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The Green Corridor (GC) initiative, pursued by the Swedish government and the European Commission, is intended to be a platform for innovation for long-distance freight transport aiming for more green and efficient solutions by enhanced use of economies of scale and development of new technologies. However, scale has to be traded off by two other aspects (i) freight transport time and reliability; and (ii) economies of scope. In this paper we present an already existing rail corridor case that highlights the need for tools (and/or markets) for making more efficient tradeoffs between economies of scale and scope in long-distance freight transport. This involves making very complex coordination of shipments that are differentiated with respect to origins-destinations, shipment size, time, time reliability requirements, regularity of shipments and involving both ex ante transport planning and real-time control. A market-based method that in principle could be used to solve such complex coordination is combinatorial auctioning and we briefly review a number of Swedish public tendering cases where this is done in practice. However, this raises questions on whether a fragmented vertically separated European rail industry can mobilize the "soft" market infrastructure needed to support a Green Corridor.

Long-term investments in individual and social human capital such as preschool, school, family support, early-intervention for youth at risk and other programmes that are part of the welfare services provided by local government in Sweden are generally managed with one-year-ahead budget planning. In the light of criticism that the resulting resource alloca- tion is biased due to short-sightedness, silo mentality and risk aversion, in recent years more than a fifth of Swedish municipalities have established "social investment funds" for pro- moting investment and innovation views on such measures. This article provides a background on the motives and current status of these funds at the national level and describes in more detail the design and project funding in two cases. Two critical design issues are discussed; whether investment returns should be paid back to the fund and whether assess- ment should be made of societal benefits other than costs avoided.

Long-term investments in individual and social human capital, such as preschool, school, family support, early-intervention for youth at risk and other programmes that are part of the welfare services provided by local government in Sweden are generally managed with one-year-ahead budget planning. Against criticism that the resulting resource allocation is biased by short-sightedness, silo mentality and risk aversion, more than a fifth of Swedish municipalities have in recent years established "social investment funds" for promoting investment and innovation views on such measures. This article provides a background on the motives and current status of these funds at the national level and describes in more detail the design and project funding in two cases. Two critical design issues are discussed; whether investment returns should be paid back to the fund and whether assessment should be made of other societal benefits than avoided costs.

Long-term investments in individual and social human capital, such as preschool, school, family support, early-intervention for youth at risk and other programmes that are part of the welfare services provided by local government in Sweden are generally managed with one-year-ahead budget planning. Against criticism that the resulting resource allocation is biased by short-sightedness, silo mentality and risk aversion, more than a fifth of Swedish municipalities have in recent years established "social investment funds" for promoting investment and innovation views on such measures. This article provides a background on the motives and current status of these funds at the national level and describes in more detail the design and project funding in two cases. Two critical design issues are discussed; whether investment returns should be paid back to the fund and whether assessment should be made of other societal benefits than avoided costs.

Several countries provide day activity programmes for people with intellectual disabilities. Little is known about the quality of these programmes or about their effectiveness in providing vocational training. In this study, we analysed the distribution across Swedish municipalities of the cost per user and how this is related to five structure quality and one outcome quality variables. We observed that the expenditure per attendee varies considerably between different municipalities. Statistical analysis was used to study to what extent expenditure per user correlates with supply-side factors, (political) demand-side factors and quality indicators. This indicated that the variation of expenditure is not explained by supply-side factors only. The local tax base and other local economic and/or political circumstances are statistically significant covariates, in spite of the entitlement legislation that gives eligible persons right to services of equal quality independent of such location-specific factors. We also found that municipalities that conduct regular user surveys find reasons to, on average, spend more per user. Finally, we found that the probability for transitions to employment at a regular workplace is higher in municipalities where as an annual routine, a review is made of whether each participant can be offered an internship or work.

Economic models to inform decision-making are gaining popularity, especially for preventive interventions. However, there are few estimates of the long-term returns to parenting interventions used to prevent mental health problems in children. Using data from a randomised controlled trial evaluating five indicated parenting interventions for parents of children aged 5-12, we modeled the economic returns resulting from reduced costs in the health care and education sector, and increased long-term productivity in a Swedish setting. Analyses done on the original trial population, and on various sized local community populations indicated positive benefit-cost ratios. Even smaller local authorities would financially break-even, thus interventions were of good value-for-money. Benefit-cost analyses of such interventions may improve the basis for resource allocation within local decision-making.

AbstractThe value of a statistical life (VSL) is a widely used measure for the value of mortality risk reduction. As VSL should reflect preferences and attitudes to risk, there are reasons to believe that it varies depending on the type of risk involved. It has been argued that cancer should be considered a "dread disease," which supports the use of a "cancer premium." The objective of this study is to investigate the existence of a cancer premium (for pancreatic cancer and multiple myeloma) in relation to road traffic accidents, sudden cardiac arrest, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Data were collected from 500 individuals in the Swedish general population of 50–74‐year olds using a web‐based questionnaire. Preferences were elicited using the contingent valuation method, and a split‐sample design was applied to test scale sensitivity. VSL differs significantly between contexts, being highest for ALS and lowest for road traffic accidents. A premium (92–113%) for cancer was found in relation to road traffic accidents. The premium was higher for cancer with a shorter time from diagnosis to death. A premium was also found for sudden cardiac arrest (73%) and ALS (118%) in relation to road traffic accidents. Eliminating risk was associated with a premium of around 20%. This study provides additional evidence that there exist a dread premium and risk elimination premium. These factors should be considered when searching for an appropriate value for economic evaluation and health technology assessment.

Beginning as a planning tool within Sweden's national road administration some 50 years ago, benefit-cost analysis (BCA) has come to be a pillar of the national transport policy because of subsequent strategic choices made by the national parliament. These choices made it necessary to widen the analysis of costs to include also externalities and a foregone conclusion was that efficient investment priorities should be made based on BCA. But no one asked whether the political decision makers or the BCA models were up to that task. This paper reviews the institutional framework and practice of BCA in Sweden for transport infrastructure investment, and considers design issues that have been and still are debated, such as whether the discount rate should include a risk term and how to account for the marginal cost of public funds. A main concern with BCA results is the underestimation of construction costs, making transport sector projects look better than they are. Several ex post analyses have established that a higher NPV ratio increases the probability of being included in the investment program proposal prepared by the agency. The requirement to let projects undergo BCA seems to make planners "trim" project proposals by trying to reduce investment costs without significantly reducing benefits. This relationship is weaker among profitable projects. Moreover, there is no correlation between rate of return and the probability of being included in the final program, which is established on political grounds.

To decide how much resources to spend on reducing mortality risk, governmental agencies in several countries turn to the value of a statistical life (VSL). VSL has been shown to vary depending on the size of the risk reduction, which indicates that WTP does not increase near-proportional in relation to risk reduction as suggested by standard economic theory. Chained approach (CA) is a stated preference method that was designed to deal with this problem. The objective of this study was to compare CA to the more traditional approach contingent valuation (CV). Data was collected from 500 individuals in the Swedish adult general population using two web-based questionnaires, whereof one based on CA and the other on the CV method. Despite the two different ways of deriving the estimates, the methods showed similar results. The CV result showed scale insensitivity with respect to the size of the risk reduction and disease duration and resulted in more zero and protest response. The CA result did also vary depending on the procedure used, but not when chaining on individual estimates. The CA result was also found to be more sensitive to disease duration and severity. This study provides support for the validity of studies of the WTP for a risk reduction. It also shows that CA is associated with encouraging features for the valuation of non-fatal road traffic accidents, but the result does not support the use of one method over the other.