Recent debates have suggested that taxation is very detrimental to labour force participation and employment. However, some countries - notably the Scandinavian - stand out as contradictions to this view since they have managed to sustain high labour force participation rate despite high tax...

The dual income tax combines a progressive tax schedule for labour income with a low flat tax rate on capital income and corporate income. This paper restates the case for the dual income tax and discusses alternative methods of taxing business income under such a tax system, paying special...

The paper probes four cases on city twinning, all located in Northern Europe. In doing so, it also discusses the dynamics and future of twinning in a broader, more principal as well as critical perspective. It is noted that although the legacies tend to pertain to the existence of rather...

This paper shows that cross country differences in the generosity and the quality of the welfare state are associated with differences in the trustworthiness of their citizens. We show that generous, transparent and efficient welfare states in Scandinavian countries are based on the civicness of...

In diesem Papier werden die 1990 begonnenen Maßnahmen zur Liberalisierung und Re- Regulierung der Elektrizitätswirtschaft in Norwegen, Schweden und Finnland skizziert. Dabei wird insbesondere der Frage nachgegangen, inwieweit im Bereich des Stromhandels durch die Reformen eine wettbewerbliche...

This paper examines the role of unobserved ability in explaining inter-industry wage differentials, drawing on data on brothers. Such data allow us to account for unmeasured abilities due to common family and community factors shared by siblings. Important advantages of this approach are that we...

The correlation in economic status among siblings is a useful ?omnibus measure? of the overall impact of family and community factors on adult economic status. In this study we compare brother correlations in long-run (permanent) earnings between the United States, on one hand, and the Nordic...

Can African countries learn from the development experiences of other regions? Or are the continent’s development challenges unique? This paper looks at the development experience of the Nordic countries, especially Sweden, from the nineteenth century and discusses the extent to which the...