forecast the effects of different current policies on future prices and policy outcomes.

O'Connell and Zeldes (1993) have shown that the dynamic inefficiency result of a standard gift model is reversed if parents can undersave strategically. I impose an explicit non-negativity constraint on gifts, which - for all the numerical examples suggested by O'Connell and Zeldes - alters this result, by making gifts non-operative. However, for other realistic numerical examples, this is not the case.

This paper analyses the impact of the monetary regime on labour markets in a small open economy, by considering the game between large wage setters and an independent central bank in a two-sector model with potential labour mobility between sectors. Two monetary regimes are considered: membership in a monetary union and an inflation target combined with a flexible exchange rate. A key result is that when there is perfect labour mobility between sectors, the monetary regime does not matter for real wages, employment or profits. Moreover, introducing labour mobility substantially reduces wages and increases employment. Other findings are that when labour is immobile between sectors: (i) the real wage in the tradables sector is higher under inflation targeting than in a monetary union, while the reverse applies to the non-tradables sector; (ii) inflation targeting generates higher employment and profits than membership in a monetary union; and (iii) both workers and firms in the two sectors in general prefer inflation targeting to membership in a monetary union.

The expansion of welfare-state arrangements is seen as the result of dynamic interaction between market behaviour and political behaviour, often with considerable time lags, sometimes generating either virtuous or vicious circles. Such interaction may also involve induced (endogenous) changes in social norms and political preferences. Moreover, the internationalization process not only limits the ability of national governments to redistribute income; they also increase the political demands for international mobility of welfare-state benefits and social services. I also discuss the dynamics of reforms and retreats of welfare-state arrangements.

Socioeconomic conditions and values have changed considerably since the emergence of elaborate welfare-state arrangements during the first decades after World War II. For instance, recent socioeconomic changes have created new needs (justifications) for intertemporal reallocations of income as well as for protection against new types of income risks. Some socioeconomic changes have also undermined the financial viability of a number of traditional welfare-state arrangements. This paper emphasizes developments in the labor market and changes in the structure and preferences of the family. A number of alternative welfare-state reforms are considered in the paper.

The achievements of social-welfare arrangements in Western Europe are well known: considerable income security, relatively little poverty and, in some countries, ample supply of social services. But there are also well-known weaknesses and hence considerable scope for improvement. Three types of weaknesses are considered in this paper: social-welfare arrangements are often not financially robust to shocks; individuals make undesirable behavioural adjustments in response to welfare-state arrangements and their financing; and social-welfare arrangements are often poorly adapted to recent changes in socio-economic conditions and preferences of individuals. I discuss these weaknesses, and alternative methods to mitigate them, in the context of various types of welfare-state arrangements that the individual may encounter over the life cycle.

In a broad psychological perspective, both economic incentives and social norms may be regarded as giving rise to purposeful, or "rational" behavior. By this I simply mean that individuals act in accordance with expected reward or punishment, even though the form these take differs substantially in the two cases. Whereas economic incentives imply "material rewards", or favors that can be traded for such rewards including leisure, social norms imply "social rewards". The latter basically take the form of approval or disapproval from others and related feelings of pride or shame. Moreover, once a social norm has been internalized in an individual's own value system, behavior in accordance with, or against, the norm will also result in feelings of self-respect or guilt. All this suggests that not only economic incentives but also social norms may be analyzed by means of utility theory, as will be illustrated below.

Many social norms may not have much to do with economic incentives (Elster, 1989). In some cases, it is, however, useful to study the interaction between them. Indeed, this is the basic message of the paper. My discussion to three norms of apparent importance for household behavior: (i) work norms; (ii) norms against wage underbidding; and (iii) saving and consumption norms. Thus, the paper deals with norms concering willingness to work, ability to get a job and the use of income.

