Anders Sørensen

R&D, public innovation policy, and productivity: The case of danish manufacturing

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between private R&D, public innovation support transferred to the private sector, and productivity in Danish manufacturing. Two main conclusions are established. First, public innovation support has a positive and significant effect on private R&D expenditures with an estimated elasticity of 0.062. Second, the indirect effect on productivity from public innovation support is reflected in a positive point estimate which is found to be robust to different specifications of R&D capital.

Productivity Measurement in Manufacturing and the Expenditure Approach

This paper studies conversion factors based on the expenditure approach and evaluates the appropriateness for international comparisons of output levels in manufacturing. We apply a consistency check based on the insight that relative productivity levels should be invariant to the choice of base year. Consequently, convergence parameters and dispersion of productivity across countries should also be unaffected by this choice. The results are disappointing: relative measures of productivity depend heavily of the choice of base year and change systematically as the base years roll forward. The conclusion is insensitive to the applied method for developing conversion factors. The implication is that we cannot measure relative productivity levels in manufacturing across countries using the expenditure approach.

R&D, Learning, and Phases of Economic Growth

The role of learning and R&D in economic development is addressed in an endogenous growth model. When human capital is below a threshold level, the model predicts that skills are accumulated as the only growth-generating activity, whereas both innovation activities and learning drive growth above this level. Hence, an endogenous regime shift is triggered when the level of human capital reaches the threshold level because it becomes profitable to innovate.

Measuring Educational Heterogeneity And Labor Quality: A Note

This paper investigates the magnitude of the mismeasurement that occurs when only a few education categories are used in the construction of a constant quality index for labor input. By employing a very comprehensive data set it is found that the error resulting from the omission of information on education is relatively small. The empirical results are thus supportive of the current state of practice of constructing indices of constant quality labor input.

Policy Rules for Exploitation of Renewable Resources: A Macroeconomic Perspective

A fundamental problem for an economy based on a common property resource is the absence of a market to trade the resource. This implies that private costs will be below social costs. This paper investigates possible government interventions that correct for such distortions in a neoclassical growth model with a production externality in harvesting. The model predicts that the welfare of the representative household increases considerably when a Piguovian tax is implemented. The policy that replicates the command optimum is highly complex and changes over time. On the other hand, a large share of the maximum welfare increase is internalized by introducing a constant quantity tax, suggesting that the potential of such policies is high.

Monetary romanticism: nationalist rhetoric and monetary organisation in nineteenth-century Denmark

Recurring debates on the common European currency illustrate that monetary organisation and issues of national identity and community are closely interlinked. National sentiments and ideas about the nation continuously inform public attitudes towards currencies. This article addresses the interrelation between monetary organisation and nationalism. In the conflict between the Danish state and the Duchies of Schleswig-Holstein in the nineteenth century, banks and currencies were mobilised as political symbols to promote an agenda of regional nationalism. The local Schleswig-Holstein currency and the local Schleswig-Holsteinische Landesbank became symbolic antagonists to the Danish central bank and to the official state-sanctioned currency – which by Danish policy-makers were considered key elements in the attempt to consolidate the Danish state and curtail Hamburgs economic influence. The analysis highlights the symbolic qualities of monetary institutions and points to the entwinement of economic motivations and nationalist ideology that consequently affected the possibilities for Danish monetary organisation and nation-building; it thus contributes to our understanding of currencies and banks as nation-building tools and symbols of national community.

R&D Subsidies and the Surplus Appropriability Problem

It may be optimal from a welfare perspective to use R&D subsidies when the source of R&D distortions originates from the surplus appropriability problem and technological spillovers in the form of knowledge spillovers, creative destruction, and duplication externalities are absent. Hence, R&D subsidies may constitute the welfare maximizing policy even when subsidies directly targeted on monopoly pricing could be applied. The result holds when dynamic gains are important relative to static gains and when government spending is restricted, i.e., below the required effort for correcting completely for market failures. The argument is developed in a semi-endogenous growth model where the only distortion is monopoly pricing of intermediate goods.

Job creation and job types – New evidence from Danish entrepreneurs

We extend earlier analyses of the job creation of start-ups versus established firms by considering the educational content of the jobs created and destroyed. We define education-specific measures of job creation and job destruction at the firm level, and we use these measures to construct a measure of “surplus job creation”, defined as jobs created on top of any simultaneous destruction of similar jobs in incumbent firms in the same region and industry. Using Danish employer-employee data from 2002–2007 that identify the start-ups and that cover almost the entire private sector, these measures allow us to provide a more nuanced assessment of the role of entrepreneurial firms in the job-creation process than in previous studies. Our findings show that although start-ups are responsible for the entire overall net job creation, incumbents account for more than one-third of net job creation within high-skilled jobs. Moreover, start-ups “only” create approximately half of the surplus jobs and even less of the high-skilled surplus jobs. Finally, our approach allows us to characterise and identify differences across industries, educational groups and regions.

Costing Adult Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: Impact on the Individual and Society

The rapid increase in recent years in the number of children and adults accessing care for ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), raises a number of questions. It is unclear whether the increase is due to an increased public and professional recognition and awareness of ADHD as a debilitating human condition or to an actual increase in the incidence of individuals suffering from ADHD. Depending on the reasons behind the increased burden on services, and whether more effective treatments can be found, the future costs to society could be enormous. The study presented in this book estimates the private and social costs of ADHD. The key focus of this book is to study the costs related to individuals with ADHD who have not been diagnosed and who have not received treatment. In this respect, the study makes a unique contribution to scientific knowledge by investigating the cost of untreated ADHD. The study investigates the extent to which individuals with undiagnosed ADHD in childhood fare differently compared to otherwise similar individuals without ADHD. A long list of important parameters in an individuals life, e.g. educational attainment, occupational status, income, family situation, criminal record, health is examined. The results of the study provide not just cost estimates of ADHD; per se, but also create a point of reference which will be highly relevant for the evaluation of any future treatment for ADHD. The clear picture emerging from this study is that ADHD is associated with considerable private and social costs, reflecting that Adults with ADHD exhibit weak performance across all applied measures. These findings remain even when adults with ADHD are compared to a control group of their own siblings Even though the study is performed for Denmark it is argued that generalizability of the established results beyond Denmark is valid. Contributors to this volume - Torben Tranaes Anders Sorensen

The Danish euro: constructing a monetary oxymoron in the Danish euro debate

In this article, I analyse the political debate leading up to the Danish euro referendum in 2000. I show how the euro-positive government unintentionally reinforced the arguments of the euro-sceptics by framing the euro as something belonging to the nation-state. I argue that this paradoxical campaign strategy stems from the Danish conceptualisation of nation and state and from the close connection between national currencies and feelings of community and citizenship more general. The analysis confirms the suggestion made by Gilbert that new monetary organisation, such as European Monetary Union, potentially reconfigures the feelings of belonging, popular sovereignty and social welfare rights.