OTHER PUBLICATIONS IN ENGLISH

Published research

Multiple Perfect Foresight Equilibriums and Convergence of Learning Processes,

Journal of Money Credit and Banking 17, 111-117, 1985.

ln models where agents live for a finite time and where their decisions are affected by expectations about future values of endogenous variables, there are often infinitely many perfect foresight (or rational expectations) equilibriums (PFEs). Usually, this indeterminacy problem is avoided by restricting attention to convergent paths. This is rationalized by considerations of the asymptotic properties of the equilibriums . ln this paper, a different approach is taken. The focus is on the question how an equilibrium comes about, that is, how agents learn to form expectations consistent with perfect foresight equilibrium. A specific version of the overlapping generations model is used and two different learning processes are analysed. For both types of learning processes the result is that although the stationary equilibrium may be stable, all the other equilibriums are unstable. Here is therefore an example of when stability of learning processes can be used as a criterion to choose among the perfect foresight equilibriums.

Are M.I.T. Students Rational? (with Keith Hylton), Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 8, 113-120, 1987.

This paper reports the results of a survey conducted in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus dining halls. The aim of the survey was to delineate students' perceptions of marginal costs in a very specific, but not uncommon, situation. A majority of the respondents' answers suggest a complete misunderstanding of the relevant marginal costs.

Empirical Examination of the Information Sets of Economic Agents (with Torsten Persson),

Quarterly Journal of Economics 103, 251-259, 1988.

According to the rational expectations assumption agents use their available information efficiently. This paper suggests a simple way of testing hypotheses regarding the information sets of decision-makers with rational expectations. Specifically, we show how one can test the hypothesis that agents have no information advantage over the econometrician, as well as the hypothesis that agents have perfect information. The tests may also be of interest as a means of investigating other economic phenomena. In particular, if agents make decisions at intervals that are finer than the intervals at which the econometrician samples data, a test for perfect information may be equivalent to a test for whether there exist (significant) decision and information lags. We show how to estimate information advantage coefficients which measure in a natural way how large an information advantage agents have over an information set that the econometrician has specified.

Regulation, Financial Buffer Stocks and Short Run Adjustment: An Econometric Case-Study of Sweden 1970-1982 (with Edward Palmer and Torsten Persson), European Economic Review 33, 1545-1565, 1989.

We formulate and estimate a consistent model of the Swedish credit market in the 1970s, taking account of several forms of government regulations. The dynamic specification allows us to test for buffer effects on bank reserves and money holdings. Banks's portfolios are essentially determined by regulations. We find significant buffer effects on money holdings and significant interest rate effects on the portfolio allocation of households and firms.

Monographs in English

Exports - Prospects up to 1983 (with Lennart Lindström), Occational Paper 12, National Institute of Economic Research, Liber, Stockholm 1980.

Essays on Price Determination and Expectations, Ph.D. thesis, University of Stockholm, 1985.

EMU - A Swedish Perspective, (Lars Calmfors et al.), Kluwer, 1997.

Macroeconomics (intermediate textbook), Palgrave-Macmillan, March 2013.

Old unpublished research

Has Swedish Monetary Policy been Countercyclical? with Christian B. Nilsson and Kerstin Ohlsson, Working Paper 7, Sveriges Riksbank, 1992

Booms and Busts in EMU, working paper 2003:29, Department of Economics, Uppsala University

Other publications in English

General Discussion: What have We Learned?, edited with Torsten Persson, in "Long Run Effects of Short-run Stabilization Policy, Proceedings of a Conference", Scandinavian Journal of Economics 84, 379-401, 1982.

Comment on "Wage Formation in Denmark" by Torben Andersen and Ole Risager, in Calmfors, Lars, ed., Wage Formation and Macroeconomic Policy in the Nordic Countries (Stockholm: SNS and Oxford University Press), 1990.

Comment on "The Scientific Illusion in Empirical Macroeconomics" by Lawrence H. Summers, Scandinavian Journal of Economics 93, 149-154, 1991 (reprinted in Poirier, D. J. (ed.) The Methodology of Econometrics, Edward Elgar)

Comment on "Contract Theory and Macroeconomic Fluctuations" by J. E. Stiglitz, in Werin, L. and H. Wijkander, ed.: Contract Economics (Oxford: Blackwells), 1992.

Comment on "The Swedish Boom to Bust Cycle: Tax Reform, Consumption and Asset Structure" by Agell, J., L. Berg and P.-A. Edin, Swedish Economic Policy Review 2:2, 1995.

Growing Government Debt - International Experiences: An Introduction, Swedish Economic Policy Review 3:1, 1996.

Comment on "Fiscal Balance During Inflation, Disinflation, and Immigration: Policy Lessons" by Assaf Razin and Efraim Sadka, Swedish Economic Policy Review 3:1, 1996.

Comment on “Business cycles: Theory, Evidence and Policy Implications” by R.W. Cooper,. Scandinavian Journal of Economics 100:1, 1998.

Why is Sweden not in EMU?, Current Sweden (web publication), Svenska Institutet, 2002.