This paper deals with economic incentives and welfare-state arrangements in OECD countries; it also offers some lessons for would-be welfare states. These arrangements differ, of course, among OECD countries. In particular, there is wide variation in the extent to which countries rely on four basic institutions - the state, the firm, the family and the market. Countries also differ in their reliance on (i) a common safety net, often in the form of flat-rate benefits tied to specific contingencies; (ii) means-tested benefits for low-income groups; and (iii) income protection, i.e., benefits that are tied to previous income. Another distinction between corporatist welfare states, where benefits are tied to labor contracts, and universal welfare states in which benefits are conditional on residence or citizenship. This distinction is blurred, however, by recent tendencies in corporatist welfare states to extend coverage to individuals who have very weak attachment to the labor market, and in universal welfare states to tie benefits to previous or contemporary work under the slogan "workfare" rather than "welfare".The degree of generosity of benefits is another important distinction. Of course, the lower the benefit levels, the stronger the incentives for citizens to opt for voluntary (market) solutions, in the form of private saving and private insurance arrangements.When considering incentive problems in connection with various types of welfare-state arrangements, this paper emphasizes what may be called "dynamic" issues, i.e., incentive effects that evolve over time. These also include endogenous changes in social norms among individuals and endogenous adjustments in political behavior. This approach also makes it necessary to broaden the analysis to fields outside conventionally defined "economic analysis".

In developed countries, pensions systems emerged as a political response to socioeconomic changes brought about by industrialization and urbanization in the late 19th and early 20th centruries. Today, new socioeconomic changes create both rationales and political forces for revisions of existing pensions systems. Changes in demography, real wage growth and real interest rates are perhaps the most obvious examples. Increased instability of the family, more heterogeneity among individuals, greater internationel mobility of labor and capital, and amibitions to ecourage individual responsibility also have important implications for pensions systems.

When discussing these issues, it is useful to set up a more elaborate classification of pension systems than the usual distinction between defined-benefit (DB) and defined-contribution (DV) systems. The choice of an appropriate taxonomy depends, of course, on the issues to be raised. One question that is focused on in this paper concerns the consequences of socioeconomic shocks on the distribution of income and the sharing of income risk among generations. it turns out that the distinction between pensions systems with exogenous and endogenous contribution rates (tax rates) then becomes crucial. Bu the paper also deals with socioeconomic changes that are induced by the pension system itself via behavioral adjustments of individuals - and the feedback of these changes on the pension system. When dealing with such adjustments, highly relevant features of pension systems are the degree to which they are actuarial and funded, respectively - two aspects that are related but not the identical.

Six generic pension systems are classified in Section I, highlighting the distinctions mentioned above. The contribution rate is exogenous in two of these systems, while it is endogenous in the other four systems. Each of the six pension systems can ba varied considerably, both by incorporating elements from other systems and by introducing restricitions on contributions or benefits. Section II turns to the consequences of socioeconomic changes for the distribution of income and macroeconomic balance, while sections III and IV examine alternative pension reforms aimed at mitigating some of these consequences. A few of these reforms are "marginal" in the sense that certain rules of a pension system are modified, including both ad hoc policy measures and the introduction of various automatic adjustment mechanisms. Other reforms are "radical" since they imply shift to different types of pensions sytems. Section V concludes.

As always when designing social insurance systems, it is necessary to strika balance between conflicting considerations, such as distribution, risk sharing and incentives. But it is also important to be concerned with the balance between paternalism and individual freedom of choice (and hence individual responsibility). This also raises the more general question of the appropriate role of government in society as a whole, including the control of capital markets and government intervention in the management of firms.

It is useful to distinguish between exogenous and endogenous factors behind contemporary and expected future problems for the welfare state. This paper tries to identify major problems of both types and to indicate alternative reform possibilities to deal with them. At the same time as several governments struggle with such reforms, new demands on the welfare state emerge. Although the basic structure of today’s welfare-state arrangements certainly can be kept, the reforms required are sufficiently large to create considerable conflicts across interest groups.

During the first part of this century life-cycle and insurance-type considerations seem to have dominated redistribution policy, in particular when we look at the consequences for the expansion of public spending. By contrast, during recent decades, "fragmented horizontal redistributions" between various minority groups have probably been the most important mechanism. The self-interest of different groups of the electorate seems to have provided the most powerful motive behind these various policies, though welfare altruism and what in this paper is called considerations of "consequential externalities" have probably been important motives behind redistribution in favor of the poor.

