This thesis consists of four papers summarized as follows. Do Payroll Tax Cuts Raise Youth Employment? We study whether payroll tax reductions are an effective means to raise youth employment. In 2007, the Swedish employer-paid payroll tax was cut on a large scale for young workers, substantially reducing labor costs for this group. Using the variation in payroll taxes across cohorts, we estimate a significant, but small, impact both on employment and on wages. Effects of Taxes on Youth Self-Employment and Income. I examine the link between taxes and youth self-employment. I make use of a Swedish reform that made the payroll tax and the self-employment tax vary by age. The results suggest that youth self-employment is insensitive to tax reductions, both in the short run and in the somewhat longer run. For those defined as self-employed, I find positive effects on income from self-employment, and negative effects on income from wage employment. Can Indifference Make the World Greener? We conducted a natural field experiment at a large university in Sweden to evaluate the effects of two resource conservation programs. The first intervention consisted of a campaign that actively tried to convince people to cut back on printing in general, and to use double-sided printing whenever possible. The second intervention exploited people's tendency to stick with pre-set alternatives. At random points in time we changed the printers’ default settings, from single-sided to double-sided printing. Whereas the moral appeal had no impact, the default change cut paper use by 15 percent. The Origins of Behavioral Contagion: Evidence from a Field Experiment on Facebook. We explore the micro-level foundations of behavioral contagion by running a natural field experiment on the networking site Facebook. Members of Facebook express positive support to content on the website by clicking a Like button. We show that users are more prone to support content if someone else has done so before.

The cost of labor is a specific element of the cost, combining social and economic aspects. Methods of planning, regulation, accounting, control and analysis of labor costs are determined by a set of provisions established by federal legislation, as well as internal regulatory documents of organizations. The study of labor indicators requires an integrated approach to the organization of accounting and analytical work in relation to the improvement of accounting policies and analytical support. The significance of the most significant results obtained from the results of work lies in the fact that they expand the theoretical and methodological understanding of the importance and features of accounting and analytical support for the cost element “labor costs” and determine the direction of its improvement, including the procedure for forming accounting policies. The practical significance lies in the fact that the methodological tools and the proposed practical recommendations can be applied in the activities of organizations to identify intra-company reserves and improve the efficiency of accounting and analytical activities. / Затраты на оплату труда являются специфическим элементом себестоимости, объединяющим в себе социальные и экономические аспекты. Методы планирования, регулирования, учета, контроля и анализа затрат на оплату труда определяются совокупностью положений, установленных законодательством федерального уровня, а также внутренними нормативными документами организаций. Изучение трудовых показателей требует комплексного подхода к организации учетно-аналитической работы в отношении совершенствования положений учетной политики и аналитического обеспечения. Значение наиболее существенных результатов, полученных по результатам работы заключается в том, что они расширяют теоретико-методологические представления о значимости и особенностях учетно-аналитического обеспечения элемента себестоимости «затраты на оплату труда» и определяю направления его совершенствования, включая процедуру формирования учетной политики. Практическая значимость состоит в том, что методический инструментарий и предложенные практические рекомендации могут быть применены в деятельности организаций для выявления внутрифирменных резервов и повышения эффективности учетно-аналитической деятельности.

Вопросы оптимизации затрат, формирующих себестоимость, имеют приоритетное значение для организаций различных видов экономической деятельности. Наиболее сложными из них по составу и методам оценки являются затраты, связанные с трудовыми ресурсами, к которым помимо заработной платы относятся отчисления на социальное страхование и обеспечение, расходы на охрану труда, повышение квалификации и переобучение работников, и другие социальные пакеты. Для повышения эффективности управления затратами на персонал, включаемыми в себестоимость, важно использовать также и международный опыт. В последние годы Китайская экономика стремительно расширяет свои позиции на международном рынке, включая Россию. Если ранее срана позиционировалась в большей степени как производитель товаров широкого потребления, то в настоящий момент значительно увеличивается доля торговых операций внутреннего и внешнего характера. Сотрудничество Китая и России имеет давние традиции, которые в настоящее время усилены международными санкциями. / Optimization of costs that form the cost price is a priority for organizations of various types of economic activity. The most complex of them in terms of composition and methods of assessment are the costs associated with labor resources, which in addition to wages include social insurance and security contributions, labor protection costs, professional development and retraining of employees, and other social packages. It is also important to use international experience to improve the management of personnel costs included in the cost price. In recent years, the Chinese economy has been rapidly expanding its position in the international market, including Russia. If earlier srana was positioned more as a producer of consumer goods, at the moment the share of internal and external trade operations is significantly increasing. Cooperation between China and Russia has a long tradition, which is currently reinforced by international sanctions.

