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- Engdahl, Mattias, 1982-
(författare)
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International Mobility and the Labor Market
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis consists of four self-contained essays.Essay 1 (with Olof Åslund): We study the labor market impact of opening borders to low-wage countries. The analysis exploits time and regional variation provided by the 2004 EU enlargement in combination with transport links to Sweden from the new member states. The results suggest an adverse impact on earnings of present workers in the order of 1 percent in areas close to pre-existing ferry lines. The effects are present in most segments of the labor market but tend to be greater in groups with weaker positions. The impact is also clearer in industries which have received more workers from the new member states, and for which across-the-border work is likely to be more common. There is no robust evidence on an impact on employment or wages. At least part of the effects is likely due to channels other than the ones typically considered in the literature. Essay 2: I study demand shifting effects of real exchange rate movements in border regions. Detailed geographic information on border crossings, the location of retail outlets, and where the population resides, allows me to explore the labor market effects of cross-border shopping. The impact is identified by comparing areas located close to the border with more remote areas. The relative effects are large; a ten percent decline in the value of the Swedish krona is followed by an increase in the number of employees in the retail industry by 3 percent. Similarly, the share of the population employed in retail increases by 0.3 percentage points and annual earnings by 2.7 percent.Essay 3 (with Olof Åslund): We study the effects of performance bonuses in immigrant language training for adults. A Swedish policy pilot conducted in 2009–2010 gave a randomly assigned group of municipalities the right to grant substantial cash bonuses to recently arrived migrants. The results suggest substantial effects on average student achievement. But these were fully driven by metropolitan areas; in other parts of Sweden average performance was more or less unaffected. In line with theory, effects tend to be clearer where institutional features make the bonus more feasible, or where student characteristics suggest that the costs should be lower.Essay 4: I study the association between naturalizations, labor market outcomes and family formation. The results show that the economic outcomes of immigrants from outside the OECD, on average, improve following naturalization. A strict causal interpretation of the results is not possible as the outcomes start to improve already before the acquisition of citizenship. The study also shows that for migrants from some country groups there is a positive correlation between naturalizations and the likelihood of getting married and having children. This is suggestive of immigrants naturalizing for family reasons. Further, my findings illustrate that modeling assumptions are of great importance. Models that are not flexible enough could lead to false claims regarding causality.
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- Åslund, Olof, et al.
(författare)
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Peers, Neighborhoods, and Immigrant Student Achievement : Evidence from a Placement Policy
- 2011
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Ingår i: American Economic Journal: Applied Economics. - : American Economic Association. - 1945-7782 .- 1945-7790. ; 3:2, s. 67-95
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We examine to what extent immigrant school performance is affected by the characteristics of the neighborhoods that they grow up in. We address this issue using a refugee placement policy that provides exogenous variation in the initial place of residence in Sweden. The main result is that school performance is increasing in the number of highly educated adults sharing the subject's ethnicity. A standard deviation increase in the fraction of high-educated in the assigned neighborhood raises compulsory school GPA by 0.8 percentile ranks. Particularly for disadvantaged groups, there are also long-run effects on educational attainment. (JEL I21, J15, R23)
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- Åslund, Olof, et al.
(författare)
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Peers, neighborhoods and immigrant student achievement -evidence from a placement policy
- 2010
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- We examine to what extent immigrant school performance is affected by the characteristics of the neighborhoods that they grow up in. We address this issue using a refugee placement policy which provides exogenous variation in the initial place of residence in Sweden. The main result is that school performance is increasing in the number of highly educated adults sharing the subject’s ethnicity. A standard deviation increase in the fraction of high-educated in the assigned neighborhood raises compulsory school GPA by 0.9 percentile ranks. Particularly for disadvantaged groups, there are also long-run effects on educational attainment.
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- Grönqvist, Hans
(författare)
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Essays in Labor and Demographic Economics
- 2009
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Essay 1: (co-written with Olof Åslund) We study the impact of family size on intermediate and long-term outcomes using twin births as an exogenous source of varia¬tion in family size in an unusually rich dataset. Similar to recent studies, we find no evidence of a causal effect on long-term outcomes and show that not taking selection effects into account will likely overstate the effects. We do, however, find a small but significant negative impact of family size on grades in compulsory and secondary school among children who are likely to be vulnerable to further restrictions on parental investments. Essay 2: This paper investigates the consequences of a series of Swedish policy changes beginning in 1989 where different regions started subsidizing the birth control pill. The reforms were significant and applied to all types of oral contraceptives. My identification strategy takes advantage of the fact that the reforms were implemented successively over time and targeted specific cohorts of young women, in particular teenagers. This generates plausibly exogenous variation in access to the subsidy. I first demonstrate that access significantly increased pill use. Using regional, temporal, and cohort variation in access, I then go on to examine the impact on abortions. The estimates show that the subsidy significantly decreased the abortion rate by about 8 percent. Furthermore, the results indicate that long-term access decreases the likelihood of teenage childbearing by about 20 percent. However, there is no significant effect on labor supply, marriage, educational attainment or welfare take-up. Essay 3: (co-written with Olof Åslund, Per-Anders Edin and Peter Fredriksson) We study peer effects in compulsory school performance among immigrant youth in Sweden. The empirical analysis exploits a governmental refugee placement policy that provides exogenous variation in the initial place of residence in Sweden; and it is based on tightly defined neighborhoods. There is tentative evidence that the share of immigrants in the neighborhood has a negative effect on GPA. But the main result is that, for a given share of immigrants in a neighborhood, the presence of highly educated peers of the same ethnicity has a positive effect on school grades. The results suggest that a standard deviation increase in the fraction of highly educated adults in the assigned neighborhood increases the compulsory school GPA by 0.9 percentile ranks. This magnitude corresponds roughly to a tenth of the gap in student performance between refugee immigrant and native born children. Essay 4: This paper investigates the consequences of residential segregation for immigrants’ health. To this end, I make use of a rich dataset covering the entire Swedish population age 16–74 from 1987 to 2004. The dataset contains annual information on the exact diagnosis for all individuals admitted to Swedish hospitals, as well as a wide range of individual background characteristics. It is however difficult to identify the causal link between segregation and health since individuals might sort across residential areas based on unobserved characteristics related to health. To deal with this methodological problem I exploit a governmental refugee placement policy which provides plausibly exogenous variation in segregation. The OLS estimates show a statistically significant positive correlation between segregation and the probability of hospitalization. Estimates that account for omitted variables are however in general statistically insignificant.
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- Åslund, Olof, et al.
(författare)
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Peers, neighborhoods and immigrant student achievement : evidence from a placement policy
- 2009
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Immigrants typically perform worse than other students in the OECD countries. We examine to what extent this is due to the population characteristics of the neighborhoods that immigrants grow up in. We address this issue using a governmental refugee placement policy which provides exogenous variation in the initial place of residence in Sweden. The main result is that, for a given share of immigrants in a neighborhood, immigrant school performance is increasing in the number of higly educated adults sharing the subject's ethnicity. A standard deviation increase in the fraction of highly educated adults in the assigned neighborhood increases compulsory school GPA by 0.9 percentile ranks. This magnitude corresponds to a tenth of the gap in student performance between refugee immigrant and native-born children. We also provide tentative evidence that the overall share of immigrants in the neighborhood has a negative effect on GPA.
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