This paper analyses the "chain" of transmission mechanisms of economic policy actions to financial markets, output and employment and, finally, unemployment -- in an attempt to identify "remaining puzzles" and "neglected issues" in macroeconomics. The paper emphasizes the consequences of fiscal and monetary policy actions on real variables, including real interest rates and real exchange rates. An attempt is made to explain why product demand shocks often tend to have faster effects on output and employment than on prices. The paper also discusses why demand-induced increases in output and employment are not systematically connected with a "reduction" in the product wage rate. The paper ends with a discussion of various supply-side considerations in macroeconomics.

Conference at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, Bald Peak, September 9-11, 1973.

The purpose of this paper is to try to reach some conclusions about the possibilities of a successful stabilization policy in an open high-employment eceonomy by drawing on the expereinces from one particular country, namely Sweden. An attempt is made to concentrate on aspects and experiences of a general theoretical interest rather than trying to report in detail on specific Swedish problems.

We shall mainly study two basic prerequisites for a successful stbilization policy: (1) adequate scope and timing of policy action, and (2) ability to solve conflicts of goals. the paper will be organized around these two issues.

The paper discusses a number of threats to the financial sustainability of social spending: increased internationalization of national economies, gradually higher relative costs of producing a number of human services, the ”graying” of the population, slower productivity growth in the private sector, low employment rates, and various types of disincentive effects related to the welfare state itself, including services and disincentive effects of welfare-state arrangements, in particular moral hazard and benefit dependency, are more difficult to deal with than the other threats. I also discuss the choice between ad hoc policy reforms and automatic adjustment mechanisms, delegated to administrative bodies, for dealing with these threats.

When reforming their own countries, several observers, ideologues and politicians in former socialist countries have pointedf to Sweden as a blueprint. It is then believed that Sweden, or the "Swedish model", has combined the efficiency, dynamism and flexibility of capitalist market economies with the economic security and egalitarianism so highly evaluated by many social liberals and socialists. An analysis of the Swedish experience, and its relevance for former socialist countries, may therefore be of rather general interest.

When addressing this issue, it is important to realize that basic features of the economic and social system in Sweden have changed considerably over time. Though attempts to divide history into periods are hazardous, in this paper I partition modern economic and social history in Sweden into three periods. The first is the century-long time span from about 1870 to 1970, which may be called "the period of decentralization and small government". During this period, the economic system in Sweden did not differ much from those in other countries in Western Europe, although Sweden was probably one of the least regulated economies in this part of the world. The second period, from 1970 to 1985/90, may be characterized as a "period of centralizaion and large government". In this time span, Sweden acquired idiosyncratic features, though still within the framework of a capitalist market economy. The third period, from 1985/90 onwards, may be regarded as a "period of transition" due to deregulation of markets for capital and foreign exchange, intensified importance of private saving and private supply of capital, comprehensive tax reforms (with lower rates, a broader base and fewer asymmetries), a shift of the macroeconomic policy regime towards greater emphasis on price stability, a stricter budget process in the public sector, as well as some (modest) attempts to reform and rewind various welfare-state arrangements.

The paper deals mainly with the last two periods. By way of introduction, I will make a few comments on the first, century-long period, as it was largely then that the foundation of today's affluence in Sweden was established. Some of the experience from this period is also highly relevant for post-socialist countries.

Developing countries, in particular the least developed ones, probably have more to learn from special policies in Europe during the early 20^th century than from the elaborate welfare-state arrangements after World War II. In addition to macroeconomic growth and stability, the main ambitions must be to fight human deprivation, including illiteracy, malnutrition, poor access to water and sanitation – and, in some cases, also weak, incompetent and/or corrupt governments. It is also important that informal systems in the fields of transfers and social services are not destroyed when developing countries embark on more formal systems in these fields in the future. The European experience also warns against the creation of social systems that are so generous that disincentives, moral hazard and receding social norms seriously distort the national economy, including the labor market.

Three lectures at the Candido Mendes University, Rio de Janeiro, March 1973.

