Karolina Ekholm

Karolina Ekholm
Centre for Economic Policy Research - CEPR- | CEPR · Department of Economics, Stockholm University

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41
Publications
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2,253
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Introduction
Skills and Expertise

Publications

Publications (41)
Article
Empirical analyses of the impact of real exchange rate (RER) fluctuations on employment and economic performance do not take heterogeneity with respect to trade exposure into account. In this paper we use detailed Norwegian firm-level data on exports and imports to calculate firm-specific measures of trade exposure. This allows us to provide a more...
Article
Since unification, the debate about Germany's poor economic performance has focused on supply-side weaknesses, and the associated reform agenda sought to make low-skill labour markets more flexible. We question this diagnosis using three lines of argument. First, effective restructuring of the supply side in the core advanced industries was carried...
Article
To evaluate the effects of systematic co-operation among municipal employees on the number of sick-leave days per month and the type of benefit granted by the Social Insurance Office. A further aim was to evaluate the economic consequences for society. A 6-year follow-up study with a matched-pairs design. Days on sick-leave were calculated for each...
Article
Full-text available
The aim of this study was to evaluate the economic consequences of an 8-week multiprofessional rehabilitation programme for patients with persistent pain. A group of 67 patients following the programme and a comparison group of 322 patients. The effect on return to work was estimated using 3 different methods: (i) a matched sample approach; (ii) re...
Article
The Nordic countries are characterized by relatively compressed wage structures, implying that the incentives to offshore activities intensive in low-skilled labour might be particularly strong in these countries. In this paper, we document the recent changes in measures of offshoring and find that there has been an overall increase since the mid 1...
Article
Full-text available
The received wisdom is that a rising skill premium accompanied by a simultaneous rise in skill intensity characterizes relative wages and the employment structure in US manufacturing. However, we present evidence to show that the recent developments in the U.S. do not conform to this pattern and that the evolution of relative wages over the last th...
Article
This article extends the theory of multinational firms by allowing for agglomeration forces in firm-level activities such as R&D as well as in production. We develop a two-country general-equilibrium model where firms make separate choices about the location of R&D and production. There are R&D spillovers and a home-market effect creating incentive...
Article
Full-text available
A poorly understood empirical phenomenon is export-platform affiliate production (EP), particularly for sale in third countries rather than in the parent or host countries. We develop a three-region model, with two identical large, high-cost countries (collectively called North) and a small, low-cost country (South). The large countries each have o...
Article
Using plant data that distinguish between occupations, tasks, and workforce skills, this paper investigates the relationship between offshoring and the onshore workforce composition at German multinational enterprises (MNEs) in manufacturing and services. There is no statistically significant association between offshoring and the share of white- a...
Article
The present aim was to evaluate the effect of systematic multi-professional co-ordinated rehabilitation (the Stockholm Co-operation Project) on the number of days' sick leave during the first and second half-years after the rehabilitation co-ordination period, compared to the year before. Another aim was to evaluate the economic effects at national...
Article
We analyze the effects of offshoring of intermediate input production on labor demand in Sweden, distinguishing between workers with different educational attainments. The econometric results using data for the 1995-2000 period indicate that offshoring -- in particular to low-income countries -- tends to shift labor demand away from workers with an...
Article
In this paper we examine the impact of membership in Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs) on trade between PTA members. Rather than considering the impact of PTA membership on the volume of trade we consider the impact of membership on the structure of trade. For a large sample of countries over the period 1962-2000 we find that membership in a PTA...
Article
Using data for German and Swedish multinational enterprises (MNEs), this paper assesses international employment patterns. It analyzes determinants of location choice and the degree of substitutability of labor across locations. Countries with highly skilled labor forces attract German MNEs, but we find no such evidence for Swedish MNEs. This is co...
Chapter
The most distinctive feature of the current globalization process is perhaps the increased importance of multinational enterprises (see, for example, Bordo et al., 2000). Foreign direct investments (FDI), the main channel by which multinationals expand abroad, have exhibited very high growth — even higher than the growth in world trade in goods and...
Chapter
In the current process of globalisation, multinational enterprises play a starring role. The share of cross-border capital flows accounted for by the foreign direct investment (FDI) of multinationals has been rising in recent years. In fact, in recent decades cross-border flows of FDI have grown at much faster rates than have flows of goods and ser...
Article
In the traditional trade literature, there is a well-developed area analyzing the effect of growth on trade and its reflection on income growth. This literature developed already in the 1950s and 1960s. Generally speaking, an interest in the effects of trade on growth has also existed for many years, where trade has often been viewed as an engine o...
Chapter
The increased importance of foreign direct investment (FDI) and activities by multinational enterprises (MNEs) has created an interest among trade economists to explain the cross-country pattern of foreign activities by MNEs. Recent theories of FDI have provided a basis for empirical studies of this pattern. According to models of so-called horizon...
Chapter
