Sweden has a long tradition of labour market policies explicitly targeting job seekers with disabilities, ranging from in-work aids to subsidized employments, aiming at strengthening their position at the labour market. To ascertain that these programs are limited to the needy they are...

The scope of public human resource policy is outlined. Motivation for the need of transparency in this policy is provided in terms of informational asymmetries, human capital externalities, and long planning horizons. Transparency is defined both along a time dimension - ex ante and ex post -...

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the optimal scale of local jurisdictions (cantons) in Switzerland applying Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to the years 2000 to 2004. Aggregate output performance indicators for four local government activities (administration, education, health, and...

Research rankings based on publications and citations today dominate governance of academia. Yet they have unintended side effects on individual scholars and academic institutions and can be counterproductive. They induce a substitution of the taste for science by a taste for publication. We...

This article examines expert knowledge utilization in public policy processes. We study how much expert knowledge is employed and the extent to which decision-makers deliberate on the information provided by the experts, under various conditions of political disputes and public attention. We...

Results in behavioral economics suggest that material incentives can crowd out effort, if agents are mission-oriented rather than self-interested. We test this prediction on a sample of nonprofit organizations in Sweden. Swedish nonprofit organizations receive tax funds annually to promote...

In their role as agenda setters and implementers of political decisions, bureaucrats potentially have the power to influence decisions in their own favor. It is however difficult to empirically test whether bureaucrats actually are involved in such actions. In this paper we suggest and apply a...

Youth not in employment, education or training (NEET) is a heterogeneous group in which many run the risk of long-term exclusion from the labor market and from society. Numerous national and international policy initiatives targeting NEETs have therefore been launched, often involving the...

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the efficiency of the 26 Swiss cantons over the period 2000 to 2004 applying Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). A Total Public Sector Performance (TPSP) indicator for eight local government activities (administration, public safety, education, culture and...

The process by which scholarly papers are selected for publication in a journal is faced with serious problems. The referees rarely agree and often are biased. This paper discusses two alternative measures to evaluate scholars. The first alternative suggests input control. The second one...