Johan Blomquist

A Non-Stationary Panel Data Investigation of the Unemployment–Crime Relationship

Many empirical studies of the economics of crime focus solely on the determinants thereof, and do not consider the dynamic and cross-sectional properties of their data. As a response to this, the current paper offers an in-depth analysis of this issue using data covering 21 Swedish counties from 1975 to 2010. The results suggest that the crimes considered are non-stationary, and that this cannot be attributed to county-specific disparities alone, but that there are also a small number of common stochastic trends to which groups of counties tend to revert. In an attempt to explain these common stochastic trends, we look for a long-run cointegrated relationship between unemployment and crime. Overall, the results do not support cointegration, and suggest that previous findings of a significant unemployment-crime relationship might be spurious.

Time for Fishing: Bargaining Power in the Swedish Baltic Cod Fishery

ABSTRACT Fishery regulations might not only affect the fleet, but also the relation between fisheries and downstream sectors on the ex-vessel market for fish products. This article estimates the price effects of management reform in the Swedish Baltic Sea cod fishery. In April 2011, as part of a reform process aimed at giving fishers more flexibility, vessels using active gear were given annual non-transferable catch quotas. We examine whether the new management system has altered the bargaining power between fishers and processors in the ex-vessel market for fish. Using a difference-in-differences estimation approach we find that postreform fishers improve their bargaining power and thus are paid a higher price. However, the price increase is small, amounting to around 2% of the pre-reform price. JEL Codes: D47, Q21, Q22.

PANIC in the Presence of Uncertainty about the Deterministic Trend

Most macroeconomic and financial panel variables are trending. However, because of the well-known power problem in the presence of incidental trends, many researchers gamble that their unit root test regressions can be ran without such trends, thereby running the risk of obtaining spurious results. This article takes one of the most general and popular panel unit root tests, known as PANIC, and shows how it can be modified to account for the uncertainty regarding the deterministic trend.