Sweden is an important home country for multinational enterprises (MNEs). In particular, relative to its size, Sweden is the country of origin of a large number of large and highly internationalized MNEs. The fact that Germany is the largest economy in Europe and lies geographically close to Sweden makes it an attractive location for Swedish firms....
Article
This paper investigates empirically the importance of technological catch-up in explaining productivity growth in a sample of countries since the 1960s. New proxies for a country's absorptive capability--based on data for students studying abroad, telecommunications and publications--are tested in regression models. The results indicate that absorp...
Article
We use firm-level data on Swedish multinationals to analyse how the recent expansion of affiliate employment in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) has affected affiliate employment elsewhere. According to our results, employment in affiliates located in other low-wage countries in Europe decreased substantially as a consequence of the expansion in CE...
Article
Multinational enterprises (MNEs) are important in transmitting technology across national borders. Not only do they allow for transfer of technology within the firm, but it is also believed that they are important channels for international R&D spillovers as well. This paper analyzes empirically whether inward and outward foreign direct investment...
Article
We analyse the effect on agglomeration tendencies of allowing multi-region firms in a standard trade and location model, the core-periphery (CP) model developed by Kurgman (1991). The introduction of horizontal multi-region firms mitigates the agglomeration effects found in the CP model by reducing the range of trade costs for which the core-periph...
Article
This paper uses a dataset on the foreign activities by Swedish manufacturing firms to examine the performance of German affiliates compared with affiliates in other locations. It is found that German affiliates, on average, have higher labour productivity, R&D expenditure per employee and skill-intensity. There is also evidence suggesting that Germ...
Article
This study analyzes empirically the rm s decision to invest abroad and the e#ect of changes in labor costs and market size on a#liate employment in di#erent locations. Using a dataset on Swedish multinational rms, we nd that the probability of observing a#liates in a host country is in uenced by the local market size as well as labor costs and mark...
Article
This study uses data on Swedish multinationals to estimate cross-elasticities of labor demand in different locations. With a vertical decomposition of the firm's activities, whether there is substitution or complementarity between employment in different parts of the firm will depend on whether wage changes lead to a relocation of activities or sim...
Article
This paper presents the results of a survey of Swedish multinationals conducted in 1999. The survey was carried out in order to update an existing database on Swedish manufacturing firms with producing foreign affiliates collected by the Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IUI). The database covers information about the Swedish parts and th...
Article
Multinational labor demand responds to wage differentials at the extensive margin, when a multinational enterprise (MNE) expands into foreign locations, and at the intensive margin, when an MNE operates existing affiliates across locations. We derive conditions for parametric and nonparamtric identification of an MNE model to infer elasticities of...
Article
This study uses data on Swedish multinationals to estimate cross elasticities of labour demand in different locations. With a vertical decomposition of the firm's activities, whether there is substitution or complementarity between employment in different parts of the firm will depend on whether wage changes lead to a relocation of activities or si...
Article
This paper analyzes how usual measures of revealed factor abundance (RFA), based on trade in merchandise, are affected by the existence of trade in services of intangible assets; trade that is mainly associated with multinational firms. It presents empirical estimates of both usual measures of RFA and new measures that take account of trade in head...
Article
This paper analyses the effect on agglomeration tendencies of allowing firms to become multi-region firms in a standard model of trade and location. More specifically, we introduce horizontal and vertical multi-region firms into the core-periphery (CP) model developed by Krugman (1991). The introduction of horizontal multi-region firms dampens the...
Article
It has long been recognized that, at the level of the firm, the decision to export and the decision to invest abroad are interrelated. They both concern different ways of supplying foreign markets. However, it was not until the mid 1980s that any attempts were made to incorporate FDI and multinational firms into general equilibrium trade models (e....
Article
The authors use a specific-factor model to examine the conditions under which policymakers are able to increase aggregate production of high-tech goods by production or R&D subsidies in the short and long run. The difficulties for the policymaker in designing a subsidy scheme that succeeds in expanding aggregate high-tech production involve taking...
Article
This paper analyses the effect of allowing for a more general production structure in the core-periphery (CP) model. Two special cases of fully horizontally- and vertically-integrated firms are treated. The case of horizontally-integrated firms is a counter-example to the strong agglomeration effects found in the CP model. A symmetric equilibrium w...
Article
This paper asks whether net trade in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) can be explained by differences in comparative costs and in the exploitation of scale economies. Based on a sample of six countries, it is shown that factor proportions do not significantly affect net trade. In an analysis based on a sample of three countries, we are also...
Article
This paper presents recent trends in the foreign activities of Swedish multinationals. The focus is on the distribution of production and R&D between the MNCs' domestic and foreign units, and the pattern of trade within the firms.
Article
Books reviewed: Masayoshi Tsurumi, Financial Big Bang in Asia R.K. Turner, I.J. Bateman, W.N. Adger, The Economics of Coastal and Water Resources: Valuing Environmental Functions Magnus Blomstrom and Linda S. Goldberg, Topics in International Economics: A Festschrift in Honor of Robert E. Lipsey Gunther G. Schulze and Heinrich W. Ursprung, Internat...

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