| 1. |
- Nilsson, Anna, 1977-
(författare)
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Indirect effects of unemployment and low earnings : Crime and children's school performance
- 2005
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt)abstract
- This thesis consists of three self-contained essays that consider indirect effects of unemployment and low earnings on crime and children’s school performance. The first essay, Crime, unemployment and labor market programs in turbulent times (joint with Jonas Agell), investigates the effect of unemployment and participation in labor market programs, in general and among youth, on Swedish crime rates using a new panel data set for Swedish municipalities for the period 1996-2000. The exceptional variation in Swedish unemployment in the 1990s provides a remarkable (quasi-) experiment. Between 1996 and 2000 the overall unemployment rate (including those enrolled in labor market programs) decreased from 11.9 to 6.8 percent, and for those most likely to commit crimes, people under the age of 25, unemployment decreased from 21.2 to 8.7 percent. But the decrease in unemployment was far from uniform across the country, and our identification strategy is to use the exceptional variation in the improvement in labor market conditions across municipalities to isolate the relationship between unemployment and crime. We also consider whether placement in labor market programs reduce crime. Such an effect could arise for many reasons. Program participation may imply: (i) that there is less time for other activities, including crime; (ii) social interactions that prevent the participant from adopting the wrong kind of social norms; (iii) a greater ability to earn legal income in the labor market. Unlike most previous studies we identify a statistically and economically significant effect of general unemployment on the incidence of burglary, auto-theft and drug possession. Contrary to much popular wisdom, however, we could not establish a clear association between youth unemployment and the incidence of youthful crimes and there is no evidence that labor market programs – general ones and those targeted to the young – help to reduce crime.The second essay, Earnings and crime: The case of Sweden, analyzes whether low earnings has an effect on Swedish crime rates, considering the overall crime rate and specific property crime categories, using a panel of county-level data for the period 1975–2000. Various measures of the income distribution are considered, based on annual labor earnings as well as annual disposable income. The results indicate that the effect of low earnings on crime in Sweden is at best weak. We estimate a significant effect of low earnings on the number of auto thefts, but the effect is small. Low earnings seem to have no effect on the overall crime rate, the number of burglaries or the robbery rate. The results give, however, further support for an unambiguous link between unemployment and the overall crime rate as well as specific property crime categories. These findings are in contrast with results from, for example, the United States where wages are found to have a stronger impact on crime than unemployment. The differing results could, at least partly, be explained by the fact that during the period investigated, Swedish unemployment has been of a more permanent nature than U.S. unemployment, and that transitory earnings fluctuations appear to dominate the Swedish earnings distribution for young men, a part of the population committing a disproportionate share of many crimes.Finally, the third essay, Parental unemployment and children’s school performance, considers another possible indirect effect of unemployment, namely the school performance of the children of the unemployed. I use Swedish data on individual GPA from the completion of primary school at age 16 and final grades from upper secondary school for a majority of all children completing primary school in 1990 directly moving on to three years of upper secondary school, which they complete in 1993. The empirical method builds on the idea that primary school GPA can be used to control for family and individual heterogeneity. The huge variation in Swedish unemployment during the beginning of the 1990s, which can be traced to macroeconomic events, provides an ideal setting for testing the hypothesis that parental unemployment affects children’s school performance. The main results can be summarized as follows. If a mother is subjected to an unemployment spell during the period when one of her children attends upper secondary school, the school performance of the child marginally improves. This implies that, for women, the positive effect of having extra time on your hands exceeds the negative effects of the disadvantages caused by unemployment. This positive effect of having an unemployed mother seems to increase with the length of the unemployment spell. On the opposite, having a short-term unemployed father has a negative effect on a child’s school performance while the effect is insignificant for long-term paternal unemployment. The fact that a long-term unemployment spell of the father has a less clear effect could be interpreted as the shock of unemployment wearing out. One explanation for the differing results across genders could be that women in general cope better with being unemployed and hence are able to use their new extra time doing something productive, such as spending quality time with their children.
