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Staffan Bohman will be the new chairman of the board of the Research Institute of Industrial Economics, IFN. He succeeds Michael Treschow, who has been chairman 2011–2018.

In early February IFN invited PhD students and students in their final year of the master program in economics to an Open House. The students came from Uppsala University, Stockholm School of Economics, Stockholm University, Jönköping International Business School, University of Gothenburg and Lund University. Following a number of presentations of the Institute and research projects the students mingled with researchers and research assistants learing more about what it's like to be a researcher.

On Tuesday, Mårten Blix, IFN, presented research on digitalization in healthcare to the Committee on Social Insurance in Swedish Parliament. Blix, together with Allan Gustafsson, was invited to talk about their findings and to answer the members' questions. Both Blix and Gustafsson are authors of a ESO reports on digitalization within healthcare.

“Many small and shrinking municipalities are finding it increasingly difficult to cope with their welfare assignment”, says Eva Mörk, Uppsala University, Gissur Ó Erlingsson, Linköping University, and Lovisa Persson, IFN, in the SNS Konjunkturrådsrapport 2019. They advocate, among other things, that asymmetric division of responsibility is studied, i.e., that certain areas of responsibility are lifted away from smaller municipalities. The reason is that the researchers have found that the difference is growing between cities and rural areas. "The students in big cities generally perform better than those in a remote rural area," Lovisa Persson explained. As for elderly care, however, the researchers do not see any systematic difference.

On Monday, the Centre for Business and Policy Studies SNS, organized a seminar on basic income, also called citizen's salary (medborgarlön). Andreas Bergh, IFN and Lund University, presented the background to the public debate and the various arguments – for and against. Minna Ylikännö, a researcher at the Finnish Social Security Administration, presented a Finnish experiment with basic income (in the case of unemployment) recently concluded but still not evaluated. Bergh suggested that a person who thinks that basic income is something useful should embrace “muddling through”, that is, change today's systems step by step by way of trivial reforms.

Joacim Tåg, IFN, commented, at an SNS seminar, on a presentation by Marianne Bertrand, professor at The University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Bertrand presented research on the underlying causes for why women are still underrepresented amongst high-income earners despite the progress in equality of the genders in several other aspects. 

“Ethnic segregation has increased in Sweden since the 1990’s but so has the share of self-employment among immigrants”, said Mats Hammarstedt, Linnéuns University and affiliated researcher to IFN, at the seminar "Segregation and refugees’ entrepreneurship" (SNS). Henrik Andersson, Uppsala University, presented a study on the effects of ethnic segregation on self-employment. Andersson finds in his study that refugees that were placed in municipalities with a greater share of self-employed individuals from the same country of origin as themselves were more likely to become self-employed.

The ESO-report (The Expert Group on Public Economics) Operation digitalisering (Operation digitalization), by Mårten Blix, IFN, and Charlotta Lavay, Lund University, was presented at a seminar. The authors write about digitalization in the health care sector and demand a more pragmatic view on the topic. While many individuals can already today seek health care (advice) via the internet and thereby become better informed patients, this does not necessarily imply that health care has become less expensive for society, explained Blix. Having said that, Blix also mentioned results from an American study that shows that well-informed patients are easier to treat and reduce the costs of health care by 20 percent.

Together with the publisher Dialogos, IFN arranged a seminar about the book “How can more enter the labor market? (Hur ska fler komma in på arbetsmarknaden?). Professor Lars Calmfors, who is one of the authors of the book, was interviewed by the journalist Cecilia Garme. The interview revolved mainly around problems of integrating foreign-born individuals in the Swedish labor market. “Employment rates are lower for foreign-born individuals”, said Calmfors. He explained that there is a need for more simple jobs with lower wages.

The Swedish Research Council and the Institute for Future Studies arranged the public seminar “What happens when the rich become richer?” (Vad händer när de rika blir rikare?). One of the participants was the IFN-researcher Professor Daniel Waldenström. His presentation contained topics such as wealth growth in Sweden, redistribution and its implications for capital income taxation. Waldenström showed that national wealth has increased significantly in recent decades and that the increase was from the private sector. He explained that due to noisy micro-data “we cannot with certainty say whether wealth inequality has increased in Sweden”, but preliminary estimates indicate that no major changes have happened.