In conjunction with its tercentenary celebration in 1968, Sveriges Riksbank (Bank of Sweden) instituted a new award, "The Central Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel" in the basis of an economic commitment by the bank in perpetuity. The award is given by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences according to the same principles as for the Nobel Prizes that have been awarded since 1901.

The procedures for selecting the laureates are also the same. Each year the Academy receives some 250 nominations, usually covering a little more than one hundred nominees. (Unsolicited suggestions from persons who have not been asked to submit nominations are not considered.) The Economics Prize Selection Commitee of the Academy (with five to eight members) commissions expert studies of the most prominent candidates, sometimes by Swedish experts but usually by foreigners. The prize committee presents its report, with an extensive survey of the main candidates that are considered for a prize. The report motivates the proposal and includes all the solicited expert studies. Finally the entire Academy meets to take the final award decision, usually in October.

Which critera have guided the awarts so far? And what have been the main problems when selcting the laureates?

It is useful to start a discussion of these issues with a rough classification of the various types of economics prize awards given so far. It should be kept in mind, however, that all such classifications are rather arbitrary since the multidimensional nature of scientific contributions makes it difficult in avoid overlap.

Social security, provision of public sector services, job security legislation, minimum wages and centrally regulated (bargained) relative wages are important elements of the modern welfare state -- each designed, often quite successfully, to enhance economic security and to redistribute income. The consequences of these policies for the unemployment issue are the topic of this paper.

Structural unemployment differs from cyclical unemployment by not disappearing in cyclical booms. In economic theory, structural unemployment is usually analyzed in terms of the concept of equilibrium unemployment (the "natural unemployment rate" in Friedman's terminology). Two elaborate concepts of equilibrium unemployment - the non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment (the NAIRU) and the unemployment rate that induces firms and workers to accept the same real wage (the PS-WS-model) are used as analytical framework for the paper. These models are also related to search models of the labor market, in which unemployment equilibrium is defined as a situation where the number of individuals finding jobs equal the number of individuals who are separated from jobs. But it is argued in the paper that it is reasonable to widen the concept of structural unemployment to also include unemployment persistence, that is, a tendency for unemployment to continue to be high for quite a while also after temporary unemployment-creating shocks. The paper pinpoints various factors that influence the level of structural unemployment, which differs in time and place. It ends with a discussion of how structural unemployment is influenced by policy actions.

This paper deals with the role of various types of labor market imperfections for employment and unemployment. On the demand side for labor, the paper analyzes the consequences of labor turnover costs for wage formation and employment, showing that such costs may generate persistent unemployment due to the market powers which they create for incumbent workers ("insiders"). On the labor supply side, the paper emphasizes the role of alternative types of unemployment benefit systems. There is also a discussion of various imperfections of the interaction between demand and supply labor, resulting in relative wage distortions and mismatches between demand and supply for labor.

It is assumed in this paper that habits and social norms, in particular when adhered to by many, constrain the influence of changes in economic incentives on aggregate economic behavior, but that these constraints themselves may subsequently be influenced by the very same incentives. The paper is confined to disincentive effects of welfare state policies in work, saving, asset choice and entrepeneurship. Though the existence of various constraints on economic behavior usually means that changes in economic incentives influence aggregate behavior only gradually, it is argued that major shocks may drastically speed up the process.

This paper summarises an official report to the Swedish government (and general public). The economic crisis in Sweden is explained by both system failures and specific policy mistakes. The system failures include distorted incentives and markets, and inappropriate and outdated institutions. The deep recession and extraordinary rise in unemployment started as a collision between inflationary wage development and attempts to pursue a hard-currency policy. The resulting loss of international competitiveness in the tradable sector was accompanied by increased real interest rates, collapsing real estate prices and a related financial crisis.

Following the floating of the Swedish krona in November 1992, the main problem became a domestic demand collapse, which has been accentuated by a spectacular rise in the household saving rate. The report emphasizes that good policy advice is not enough; it is also necessary to analyse and reform not only to macroeconomic stability but also economic efficiency and growth. The proposed institutional reforms are designed to restore a highly competitive market system and to facilitate a responsible fiscal stabilisation programme. This would also enahnce the medium-run credibility for government policies and provide scope for a more expansionary policy in the short run.

