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In 1997, SESIM was developed as a tool at the Swedish ministry of finance to evaluate the Swedish system to finance higher education. Part of that work was documented in Ericson and Hussénius (2000). We refer to this as version I of SESIM. Focus then shifted from education to pensions. SESIM was used to evaluate the financial sustainability of the new Swedish pension system. This new application implied that SESIM was developed into a general micro-simulation model (MSM) that can be used for a broad set of issues. We refer to this as the second version of SESIM and the documentation is presented in Flood (2003). The present version, SESIM III, maintains the focus on pensions but extends the analyses to include health issues, regional mobility, and wealth.

It is not easy to get a long perspective on the distribution of wealth in Sweden because there is no single data source that gives a consistent view for a long period of time. The early estimates of the distribution of wealth were based on the concept of tax-assessed wealth which is the basis of the wealth tax. This definition has the disadvantage of not including assets that were not taxed, and no or very unreliable data were given for the majority of the tax payers who were below the taxation threshold. Furthermore, this variable was defined for individuals and for jointly taxed individuals, but no economically meaningful household concept was available. Register data have since then improved, in particular after the late 1990s when data became available directly from banks, brokers, and insurance companies without the filtering of the tax payers. The problem with the household definition remains, but in SESIM we have made corrections to get a useful definition (see Chapter 3). A relatively large survey (HEK) run by Statistics Sweden which combines survey information about the household with register data on assets estimates the median household wealth to 156000 SEK in 1999 and 197000 SEK in 2003.² The latter estimate is in the 1999 price level.³ These estimates apply to all households independent of age. As will be shown below, the level of wealth depends very much on age.

Since SESIM is of a fundamental importance for this analysis, we also give a short presentation of the income-generating mechanisms in the model, focusing on earnings and income from capital.

This paper investigates the effect of household size, and in particular of the number of children of different age groups, on poverty, defined as being in a situation of low income. We apply various static and dynamic probit models to control for the endogeneity of the variables of interest and to account for unobserved heterogeneity, state dependence, and serially correlated error components. Using Luxembourg longitudinal data, we show that the number of children of different age groups significantly affects the probability of being poor. However, the magnitude of the effect varies across different specifications. In addition, we find strong evidence of true poverty persistency due to past experience, spurious poverty persistency due to individual heterogeneity, and transitory random shocks.

This paper revisits old questions of the proper subject and bounds of economics: does economics study “provisioning”? or markets? or a method of reasoning, self‐interested rational optimization?

A variety of scholars and others in many fields make use of a taxonomy of society consisting of three “spheres”: markets, governments, and communities. It is argued here that this tripartite taxonomy of society is fundamental and exhaustive. A variety of ways of understanding this taxonomy are explored, especially Fiske's (1991, 2004) “Relational models theory.” Then – after communities and their products, social goods, are defined more thoroughly – a visual model of interactions among the three spheres is presented.

The model is first used briefly to understand the historical development of markets. The model is then applied to understanding how economic thinking and market ideology, including the notion of social capital, can be destructive of communities and their production of social goods (and their production of social capital as well).

It is not possible to measure these effects monetarily, so calculating precisely “how this affects results” in a standard economic model is impossible.

Nevertheless we could better prepare students for real‐world analysis, and better serve our clients, including the public, if – whenever relevant, such as in textbook introductions and in benefit/cost analyses – we made them aware of the limitations of economic analysis with respect to communities and social goods.

The three‐spheres model offered here, based on Fiske's “Relational models theory,” facilitates this awareness.

The purpose of this paper is to present a conference report on the unique organizational features and the common themes found among the three keynote speeches of the Library 2.011 World Wide Virtual Conference held on the internet on November 2‐4, 2011.

This report was generated based on the author’s personal participation and observation of a virtual conference and a descriptive method was used to report on and summarize the major subjects of three keynote presentations.

The paper finds that Library 2.0 is still a live practice among libraries, and the concept itself has become an inspiring theoretical starting point for re‐examining information profession, information literacy, and information management behaviours.

This article sorts out the theoretical directions of Library 2.0’s research, which will provide a reflective and guiding tool for evaluating current library practice and designing future innovative library services.

The purpose of this paper is to report on a study which has been carried out on a timber floor construction above a ground‐supported concrete slab, which was used in small detached houses built in Sweden during the period 1960‐1990. This method of building has turned out to be a risky construction nowadays, but there are 800,000 houses built this way in Sweden.

By using the patented Air Gap Method inside building constructions, harmful water can be dried out. The method ventilates air gaps inside walls and floors with an air flow driven by thermal buoyancy caused by a heating cable in the vertical air gaps. The drying out process has been studied both by measuring the moisture level in the slab and also by measuring the humidity transport and comparing this with air flow measurements.

The paper shows that the Air Gap Method manages to dry out water from both the slab and the overlaying wooden construction. The study shows also that the relative humidity (RH) levels in the air space below the floor are reduced in a significant way, thus minimizing mould growth. It is also shown that a thin layer of concrete upon floor beams prevents mould to grow even in a humid situation.

The research reported in this paper is only concerned with timber‐framed small detached houses. Similar studies of apartment buildings are ongoing.

The Air Gap Method can thus be useful in the context of renovating a water damaged house of this type built during this 30‐year period. The method provides a possibility of drying out such damage without a separate drying period. The inhabitants could therefore be able to use a renovated water‐damaged kitchen six/eight weeks earlier compared to ordinary building methods.

The paper is useful because it provides better understanding of the mechanism of RH inside a building construction and how this parameter could be lowered. The paper is also useful in the context of renovating water‐damaged small detached houses built by the risky method of construction used in the last decades of the twentieth century.