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Low-field NMR sensor technology is proposed for accurate and operationally simple on-farm or laboratory determination of protein and phosphorus constituents in livestock feed. The total phosphorus content is determined directly on the native sample, while quantification of digestible protein involves enzymatic digestion here adapted to provide the total protein content. Comparison with traditional laboratory reference analysis for the total protein and phosphorus contents of 31 feed samples (including various grains, feed mixtures, and commercial feed products for cattle, pigs, horses, poultry, and sheep) demonstrate the feasibility and good accuracy of the NMR measurements.

In this paper, we use a detailed dataset containing information about all international trade transactions of the population of Danish ?rms over more than a decade to analyze the relationship between export and import decisions and employment growth. We further distinguish between imports of ?nal goods and imports of intermedi­ate products. We ?nd that both imports and exports decisions are positively related to employment growth. Interestingly, both ?nished goods and intermediate goods imports have a positive link. We also control for the re-exporting process, i.e. ?rms importing ?nal goods to re-export them afterwards.

We contribute to the literature on well-being and comparisons by appealing to new Danish data dividing the country up into around 9,000 small neighbourhoods. Administrative data provides us with the income of every person in each of these neighbourhoods. This income information is matched to demographic and economic satisfaction variables from eight years of Danish ECHP data. Panel regression analysis shows that, conditional on own household income, respondents report higher satisfaction levels when their neighbours are richer. However, individuals are rank-sensitive: conditional on own income and neighbourhood median income, respondents are more satisfied as their percentile neighbourhood ranking improves. A ten percentage point rise in rank (i.e. from 40th to 20th position in a 200-household cell) is worth 0.11 on a one to six scale, which is a large marginal effect in satisfaction terms.

This paper estimates the impact of work environment health and safety practice on firm performance, and examines which firm-characteristic factors are associated with good work conditions. We use Danish longitudinal register matched employer-employee data, merged with firm business accounts and detailed cross-sectional survey data on workplace conditions. This enables us to address typical econometric problems such as omitted variables bias or endogeneity in estimating i) standard production functions augmented with work environment indicators and aggregate employee characteristics and ii) firm mean wage regressions on the same explanatory variables. Our findings suggest that improvement in some of the physical dimensions of the work health and safety environment (speci.cally, "internal climate" and "repetitive and strenuous activity") strongly impacts the firm productivity, whereas "internal climate" problems are the only workplace hazards compensated for by higher mean wages.

This paper uses matched employer-employee panel data to show that individual job satisfaction is higher when other workers in the same establishment are better-paid. This runs contrary to a large literature which has found evidence of income comparisons in subjective well-being. We argue that the difference hinges on the nature of the reference group. We here use co-workers. Their wages not only induce jealousy, but also provide a signal about the worker's own future earnings. Our positive estimated coefficient on others' wages shows that this positive future earnings signal outweighs any negative status effect. This phenomenon is stronger for men, and in the private sector.

European unemployment is too high, and employment is too low. Over 7½ per cent of Europe's workforce is unemployed, and only two thirds of people aged 15-64 are in work. At the Lisbon summit two years ago the heads of government set the target that by 2010 the employment rate should rise from 64 per cent to at least 70 per cent. And for older workers between 55 and 64 the employment rate should rise from 38 per cent to at least one half. These are ambitious targets. They will require two big changes: more people must seek work, and among those seeking work a higher proportion must get a job. So we need higher participation, and (for full employment) we need a much lower unemployment rate. Can it be done? A mere glance at the experience of different European countries shows that it can. As Table 1 shows, four E.U. countries already exceed the overall target for 2010 (Britain, Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden). And seven of the 15 countries in the E.U already have lower unemployment than the United States (the previous four plus Austria, Ireland and Luxembourg).

This paper seeks to analyse the role of job satisfaction and actual job change behaviour. The analysis is based on the European Community Household Panel (ECHP) data for Danish families 1994-2000. The results show that inclusion of job satisfaction, which is a subjective measure, does improve the ability to predict actual quit behaviour: Low overall job satisfaction significantly increases the probability of quit. Various job satisfaction domains are ranked according to their ability to predict quits. Satisfaction with Type of Work is found to be the most important job characteristic while satisfaction with Job Security is found to be insignificant. These results hold across age, gender and education sub-groups and are opposed to results for UK, where job security is found to be the most important job domain. This discrepancy between UK and Denmark might be due to differences in unemployment insurance benefits and indicates that there are "invisible" benefits inherited in the welfare state insurance system because employees in Denmark don't worry about job security.

Outsourcing and job losses to countries with lower wage costs are common to many Western countries, and are issues of great public concern due to their economic and social impact. This paper looks at the impact on labor of a dramatic change in the Danish textile and clothing (T&C) industry, causing large reductions in the total level of the employment. This development, which is well known in most Western countries, is characterized by strict rationalization and outsourcing strategies, but has been of a larger magnitude in Denmark than in many other places. In this connection, one would expect a major increase in unemployment among former T&C workers. To address this issue we follow each individual worker employed in the T&C industry and seek to answer the question whether transitions into unemployment are higher than the manufacturing industry average. Contrary to expectations we find that although employment in the T&C industry drops by more than 80% from 1975 to 2000, a surprisingly large number of employees who leave their jobs, or are laid off, are rehired within the same industry until the early/mid 1990s. After this point the majority is able to find jobs in other industries. Moreover, only a small fraction of people from the T&C industry enters unemployment compared to the manufacturing industries in general, while a larger fraction enters retirement and education. Concurrently with this development, we find that the inflow of people into the T&C industry is declining sharply. Hence, based on these findings we argue that the reallocation problem of the T&C industry generally is solved through a natural phase out, and through the ability of employees to find work in other sectors along with a gradual stop of recruitment of new and younger employees

I kronikken gennemgås økonomien i forslaget om skattelettelse. Det vises hvordan kun få vil arbejde mere, mens andre vil arbejde mindre. Udgivelsesdato: 21. marts

Danske erhvervsvirksomheder har adgang til den såkaldte momsafløftning. Momsafløftning består i, at erhvervsvirksomheder kan undlade at betale moms af leverede varer, som de ikke får betaling for. En hovedkonklusion i denne artikel er, at momsafløftningsretten er samfundsøkonomisk uhensigts-mæssig, dels af fiskale, dels af effektivitetsmæssige årsager.

For years, Denmark has maintained and developed its apprenticeship system which is comparable to the German system. Today, about 40% of the youth cohorts get apprenticeship training. The paper describes the basic functioning of the labour market of apprentices. It is initially shown how the wage and unemployment rates of skilled workers who have served an apprenticeship differ from those of non-skilled workers. In recent years there have been periods with serious mismatches between the demand for and the supply of apprenticeships. Through the 80's subsidies were introduced to overcome this shortage. The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the possible impact of these subsidies. A unique longitudinal data set that enables us to follow 1000 work places from 1980 to 1991 is applied. This makes it possible to control for observed and unobserved work place effects. The estimates show that the subsidies have had an impact on the supply of places in some industries while others are not affected at all. The total effect has been compared to the costs and it is found that the total costs per extra apprenticeship is about 54,000 DKK. Finally, the results are used to simulate the effects of changing the subsidies.