Suchergebnisse

This article estimates the causal effect of residential concentration of co-ethnics (ethnic enclaves) on the probability to start a business among refugees in Sweden. Results indicate that the share of self-employed co-ethnics in the port of entry municipality increases refugees' probability of entry into self-employment, while the actual share of local co-ethnics has no effect or, in some cases, a negative effect. The results support the conclusion that skills and resources within the local ethnic enclave, particularly skills relevant for self-employment, are crucial for generating new entry into self-employment for refugees, while simply more co-ethnics, plausibly increasing an ethnic market's size, are of less importance. Moreover, the results suggest that being placed with a larger share of self-employed co-ethnics is negatively related to refugees' long-term disposable income; however, assuming there is no or little selection of high-ability refugees into self-employment, this negative relationship can be counteracted by the choice of self-employment. The study adds new knowledge on the arguably crucial topic of socio-economic integration of an important group of international migrants — namely, refugees.

Although benefit-cost analysis (BCA) can be traced back to European thinkers, its first practical applications were in the United States. Recent years have witnessed a growing demand for economic appraisals of policies in different sectors in Europe, but the implementation rate is still low compared to that in the United States. This article introduces a symposium that includes four articles that present current examples of how BCA is being applied in different sectors and in different institutional settings in Europe. They deal with environmental valuation in the United Kingdom, economic analysis for investment in Sweden's transport sector, economic versus financial returns in European Union investment project appraisal, and BCA in EU chemicals legislation. The goal is to stimulate continuing discussion on the implementation of BCA, not only in Europe but also worldwide.

This study examines individuals' perception of their own road‐mortality risk using a Swedish data set. Individuals' subjective beliefs about their personal risk are compared with the objective risk of his/her own age and gender group, which in this study is defined as the respondents' objective risk. Both descriptive statistics and regression results suggest that low‐ and high‐risk groups over‐ and underassess their risk levels, respectively. Having access to individual‐level data we also find that the probability of underassessment and the size of risk bias is related to individual characteristics, for example, gender. Individuals' formation of risk perception is also analyzed based on the Bayesian learning model. Even though we find a positive relationship between perceived and objective risk, we cannot reject the hypothesis that individuals are not Bayesian in updating their risk beliefs.

"Incommensurability is the impossibility to determine how two options relate to each other in terms of conventional comparative relations. This book features new research on incommensurability from philosophers who have shaped the field into what it is today, including John Broome, Ruth Chang and Wlodek Rabinowicz. The book covers four aspects relating to incommensurability. In the first part, the contributors synthesize research on the competing views of how to best explain incommensurability. Part II illustrates how incommensurability can help us deal with seemingly insurmountable problems in ethical theory and population ethics. The contributors address the Repugnant Conclusion, the Mere Addition Paradox and so-called Spectrum Arguments. The chapters in Part III outline and summarize problems caused by incommensurability for decision theory. Finally, Part IV tackles topics related to risk, uncertainty and incommensurability. Value Incommensurability: Ethics, Risk, and Decision-Making will be of interest to researchers and advanced students working in ethical theory, decision theory, action theory, and philosophy of economics"--

Introduction Henrik Andersson and Anders HerlitzPart I: Accounts of Incommensurability1. Incommensurability is Vagueness John Broome2. Hard Cases Are Not Vague CasesRuth Chang3. Parity without Imprecise EqualityChrisoula AndreouPart II: Incommensurability and Ethical Theory4. On ⁰́₈Incommensurability⁰́₉, ⁰́₈Discontinuity⁰́₉ and the Repugnant Conclusion: ⁰́₈Imprecise Equality⁰́₉ or Vagueness? Mozaffar Qizilbash5. Spectrum Arguments, Indeterminacy, and Value Superiority Henrik Andersson6. Incommensurability and Vagueness in Population Axiology Gustaf ArrheniusPart III: Incommensurability and Decision Theory7. Nondeterminacy and Reasonable Choice Anders Herlitz8. Cross-Categorical Value Comparisons Krister Bykvist9. What does Incommensurability Tell us about Agency? Luke ElsonPart IV: Incommensurability, Risk and Uncertainty10. Incommensurability Meets Risk Wlodek Rabinowicz11. Incommensurability that can(not) safely be ignored Katie Steele12. Hard Choices Made Harder Ryan Doody

Incommensurability is the impossibility to determine how two options relate to each other in terms of conventional comparative relations. This book features new research on incommensurability from philosophers who have shaped the field into what it is today, including John Broome, Ruth Chang and Wlodek Rabinowicz. The book covers four aspects relating to incommensurability. In the first part, the contributors synthesize research on the competing views of how to best explain incommensurability. Part II illustrates how incommensurability can help us deal with seemingly insurmountable problems in ethical theory and population ethics. The contributors address the Repugnant Conclusion, the Mere Addition Paradox and so-called Spectrum Arguments. The chapters in Part III outline and summarize problems caused by incommensurability for decision theory. Finally, Part IV tackles topics related to risk, uncertainty and incommensurability. Value Incommensurability: Ethics, Risk, and Decision-Making will be of interest to researchers and advanced students working in ethical theory, decision theory, action theory, and philosophy of economics.

AbstractHow should one understand comparisons in which neither of two alternatives is at least as good as the other? Much recent literature on comparability problems focuses on what the appropriate explanation of the phenomenon is. Is it due to vagueness or the possibility of non-conventional comparative relations such as parity? This paper argues that the discussions on how to best explain comparability problems has reached an impasse at which it is hard to make any progress. To advance the discussion we suggest a new classification of comparability problems that focuses on the problems they cause for practical reasoning.

In order to mitigate negative effects from traffic it has been decided that infrastructure charges in the European Union (EU) should be based on short run marginal costs. The Swedish Parliament has legislated that operators in the Swedish railway infrastructure must pay charges based on short run marginal social costs in order to mitigate externalities in railway infrastructure. Internalization of the social cost of noise is of particular interest, since it is the only environmental problem perceived as more troublesome today than in the early 1990s. Inclusion of a noise component in rail infrastructure charges raises two issues: (i) the monetary evaluation of noise abatement, since noise is a non-market good, and (ii) the estimation of the effect on the noise level that one extra train will create. Regarding the latter, we are interested in the marginal noise, since infrastructure charges based on the short-run marginal cost principle should be based on the effect from the marginal train, not the noise level itself. Using already existing knowledge, this study shows that it is possible to implement a noise component in the rail infrastructure charges. The values that are used today to estimate the social cost of noise exposure in cost benefit analysis can also be used to calculate the marginal cost. We recommend, however, that further research be carried out in order to get more robust estimates based on railway traffic. We also show that the existing noise estimation models can easily be modified to estimate the marginal noise. Noise infrastructure charges give the operators incentives to reduce their noise emissions. We believe that this kind of charge can be used to reduce overall emission levels to an optimal social level, but that it is important for the charge to be based on monetary estimates for rail-traffic and not road-traffic.

In order to mitigate the negative effects of transportation and to achieve a competitive transport sector, infrastructure charges in the European Union shall be based on short-run marginal costs. This paper shows that railway-noise charges can be estimated using already obtained knowledge of monetary and acoustical noise evaluation. Most European countries have standardised calculation methods for total noise level, which can be used to estimate the marginal acoustical effect. Based on a Swedish case study (with a relatively high number of exposed individuals), railway-noise charges are estimated at 0.026, 0.099 and 0.89 e/km for commuter, high-speed and freight trains, respectively.