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| 2. |
- Wilkens, Carl, 1968-
(författare)
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Auri sacra fames : Interest Rates -- Prediction, Jumps and the Market Price of Risk
- 2005
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt)abstract
- This thesis consists of three essays investigating different aspects of interest rates."Prediction of Future Risk-Neutral Short-Term Interest Rate Densities: Can the Black, Derman and Toy Model Assist?" (Co-authored with David Vestin.) This essay evaluates two different approaches to inferring expectations of future interest rates from asset prices. One is based on bond data and builds on the Black, Derman and Toy model, the other is based on option prices. We compare the outcome with a specified assumed benchmark data generating process. The main conclusion is that the option based model works well, whereas the bond based model has difficulties in capturing aspects of the true distribution."Natura non facit saltum – Or Are Jumps an Inherent Feature in European Interest Rate Markets?" A jump-enhanced diffusion model for the instantaneous interest rate is estimated on the EURIBOR, LIBOR and STIBOR one-week interest rates via the characteristic function and a Fourier transform to recover the density function. This is compared with an estimated non-jump diffusion model. Both continuous-time and discrete-time versions of the model are estimated. For all three interest rate series, likelihood ratio tests favor the jump-enhanced model at a statistically significant level. This result holds for both the continuous-time and the discrete-time versions of the model."Estimating the Market Price of Risk in European Interest Rate Markets Using Spectral GMM." The market price of risk in European interest rate markets, constituted by the market price of diffusion risk and the market price of jump risk, is estimated for a jump diffusion model, using the characteristic function and the Generalized Method of Moments. Utilized data is the EURIBOR twelve-month interest rate during 1999-2003. The results are in line with earlier studies on US interest rate markets. The estimation technique appears promising in its technical simplicity, but entails practical estimation difficulties such as start-value sensitivity and lack of efficiency.
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| 3. |
- Cheung, Maria, 1975-
(författare)
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Education, Gender and Media : Empirical Essays in Development Economics
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt)abstract
- The first essay, Edutainment Radio, Women’s Status and Primary School Participation: Evidence from Cambodia, investigates whether exposure to education-entertainment radio leads to improved women's status and primary school participation. Results show significant behavioral effects related to women's decision-making power and investments in children's primary schooling in exposed areas. Suggestive evidence indicates that gender-related attitudes were affected as well, which is a stepping stone towards changing socially constructed gender norms. The second essay, Who Benefits from Free Education? Long-Term Evidence from a Policy Experiment in Cambodia, investigates the effects of abolishing primary school fees. One additional year of free education had no impact on poor children, but increased the educational attainment for non-poor children. Persistent local educational norms and income segregation may explain why poor students were less likely to progress and complete the higher grades. The third essay, Does Female Education Postpone Fertility? Evidence from a Policy Experiment in Cambodia, investigates the role of female education as a vehicle to postpone early childbearing. Exploiting a policy experiment with differential impact on education, the findings suggest that women who gained more education were associated with fewer births and a postponement of early fertility while no changes in early fertility were observed for unaffected women. The fourth essay, The Impact of a Food for Education Program on Schooling in Cambodia, evaluates three types of FFE interventions gradually implemented in primary schools. Results show that enrollment increased sharply in the short-run but did not lead to higher educational achievements, plausible due to a countervailing class size effect. While these interventions are cost-effective to attract children to school, adjusting school resources accordingly may be important to promote a long-term learning as well.
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| 4. |
- Engström, Gustav, 1977-
(författare)
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Essays on Economic Modeling of Climate Change
- 2012
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt)abstract
- Structural change in a two-sector model of the climate and the economy introduces issues concerning substitutability among goods in a two-sector economic growth model where emissions from fossil fuels give rise to a climate externality. Substitution is modeled using a CES-production function where the intermediate inputs differ only in their technologies and the way they are affected by the climate externality. I derive a simple formula for optimal taxes and resource allocation over time and highlight model sensitivity w.r.t the elasticity of substitution and distribution parameters.Energy Balance Climate Models and General Equilibrium Optimal Mitigation Policies develops a one-dimensional energy balance climate model with heat diffusion and anthropogenic forcing across latitudes driven by global fossil fuel use coupled to an economic growth model. Our results suggest that if the implementation of international transfers across latitudes are not possible or costly, then optimal taxes are in general spatially non-uniform and may be lower at poorer latitudes. Energy Balance Climate Models, Damage Reservoirs and the Time Profileof Climate Change Policy explores optimal mitigation policies through the lens of a latitude dependent energy balance climate model coupled to an economic growth model. We associate the movement of an endogenous polar ice cap with the idea of a damage reservoir being a finite source of climate related damages affecting the economy. The analysis shows that the introduction of damage reservoirs can generate multiple steady states and Skiba points.Assessing Sustainable Development in a DICE World investigates a method for assessing sustainable development under climate change in the Dynamic Integrated model of Climate and the Economy (DICE-2007 model). The analysis shows that the sustainability measure is highly sensitive to the calibration of the inter-temporal elasticity parameter and discount rate of the social welfare function.