Mikael Elinder, Uppsala University and affiliated to IFN, and Johannes Hagen, Jönköping International Business School, presented their report Den komplexa tjänsterapporten (SNS). Individuals report that the occupational pension system is difficult to understand, explained Elinder. Few people understand this specific part of the pension system. One fourth of the respondents do not even know if they have an occupational pension plan. In the report, Elinder and Hagen present seven ideas for how the pension system can be simplified, one of which is to upgrade the site Minpension.se.

 Andreas Bergh, IFN and Lund University, was one of the speakers when the think tank Timbro celebrated its 40th anniversary at the Modern Museum in Stockholm. The subject was the growing sharing economy. "The size of the sharing economy in one country depends mostly on the speed of the internet," explained Bergh, one of the researchers behind the Sharing Economy Index (TSEI), a report on the global size of the divisional economy.

Richard Öhrvall, IFN, has received his Ph.D. in Political Science from Linköping University. “It’s fun to present what I have spent much of my time on these past few years.” In his dissertation, Growing into voting- Election turnout among young people and habit formation, Öhrvall concludes that it is not necessary for future election participation that young individuals vote in the elections immediately following their 18th birthday, as previously thought. This implies that lowering the voting age most plausibly won’t result in higher election turnout, even in the long run.

In the October issue of the Journal of Political Economy an article is published by Assar Lindbeck, IFN and Stockholm University, and Mats Persson, Stockholm University: "Social Norms in Social Insurance". JPE is one of the five top journals in the field of economics, where it is extremely challenging to be published. "It is unique to publish new research in any of these journals at the age of 88," says Professor Magnus Henrekson, CEO of IFN. By comparison, it can be mentioned that among the winners of the Nobel Prize in Economics, so far, the oldest to publish original research as a full-length article in a top-five journal, is Vernon Smith. At the time, he was 81.

“Digitalization and the welfare state” was the topic of a presentation held by Mårten Blix, IFN, for DNB Bank during the tennis tournament Stockholm Open. Mårten Blix described how digitalization might catalyze economic polarization in society. To conclude, Blix gave his view on Sweden’s capability to implement large-scale structural reforms: Will Sweden manage to carry through large-scale structural changes in the absence of a crisis? That remains to be seen, said, Blix. Finally, he compared the 1990’s and today regarding opportunities to reform society.

Most people want more care and who is to say that this is wrong without explaining why today's level is the valid one, writes Mårten Blix, IFN, and Johanna Jeansson, Dagens Industri, in a blog on the Forum for Health Policy. In this perspective, digital care can be appreciated as a positive innovation: "To the extent that patients choose digital care via a video call instead of visiting a healthcare center, there are several benefits to society. Patients will not need to travel, the doctor's time can be used more efficiently and the risk of infection from a physical visit to a healthcare center is avoided."

During the annual conference of the Swedish Economics Association (Nationalekonomiska föreningen), which this year was organized by the Business School at Linnaeus University in Växjö, the Assar Lindbeck medal was presented. Magnus Henrekson, IFN, awarded the medal to Petter Lundborg, Lund University. Assar Lindbeck himself was also attending the conference and the award ceremony. An additional number of IFN researchers participate by presenting and commenting on research.

Academic seminars are held at IFN every Wednesday, where researchers from IFN and other institutes and universities present their current work. So-called brown bag seminars are also organized. Here, research is presented at an earlier stage. Brown bag seminars are more informal meetings held at lunchtime. Participants usually bring their own lunch, often in a brown paper bag (in the US), and hence the name. The photo shows Karin Edmark, Stockholm University and affiliated to IFN, who recently presented research from the field of education at a brown bag seminar.

On Tuesday, Magnus Henrekson presented a report at the The Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences, IVA. Together with Sebastian Jävervall, PhD student at Uppsala University, he has authored the report "Swedish school achievements are falling – what do we know?" Magnus Henrekson participated via link from Värnamo where the IFN board was visiting a number of businesses. The event and panel discussion at IVA was also attended by State Secretary Erik Nilsson, Per Kornhall, author and educational expert, and Pam Fredman, Chancellor at University of Gothenburg.

IVA's Chairman Leif Johansson, President of Ericsson and AstraZeneca, opened the seminar.

View seminar

Roger Svensson, IFN, participated on Friday in a panel discussing Anders Gustafsson's dissertation "Industrial Policy: Political Considerations, Payoffs, and Peculiar Incentives." The seminar was organized by Ratio. "We have to pull down on selective programs," said Roger Svensson. He advocated a bottom-up-perspective, that is, today's financial support is replaced with general tax incentives so that more people can start innovative projects in companies. "Or give tax incentives for individuals to invest in unlisted companies, like in Britain."