We study the consequences for employment and the production of tradable goods and nontradable services of tax-finances increases in public transfer payments and public consumption. While employment and the production of services usually fall, the consequences for unemployment and the welfare of employed and unemployed workers are less clear. Of particular importance is the rate by which marginal productivity changes in the household production sector and the market sector, as well as the efficiency of government production. In addition, the effects on the ex-post government budget balance and the current account of the balance of payments are also examined.

We analyze motivations for, and possible alternatives to, the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP). With regard to the former, we identify domestic policy failures and various cross-country spillover effects; with regard to the latter, we contrast an “economic-theory” perspective on optimal corrective measures with the “legalistic” perspective adopted in the SGP. We discuss the advantages of replacing the Pact’s rigid rules backed by fines with corrective taxes (as far as spillover effects are concerned) and procedural rules and limited delegation of fiscal powers (as far as domestic policy failures are concerned). This would not only enhance the efficiency of the Pact, but also render it easier to enforce.

Children who can count on support from altruistic parents may not try hard to succeed in the labor market. Moreover, parental altruism makes withdrawal of such support non-credible. To promote work effort, parents may want to instill norms which later cause their children to experience guilt or shame associated with failure to support themselves. While social insurance pools risk across families, we show that it also creates a free-rider problem among parents in terms of norm formation. We also examine the formation of norms requiring children to support their parents financially in old age.

We analyze the consequences for sickness absence of a selective softening of job security legislation for small firms in Sweden in 2001. According to our differences-in-difference estimates, aggregate absence in these firms fell by 0.2-0.3 days per year. This aggregate net figure hides important effects on different groups of employees. Workers remaining in the reform firms after the reform reduced their absence by about one day. People with a high absence record tended to leave reform firms, but these firms also became less reluctant to hire people with a record of high absence.

We develop a simple yet realistic model of income insurance, where the individual’s ability and willingness to work is treated as a continuous variable. In this framework, income insurance not only provides income smoothing, it also relieves the individual from particularly burdensome work. As a result, the individual adjusts his labor supply in a continuous fashion to the implicit tax wedge of the insurance system. Moral hazard, in the sense that an individual receives insurance benefits without actually being fully qualified, also becomes a matter of degree. Moreover, our continuous framework makes it easy to analyze both the role of administrative rejection of claims, and the role of social norms, for the utilization of insurance.

In this paper we treat an individual’s health as a continuous variable, in contrast to the traditional literature on income insurance, where it is regularly treated as a binary variable. This is not a minor technical matter; in fact, a continuous treatment of an individual’s health sheds new light on the role and functioning of income insurance and makes it possible to capture a number of real-world phenomena that are not easily captured in binary models. In particular, moral hazard is not regarded as outright fraud, but as a gradual adjustment of the willingness to go to work when income insurance is available. Further, the model can easily encompass phenomena such as administrative rejection of claims and the role of social norms. It also gives a rich view of the desirability of insurance in the first place.

A large literature on ex ante moral hazard in income insurance emphasizes that the individual can affect the probability of an income loss by choice of lifestyle and hence, the degree of risk-taking. The much smaller literature on moral hazard ex post mainly analyzes how a “moral hazard constraint” can make the individual abstain from fraud (“mimicking”). The present paper instead presents a model of moral hazard ex post without a moral hazard constraint; the individual's ability and willingness to work is represented by a continuous stochastic variable in the utility function, and the extent of moral hazard depends on the generosity of the insurance system. Our model is also well suited for analyzing social norms concerning work and benefit dependency.

We classify social security pension systems in three dimensions: actuarial versus non-actuarial, funded versus unfunded, and defined-benefit versus defined contribution systems. Recent pension reforms are discussed in terms of these dimensions. Shifting to a more actuarial system reduces labor-market distortions, although limiting the scope for redistribution. Shifting to a funded system may increase saving, redistribute income to future generations and distort contermporary labor supply. A partial shift to a funded system helps individuals diversify their pension assets. A shift from a defined-benefit to a defined-contribution system means that income risk will be shifted from workers to pensioners.