Структура магистерской диссертации включает в себя введение, три главы, заключение, список использованных источников и приложения. В первой главе рассмотрены теоретические положения управления затратами на персонал, проведен сравнительный анализ нормативных требований к их учету в организациях России и Китая. Сделаны выводы о сходстве и специфических для каждой страны аспектах управления трудовыми ресурсами и связанными с этим производственными затратами. Во второй главе проведен анализ ключевых показателей деятельности крупнейших кредитных организаций КНР, включая структуру затрат в целом и затрат на персонал в частности. Наиболее подробно рассмотрен China Construction Bank. В третьей главе проведен анализ основных проблем управления затратами на персонал в кредитных организациях КНР и разработаны направления их оптимизации, позволяющие повышать конкурентные преимущества в банковской сфере. В заключении сформированы основные выводы. / The structure of the master's thesis includes an introduction, three chapters, conclusion, list of references and appendices. In the first chapter, the theoretical provisions of personnel cost management are considered, a comparative analysis of regulatory requirements for their accounting in organizations in Russia and China is carried out. Conclusions are drawn about the similarity and country-specific aspects of human resource management and related production costs. The second chapter analyzes the key performance indicators of the largest credit institutions of China, including the structure of costs in general and personnel costs in particular. China Construction Bank is considered in the most detail. The third chapter analyzes the main problems of personnel cost management in credit institutions of the People's Republic of China and develops ways to optimize them, allowing to increase competitive advantages in the banking sector. In conclusion, the main conclusions are formed.

This thesis examines the marginal cost of congested travel to a variety of businesses by observing time spent in congestion and estimating excess labor costs based upon the relevant value of time. The fleets in the scoping study represented commercial deliveries of goods and services, government agencies, and transit systems. Observations on limited-access expressways within the 13-county Atlanta metropolitan region were used in the analysis. Vehicles were monitored by using a passive GPS assembly that transmitted speed and location data in real-time to an off-site location. Installation and operation during the observation period required no interaction from the driver. Over 217 hours of good freeway movement during 354 vehicle-days was recorded. Rates of delay, expressed as a unit of lost minutes per mile traveled, were calculated by taking the difference in speeds observed during congestion from an optimal free-flow speed of 45 mph and dividing that by the distance traveled per segment. The difference between the 50th and 95th percentile delay rates was used as the measure for travel unreliability. Daily average values of extra time needed per fleet vehicle to ensure on-time arrivals were derived, and the median buffer across all fleets was 1.65 hours of added time per vehicle. Weekly marginal costs per fleet vehicle were estimated by factoring in the corresponding driver wages or hourly operation costs (for transit fleets). Equivalent toll rates were calculated by multiplying the 95th percentile delay rate by the hourly costs. The equivalent toll per mile traveled was representative of an equal relationship between the marginal costs of congestion experienced and a hypothetical state of free-flow travel (under first-best rules of marginal cost pricing). The median equivalent toll rates across all fleets was $0.43 per mile for weekday mornings, $0.13 per mile for midday weekdays, $0.53 per mile for afternoon weekdays and $0.01 per mile for weekday nights and weekends.

