Using Swedish microdata, we find no evidence for the concerns circulating in the public debate that foreign acquisitions lead to reductions in both R&D expenditures and high-skilled activities in targeted domestic firms for either MNEs or non-MNEs. Previous studies have only focused on larger firms. In this paper, we are able to study the impact on smaller firms (fewer than 50 employees), which is important because 90% of the firms acquired meet this criterion. For this group of firms, there is no information on R&D, but by using the register of educational attainment, we obtain data on the share of high skilled labor in all Swedish firms irrespective of size. Interestingly, we find that among smaller firms, foreign enterprises tend to acquire high-productive, skill-intensive firms (cherry-picking). After the acquisitions, skill upgrading appears in acquired smaller, non-MNE firms, particularly in the service sector. 

Reduced trade barriers and lower costs of transportation and information have meant that a growing part of the economy has been exposed to international trade. In particular, this is the case in the service sector. We divide the service sector into a tradable and a non-tradable part using an approach to identify tradable industries utilizing a measure of regional concentration of production. We examine whether the probability of displacement is higher and income losses after displacement greater for workers in tradable services and manufacturing (tradable) than in non-tradable services. We also analyze whether the probability of re-employment is higher for workers displaced from tradable services and manufacturing than from non-tradable services. We find that in the 2000s the probability of displacement is relatively high in tradable services in comparison to non-tradable services and manufacturing. On the other hand, the probability of re-employment is higher for those displaced from tradable services. The largest income losses are found for those who had been displaced from manufacturing. Interestingly, the income losses of those displaced from manufacturing seems mainly to be due to longer spells of non-employment, whereas for those displaced in tradable services lower wages in their new jobs compared to their pre-displacement jobs appears to play a larger role.

Minskade handelshinder och lägre kostnader för transporter och information har inneburit att en växande del av ekonomin har exponerats för internationell handel. I denna artikel delar vi in ekonomin i tre delar – tillverkningsindustri, exponerad och icke-exponerad tjänstesektor – och jämför kostnaderna av att bli av med jobbet i dessa. Kostnaderna kan exempelvis bestå av perioder av arbetslöshet eller lägre lön i det nya arbetet jämfört med i det gamla. Vi finner att dessa kostnader är högre i branscher som är exponerade för internationell handel, framför allt för dem som har friställts inom tillverkningsindustrin.

Using a matching approach, we compare the productivity trajectories of future export-entrants and matched nonentrants. Future exporters have higher productivity than do nonentrants before entry into international markets, which indicates self-selection into exports. More interestingly, we also observe a productivity increase among export-entrants relative to nonentrants before export entry. This might be explained by higher investments in physical capital prior to export entry. We find no evidence that the productivity gap between export-entrants and nonentrants continues to grow after export entry. Our results suggest that learning to export occurs but that learning by exporting does not. In contrast to previous studies on Swedish manufacturing, we focus particularly on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

To establish in which service industries there is international trade (or it may potentially exist), we calculate locational Ginis for different industries. The basic idea is that from this measure of regional concentration of different activities within a country we can identify industries where there appears to be regional trade, and hence also a potential for international trade. Based on our method, we find that: (i) the number of employed in tradable service appears to be at least as large as in the manufacturing sector, (ii) tradable service is much more skill intensive than manufacturing, and (iii) lately, the employment in tradable service has increased substantially. We argue that the last mentioned result is consistent with the substantial growth of skilled labour in Sweden since the mid-1990s (Rybczynski effect) and factors leading to increased relative demand for skilled labour. Particularly, increased competition from and offshoring to low-wage countries seem recently to have had a considerable impact on the creation of skilled jobs and the displacement of less skilled jobs in the tradable sector in Sweden. Furthermore, we apply a similar method as for industries to identify tradable occupations. Using our classification of tradable industries and tradable occupations in a Mincer type wage equation, we find that workers in such industries and occupations receive a wage premia of 1213 per cent.

Den svenska utrikeshandeln domineras av varuhandeln. Endast runt 30 procent av den totala exporten utgörs av export av tjänster, medan tjänstesektorns andel av BNP eller av den totala sysselsättningen är avsevärt större än tillverkningsindustrins. Tjänsteexporten har emellertid på senare år vuxit snabbare än varuexporten och det finns, som redogörs för i uppsatsen, anledning att hävda att tjänstehandelns betydelse i förhållande till varuhandeln underskattas. I uppsatsen analyseras hur det internationella specialiseringsmönstret ser ut inom den svenska tjänstesektorn och dessutom diskuteras det ökade samspelet mellan varu- ochtjänsteproducerande sektorer. Slutligen argumenteras för att tjänstehandeln behöver belysas bättre i den ekonomiska statistiken.

Enligt handelsminister Ewa Björling är handels- och investeringsfrämjande åtgärder avgörande för att säkra Sveriges position som en framgångsrik handelsnation och en viktig spelare på den globala marknaden. Hon menar också att i tider av ekonomisk oro, när den globala handeln minskar, blir handels- och investeringsfrämjandet än mer angeläget (Ds 2009:35, s 7–8). I denna artikel diskuteras vilka samhällsekonomiska motiv som kan ligga bakom exportfrämjande åtgärder och huruvida det finns empiriskt stöd för sådana. Vår slutsats är att även om det finns både teoretiska argument och empiriska belägg för att offentligt finansierade satsningar på exportfrämjande åtgärder har effekt, överskattas sannolikt dessa insatsers betydelse.

We observe a substantial increase in foreign ownership in Sweden in the 1990s. Did that have any effect on relative demand for skilled labor? Has technology transfers-often associated with inward FDI-led to an increased demand for skills due to skilled-biased technical change? Are there any grounds for the concerns in the public Swedish debate that more skilled activities have been moved to other countries where the headquarters are located? Estimating relative labor demand at the firm level and using propensity score matching with difference-in-difference estimation, we obtain support for that relative demand for skilled labor tend to rise in non-multinationals (non-MNEs)-but not in multinationals (MNEs)-that become foreign-owned. Other interesting findings are that larger presence of foreign MNEs in an industry appears to have a positive impact on the relative demand for skills in Swedish MNEs within the same industry and that the elasticity of substitution between skilled and less-skilled labor seems to be lower in MNEs than in non-MNEs.