Using Danish data for the post-World War II-period, we estimate a simple model for the long-run behavior of stock prices. We find a stable and strong cointegrating relation between stock prices and two macroeconomic "fundamentals" variables, firm profits and the nominal bond rate. Both...

Availability of (partial) insurance mechanisms is arguably important for the decision of (riskaverse) workers to start up a risky entrepreneurial venture. Using administrative data from Denmark, where unemployment insurance (UI) is available to both wage earners and self-employed on a voluntary...

A Danish tax reform, decided in May 2009 and taking effect from the beginning of 2010, lowered the marginal tax rate on top bracket taxable income from 63% to 56%. Because contributions to pension accounts are tax deductible, the reform provided an incentive to increase pension contributions...

Do people end up in financial trouble simply because of adverse shocks to income and wealth, or is financial trouble related to persistent differences in financial attitudes and behavior that may be transmitted from generation to generation? We address this question using a new administrative...

The basic trade union model is extended to allow for a more sophisticated unemployment benefit system consisting of two benefit levels, one for short-term and one for long-term unemployed, and a rule determining whether an unemployed is short- or long-term. The purpose of this extension is...

This paper explores the effect of political accountability on the size of the public sector in a principal-agent model of democratic government. Political accountability is the degree to which the electorate can control politicians through elections, and emphasis is put on the roles of...

Concentrated ownership of large listed companies is widespread throughout the world, and Germany is typical in this respect. This paper proposes a method of distinguishing empirically between the beneficial and harmful effects of ownership concentration, and applies it to German data. The...

This paper examines the implications for the Nordic Countries (Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden) of participating in the finan stage of the European Monetary Union. Economic linkages with Germany are estimated using a time series approach under both the Bretton Woods and the post-Bretton...