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2018-12-06
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.
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2018-11-29
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.
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2018-11-27
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.
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2018-11-09
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.
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2018-10-30
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.
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2018-10-19
“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.
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2018-10-25
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.
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2018-10-05
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.