Forced board changes: Evidence from Norway.

The recently introduced gender quota on Norwegian corporate boards dramatically increased the share of female directors. This reform offers a natural experiment to investigate changes in corporate governance from forced increases in gender diver- sity, and whether these changes in turn impact firm performance. I find that investors anticipate the new directors to be more effective in firms with less information asymmetry between insiders of the firm and outsiders. Firms with low information asymmetry experience positive and significant cumulative abnormal returns (CAR) at the introduction of the quota, whereas firms with high information asymmetry show negative but insignificant CAR.Natural experiment; Regulation; Corporate governance; Gender quota.

Bribes, taxes and regulations: Business constraints for micro enterprises in Tanzania

This paper analyses the business environment for micro enterprises in Tanzania based on survey data. The primary objective of the study is to identify major constraints facing the firms' business operations. Taxation, corruption, and regulations in the form of licences and permits, are found to be the most important constraints on business operations. Reported constraints vary according to firm characteristics such as age, location, education and gender of the owner. Contrary to previous studies and current policies, financial constraints and property rights are not perceived as important constraints.Small enterprise Business constriants Taxation Corruption Tanzania

Efficiency, equality and reciprocity in social preferences: A comparison of students and a representative population.

The debate between Engelmann and Strobel (2004, 2006) and Fehr, Naef, and Schmidt (2006) highlights the important question of the extent to which lab experiments on student populations can serve to identify the motivational forces present in society at large. We address this question by comparing the lab behavior of a student group and a non-student group, where the non-student group on all observable factors is almost identical to the representative adult population in Norway. All participants take part in exactly the same lab experiment. Our study shows that students may not be informative of the role of social preferences in the broader population. We nd that the representative participants differ fundamentally from students both in their level of selfishness and in the relative importance assigned to different moral motives. It is also interesting to note that while we do not find any substantial gender differences among the students, males and females in the representative group differ fundamentally in their moral motivation.Representative sample; Social preferences; Laboratory experiment.

Social Preferences in the Lab: A Comparison of Students and a Representative Population

Can lab experiments on student populations serve to identify the motivational forces present in society at large? We address this question by conducting, to our knowledge, the first study of social preferences that brings a nationally representative population into the lab, and we compare their behavior to the behavior of different student populations. Our study shows that students may not be informative of the role of social preferences in the broader population. We find that the representative participants differ fundamentally from students both in their level of selfishness and in the relative importance assigned to different moral motives. It is also interesting to note that while we do not find any substantial gender differences among the students, males and females in the representative group differ fundamentally in their moral motivation.social preferences, representative population, dictator game, trust game

Local government finances and financial management in Tanzania

This report provides baseline data on local government finance and financial management in six councils in Tanzania: Bagamoyo District Council, Ilala Municipal Council, Iringa DC, Kilosa DC, Moshi DC, and Mwanza City Council. The data cover the period 2000-2003 and represent a reference point for the situation in the six councils with respect to various dimensions of local government finance and financial management in this period. The following themes are covered by the study: (a) the degree of fiscal autonomy; (b) methods of revenue collection; (c) financial management, including budgeting, accounting and auditing; (d) transparency in fiscal and financial affairs; and (e) tax compliance and fiscal corruption. In essence, a small, common database has been developed for all the case councils.Public finance Local government Financial management Tanzania

Bribes, taxes and regulations: Business constraints for micro enterprises in Tanzania

This paper analyses the business environment for micro enterprises in Tanzania based on survey data. The primary objective of the study is to identify major constraints facing the firms’ business operations. Taxation, corruption, and regulations in the form of licences and permits, are found to be the most important constraints on business operations. Reported constraints vary according to firm characteristics such as age, location, education and gender of the owner. Contrary to previous studies and current policies, financial constraints and property rights are not perceived as important constraints

Social preferences in the lab: A comparison of students and a representative population

Can lab experiments on student populations serve to identify the motivational forces present in society at large? We address this question by conducting, to our knowledge, the first study of social preferences that brings a nationally representative population into the lab, and we compare their behavior to the behavior of different student populations. Our study shows that students may not be informative of the role of social preferences in the broader population. We find that the representative participants differ fundamentally from students both in their level of selfishness and in the relative importance assigned to different moral motives. It is also interesting to note that while we do not find any substantial gender differences among the students, males and females in the representative group differ fundamentally in their moral motivation

Local Governance, Urban Poverty and Service Delivery in Namibia

The urbanisation of poverty is one of the most dramatic developments on the African continent, yielding contrasting images of affluent residential and business districts and utter misery in sprawling shantytowns or slums. Namibia has one of Africa’s highest urban growth rates, taking thousands of women, men and children to towns in search of a better life. The large majority of these end up in poverty-stricken informal settlements in urban areas. The current service delivery approach of the government has left out informal settlements and has instead focused on improving and expanding services in formal areas. The inadequacy of this situation has detrimental effects on the poor. This report examines challenges for pro-poor service delivery in two towns in Northern Namibia – Ondangwa and Outapi - as seen from (i) the two local government institutions finding themselves in between the central government and their own poor populations; and (ii) the informal settlement population with hitherto unfulfilled expectations for basic services in the form of housing, water, electricity and sanitation. The study suggests that main obstacles to improved service delivery to people living in the informal settlements are associated with distrustful relations between local government and the communities, weak ability and incoherent efforts by civil society to act as development agents, and inadequate government driven approaches. In particular, the study argues that the local governments’ need for revenues to finance service provision is incompatible with the ability to pay for these services for a majority of the population in informal settlements. This implies that new collective approaches to service delivery in informal settlement areas will have to be developed

The Genomic HyperBrowser: inferential genomics at the sequence level

The immense increase in the generation of genomic scale data poses an unmet analytical challenge, due to a lack of established methodology with the required flexibility and power. We propose a first principled approach to statistical analysis of sequence-level genomic information. We provide a growing collection of generic biological investigations that query pairwise relations between tracks, represented as mathematical objects, along the genome. The Genomic HyperBrowser implements the approach and is available at http://hyperbrowser.uio.no