Journal Staff

Studiens syfte var att öka förståelsen för verksamma pedagogers förhållningssätt till de minsta barnen med fokus på dess språkliga och kommunikativa förmåga. Syftet var även att ta reda på hur pedagoger arbetar för att stimulera och utmana de små barnens språkutveckling. Studien tar sin utgångspunkt från fem pedagogers egna uppfattningar, vilket har undersökts genom kvalitativa intervjuer som metod. Undersökningens resultat visar att arbetet med barnens språkutveckling utifrån förskolans uppdrag är en tolkningsfråga, där de centrala begreppen språk och kommunikation har en komplex innebörd. Vidare framkommer att kroppsspråket är de minsta barnens främsta kommunikationsredskap, något som bör tas i beaktning i dess utvecklande mot ett talat språk. Pedagogernas generella uppfattning pekar på att det skett stora förändringar i synen på de minsta barnen över tid. Den rådande barnsynen präglas av en respekt och tilltro till barnet och dess förmågor. Ramfaktorer såsom stora barngrupper utgör dock hinder i pedagogernas arbete med de minsta barnens språkutveckling, med anledning av detta får det eftersträvansvärda förhållningssättet många gånger stå tillbaka i förskolans verksamhet

On the Statistical Modeling and Analysis of Repairable Systems

We review basic modeling approaches for failure and maintenance data from repairable systems. In particular we consider imperfect repair models, defined in terms of virtual age processes, and the trend-renewal process which extends the nonhomogeneous Poisson process and the renewal process. In the case where several systems of the same kind are observed, we show how observed covariates and unobserved heterogeneity can be included in the models. We also consider various approaches to trend testing. Modern reliability data bases usually contain information on the type of failure, the type of maintenance and so forth in addition to the failure times themselves. Basing our work on recent literature we present a framework where the observed events are modeled as marked point processes, with marks labeling the types of events. Throughout the paper the emphasis is more on modeling than on statistical inference.Comment: Published at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/088342306000000448 in the Statistical Science (http://www.imstat.org/sts/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Planned Treatment and Outcomes in Residential Youth Care: Evidence from Sweden

A recurring theme in evaluations of Swedish residential youth care is that treatment is often unplanned. In this paper, I show that planned treatment is strongly positively associated with treatment outcomes. In the short term, teenagers with planned treatment are less likely to experience a treatment breakdown or be reassigned to other forms of residential care after completed treatment. In the long term, teenagers with planned treatment are less likely to engage in criminal behaviour or be hospitalized for mental health problems. The results are robust to controlling for a rich set of potentially confounding factors: Even though observable pre-treatment teenager characteristics explain about one quarter of the variation in criminal behavior 5–10 years after treatment, they have almost no predictive power for whether treatment is planned or unplanned.Residential Youth Care; Juvenile Delinquency; Recidivism; Principal-agent Problems; Bureaucracy

Will Privatization Reduce Costs?

I develop a model of public sector contracting based on the multitask framework by Holmström and Milgrom (1991). In this model, an agent can put effort into increasing the quality of a service or reducing costs. Being residual claimants, private owners have stronger incentives to cut costs than public employees. However, if quality cannot be perfectly measured, providing a private firm with incentives to improve quality forces the owner of the firm to bear risk. As a result, private firms will always be cheaper for low levels of quality but might be more expensive for high levels of quality. Extending the model to allow for differences in task attractiveness, I find that public firms shun unattractive tasks, whereas private firms undertake them if incentives are strong enough.Privatization; public sector contracting; incomplete contracts; contracting out

Mergers by Partial Acquisition

This paper evaluates partial acquisition strategies. The model allows for buying a share of a firm before the actual acquisition takes place. Holding a share in a competing firm before the acquisition of another firm, outsider-toehold, eliminates the insiders' dilemma, i.e. profitable mergers do not occur. This strategy may thus be more profitable for a buyer than acquiring entire firms at once. Furthermore, the insiders' dilemma arises from the assumption of a positive externality on the outsider firm and acquiring an outsider-toehold is thus a signal of an anti-competitive merger.Acquisition; Antitrust; Insiders' Dilemma; Mergers; Toeholds

Acquisiton Strategies: Empirical Evidence of Outsider-Toeholds

Theoretically, cross ownership may mitigate mergers, i.e. market concentrations. Holding a share in a competing firm before the acquisition of another firm, outsider-toehold, is more profitable in some market constellations, due to the positive externality on the outsider (competing) firm when a merger occurs. The purposes of this paper are to empirically observe when US firms buy outsider-toeholds and through event-studies estimate the gains of buyers, outsider firms and competitors when firms holding outsider-toeholds merge.Acquisition; Antitrust; Insiders’ Dilemma; Mergers; Toeholds

Will Privatization Reduce Costs?

I develop a model of public sector contracting based on the multitask framework by Holmström and Milgrom (1991). In this model, an agent can put effort into increasing the quality of a service or reducing costs. Being residual claimants, private owners have stronger incentives to cut costs than public employees. However, if quality cannot be perfectly measured, providing a private firm with incentives to improve quality forces the owner of the firm to bear risk. As a result, private firms will always be cheaper for low levels of quality but might be more expensive for high levels of quality. Extending the model to allow for differences in task attractiveness, I find that public firms shun unattractive tasks, whereas private firms undertake them if incentives are strong enough.Privatization; Public Sector Contracting; Incomplete Contracts; Contracting Out