This thesis consists of three self-contained essays. Essay 1: This essay estimates wage assimilation among non-western immigrants in Sweden, controlling for selection into employment by including individual fixed effects. Furthermore, using matched employer-employee panel data covering the complete Swedish labor market, this essay decomposes wage catch-up into relative wage growth within and between workplaces and occupations. The results show that failing to control for selection into employment is likely to underestimate relative wage growth of immigrants, as early entrants in the labor market differ from later entrants along unobservable dimensions. Even after 30 years in the country, the group of non-western immigrants still earns substantially lower wages than natives. Wages catch up mainly within workplaces and occupations, suggesting that improved signals of productivity, rather than improved knowledge of job options, are of importance for the wage growth of non-western immigrants. Essay 2: Earlier research has shown that immigrant- and minority entrepreneurs have difficulties accessing capital through the formal financial markets. This essay studies what role immigrant employees within the local bank sector have for the probability of immigrants to run their own businesses. I use linked employer-employee data covering the whole Swedish labor market for the years 1987 to 2003 and utilize a nationwide refugee dispersal policy to get exogenous variation in the exposure to co-ethnic bank employees. Results suggest that there is a positive relation between co-ethnic bank employees and the probability of being self-employed. This effect is most pronounced for immigrants who arrived with low education, for males and for those residing in metropolitan regions. The effects are substantial and robust to a wide set of controls for labor market characteristics of the ethnic group at the local level. These results provide evidence of an ethnic component in the formal credit markets. Essay 3 (with Oskar Nordström Skans): This essay investigates the impact of a collective agreement stipulating a one shot increase in establishment-specific wage levels in a public-sector setting where wages otherwise are set according to individualized wage bargaining. The agreement stipulated that wages should increase in proportion to the number of low-paid females within each establishment. We find that actual wages among incumbents responded to the share of females with a wage below the stipulated threshold, conditional on the separate effects of the share of low wage earners, and the share of females. We find clear evidence of path-dependence in wages, covered workers remained on higher wage levels 4 years after the agreement took effect. The increase in wages resulted in a reduced probability of exit among young workers with relatively good grades and a lower frequency of new hires at the establishment level.

The thesis entitled Comparison of revenue and expenditure of the state budget for the self-employed and employees for the entire active and retirement period of life of individuals under conditions of 2015 deals with how, whether and under what conditions the self-employed are less taxed than their colleagues working in full-time employment with a comparable income. The model example points out the income threshold at which individual is better off being self-employed, and when it is more advantageous from the viewpoint of the state to be an independent contractor, not an employee. The models include the self-employed, who are misclassified as well as factors such as different amount of sick leave, lower pensions, lower unemployment benefits caused by lower deductions for social insurance, and other factors that are not immediately obvious but markedly influence the total amount of income and expenses to the state of the individual when working as self-employed or an employee.

Diploma thesis deals with the development strategies of the small business. First it presents the theoretical background that serves as a knowledge-based support for other parts of the work. Then performs an analysis. Based on these findings it tries to find flaws in its long-term strategy. The solution proposals redefine existing strategy and innovate the product base. After these changes can be assumed effective and sustainable development of the company.

This thesis examines the measurement, applications and properties of consumer inflation expectations in the context of eight European Union countries: France, Germany, the UK, Spain, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Sweden. The data proceed mainly from the European Commission's Consumer Survey and are qualitative in nature, therefore requiring quantification prior to use. This study first seeks to determine the optimal quantification methodology among a set of approaches spanning three traditions, associated with Carlson-Parkin (1975), Pesaran (1984) and Seitz (1988). The success of a quantification methodology is assessed on the basis of its ability to match quantitative expectations data and on its behaviour in an important economic application, namely the modelling of wages for our sample countries. The wage equation developed here draws on the theoretical background of the staggered contracts and the wage bargaining literature, and controls carefully for inflation expectations and institutional variables. The Carlson-Parkin variation proposed in Curto Millet (2004) was found to be the most satisfactory. This being established, the wage equations are used to test the hypothesis that the advent of EMU generated an increase in labour market flexibility, which would be reflected in structural breaks. The hypothesis is essentially rejected. Finally, the properties of inflation expectations and perceptions themselves are examined, especially in the context of EMU. Both the rational expectations and rational perceptions hypotheses are rejected. Popular expectations mechanisms, such as the "rule-of-thumb" model or Akerlof et al.'s (2000) "near-rationality hypothesis" are similarly unsupported. On the other hand, evidence is found for the transmission of expert forecasts to consumer expectations in the case of the UK, as in Carroll's (2003) model. The distribution of consumer expectations and perceptions is also considered, showing a tendency for gradual (as in Mankiw and Reis, 2002) but non-rational adjustment. Expectations formation is further shown to have important qualitative features.