Actively managed Swedish equity mutual funds outperform the market in 1993-2001 but have negative gross and net excess returns of -0.18 and -1.47 per cent per year in 2002-2013. Across funds, there is no correlation between activism and return in the later period. Returns show little or no...

This paper examines whether policymakers, economists at the Israeli Finance Ministry, act in their personal pension decisions in accordance with the rational behaviour assumptions underlying the pension policies they advance. We find that while economists' decisions regarding three other...

We study the effects of a unique lending program initiated by the Swedish government at the height of the financial crisis that allowed firms to suspend payment of all labor-related taxes and fees. Comprehensive administrative data on all Swedish firms show that firms borrowing from the program...

The emergence of so-called "decentralised finance" (DeFi) and a shadow financial system of cryptocurrency exchanges and stablecoin issuers raises the challenge of how to apply technology-neutral regulation so that similar risks are subject to the same rules. This paper makes the case for...

Acknowledging the potential detrimental impact that twin-deficits may have on sovereign risk, this study uses a two-step approach to assess the impact of fiscal and external sustainability on sovereign risk dynamics for a panel of 27 European Economies between 2001Q4 and 2022Q3. To do so, we...

This paper develops a novel theory of capital mis-allocation within firms that stems from managers' empire building and informational frictions within the organization. Introducing an internal capital market into a two-factor model of multi-segment firms, we show that international competition...

Almost two thirds of the cross-plant dispersion in marginal revenue products of capital occurs across plants within the same firm rather than between firms. Even though firms allocate invest- ment very differently across their plants, they do not equalize marginal revenue products across their...

This paper studies the impact of a financial transactions tax on a financial market where financial institutions trade with each other. Assets are marked to the market and financial institutions with negative equity are forced out of business. There are two main results: First, if all banks have...

Producers or consumers faced with an increase in taxes are usually able to shift parts of it to other levels in the value chain. We examine who is actually bearing the burden of increased energy taxes in the EU-area - consumers or exporters. Traditional tax incidence theory presumes spot...

Auctions of government bonds are the main allotment method used by the Treasury of advanced economies. Previous research has found that auctions have an influence on the market yield days before they take place, and underpricing is usually spotted when their outcome is compared with...