Working Papers

How are preferences for innovation formed, and what determines the long-run direction of technological change? This paper shows that early-life exposure to environmental accidents can durably reorient…

This study examines how parenting styles predict children’s lifetime outcomes. Using a Swedish dataset which combines rich survey information on parenting styles with administrative records tracking c…

We study how students adjust their early career choices in response to economic crises and how these decisions affect their long-run labor market outcomes. Focusing on Sweden’s deep recession in the e…

We present results from research on different dimensions of immigrant self-employment in Sweden. There are variations in self-employment rates between different groups of immigrants and the native pop…

Capital income is known to increase income inequality when measured on an annual basis, but the role of personal capital income in long-run inequality is rarely studied. Theoretically, capital income…

We study the wage effects of an expansion of for-profit preschools in Sweden, which followed after a reform in 2006 removed municipalities’ right to veto private entry. The expansion decreased prescho…

This paper examines income and employment outcomes for immigrants in Sweden’s most immigrant-dense neighbourhoods between 1998 and 2022. While relative employment among immigrants has improved, relati…

We study the effect of prison sentences on recidivism using a unique feature of sentencing for drunk driving in the Swedish court system. Below the blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of 1.0‰, individua…

This paper examines how managerial background influences firms’ use of labor migration. Using Swedish data, we analyze whether firms led by foreign-born managers are more likely to apply for work perm…

This paper examines the impact of a Swedish policy allowing manufacturing firms to influence the curricula of local educational institutions. Our analysis shows that the program has contributed to a s…

Uncertainty affects people in various ways. It is frequently found to hinder investment and production in the economic sphere. In this study, we examine the empirical relationship between uncertainty…

The rapid rise of e-scooters (electric scooters) in cities around the world, boosted by the introduction of shared e-scooter services has visibly reshaped the way people move around cities, sparking b…

Understanding the consequences and recovery for countries hit by adverse national events such as political crises is central to understanding long-run development dynamics. Utilizing the Coleman boat…

The various form of pattern bargaining with manufacturing, as representative of the tradables sector, deciding the norm for wage increases in the Nordic countries are reviewed. This form of bargaining…

This paper examines the long-term effects of early sports selection using a regression discontinuity design. I show that Swedish track and field athletes who qualified for a one-time appearance with t…

We estimate the causal effects of parental incarceration on children’s short- and long-run outcomes using administrative data from Sweden. Our empirical strategy exploits exogenous variation in parent…

This paper presents evidence that anonymous grading benefits female university students based on a university-wide reform. Female grades improve by 0.04-0.06 standard deviations relative to males, wit…

Quasi-markets in the provision of public services are increasingly common but also highly contested. We formulate a conceptual framework based on economic theory to describe how quasi-markets differ f…

Borrowing ideas from the medical sciences, we propose tentative guidelines for reliable causal inferences that cover aspects related to both the study itself and its fit with background knowledge. We…

The discussion of the growth consequences of socialism has fulminated for a century, sparked off by the Calculation Debate in the 1920s and 30s, and has concerned the performance of the Soviet Union i…

This paper investigates the role of individualism in explaining cross-country differences in working from home (WFH). Using data from the Current Population Survey (CPS) of the United States and the E…

We examine immigrant self-employment in Sweden during 2011–2021 – a turbulent decade with a large influx of refugees into the country and the outbreak of the global COVID-19 pandemic. Four outcome var…

Populist parties have grown rapidly in popularity in most European countries, and are increasingly common in government coalitions. Analyzing 183 populist parties in 33 European countries from 1980 to…

This paper examines the electoral impact of increased foreign tourism, using data from Croatia. Exploiting exogenous variation in travel times to coastal municipalities from improved road infrastructu…

Our use of longitudinal register data combined with a unique survey allows us to offer a more comprehensive picture of rural self-employment than in previous studies. We find that self-employed in rur…

Academic freedom is a cornerstone of modern academic life. It is not only implied by basic liberal principles but also contributes to scientific progress and economic growth. It is therefore important…

We evaluate a non-targeted summer youth employment program (SYEP) for high school students aged 16–19 in Stockholm, Sweden, where public sector job offers were as good as randomly assigned. In contras…

The notion that society should be organized around large so-called missions has gained momentum in public debate, and the reemergence of active industrial policy across the world has been inspired by…

We investigate the impact of attending a free school in England – that is, a new start-up school that enjoys considerable autonomy while remaining in the state sector. We analyse the effects of two se…

The association between freedom of expression – freedom of speech and the freedom of the media – and social conflict is theoretically ambiguous and politically highly contested. On one side of the deb…