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| 5. |
- Laun, Lisa, 1981-
(författare)
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Studies on Social Insurance, Income Taxation and Labor Supply
- 2012
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt)abstract
- This thesis consists of five papers, summarized as follows. "Disability Insurance, Population Health, and Employment in Sweden"This paper describes the development of population health and disability insurance utilization for older workers in Sweden and analyzes the relation between the two. We also study the effects of changes in eligibility criteria for older workers. "Does Privatization of Vocational Rehabilitation Improve Labor Market Opportunities? Evidence from a Field Experiment in Sweden"This paper analyzes if privatization of vocational rehabilitation improves labor market opportunities for long-term sick, using a field experiment. We find no differences in employment rates following rehabilitation between individuals who received rehabilitation by private and public providers. "Screening Stringency in the Disability Insurance Program"This paper proposes a strategy for assessing how the inflow to the disability insurance program has been governed over time. We analyze the ex-ante health of new beneficiaries by using ex-post mortality. We find large variation in the relative health of new beneficiaries compared to non-beneficiaries in Sweden over time. "The Effect of Age-Targeted Tax Credits on Retirement Behavior"This paper analyzes the effect of two tax credits for workers above age 65 implemented in Sweden in 2007: an earned income tax credit and a payroll tax credit. I find that the age-targeted tax credits increased employment in the year following the 65th birthday, but the increase was not large enough to offset the implied decrease in tax revenues. "Wage Dynamics and Firm-Level Shocks"This paper proposes a framework for introducing the firm into empirical models of the dynamic income process. The model allows for studying the extent to which firm-level productivity shocks are transmitted to wages. Selection into employment and between jobs is explicitly modeled. We also present a strategy for estimation and identification of the model
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| 6. |
- Odendahl, Christian, 1980-
(författare)
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Parties, Majorities, Incumbencies : Four essays in political economics
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt)abstract
- This thesis consists of four self-contained essays on political economics. The first paper studies the impact of having one party in government versus a coalition of parties, where the exogenous variation in the type of government stems from close election outcomes. It uses a new algorithm to detect these close elections in multi-party systems to answer this question. Based on data from more than 2,000 municipalities in the German state of Bavaria, it finds that single-party governments spend more, not less as is often concluded in the theoretical and empirical literature. The second paper uses the same method of detecting close elections to extract exogenous variation, but looks at the political power of parties and its effect on tax policies. It finds significant effects of party power that are mostly in line with expectations. The third paper looks at the transition of voters between parties in three consecutive elections for the state parliament in Bavaria, and infers parties’ ideological positions from these transition flows. After estimating the transition matrices with a method based on maximum entropy, it uses these matrices to compute a distance matrix and uses multi-dimensional scaling to place parties in a policy space. The resulting positions of parties are plausible, consistent across both transition periods, and comparable to those estimated with other methods. The final paper studies the heterogeneity in the advantage of incumbent district candidates in German federal and state parliament elections. In particular, it looks at the party in government, and how that affects the incumbency advantage of district candidates. It finds that an incumbency effect only exists (for both major parties) if the center-left SPD is in government, a heterogeneity that is robust across different specifications and jurisdictions.
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| 7. |
- Olsson, Martin, 1978-
(författare)
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Essays on Employment Protection, Private Equity and Spousal Behavior
- 2012
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt)abstract
- This thesis consists of four papers, summarized as follows.“Employment Protection and Sickness Absence”An exemption in the Swedish Employment Security Act in 2001 allows employers with at most ten employees to exempt two workers from the seniority rule at times of redundancies. The exemption is found to decrease sickness absence by more than 13% at those establishments that were treated relative to those that were not and this was due to a behavioral, rather than a compositional, effect.“Employment Protection and Parental Childcare”I examine if employment protection affects parental childcare. I estimate that an increased dismissal risk reduces the total days of parental childcare by around six percent. The identification relies on a reform that made it easier for employers in Sweden to dismiss workers in small firms. Both a sorting effect and a behavioral effect can explain the reduced childcare. I also find that temporary parental leave is redistributed within households if only one partner was affected by the reform.“Private Equity and Employees”Using linked employer-employee data from Sweden, a difference-in-difference approach, and 201 private equity buyouts undertaken between 1998 and 2004, we show that unemployment risk declines and labor income increases for employees after a private equity buyout. A plausible explanation is relaxed financial constraints: the effects are strongest in industries dependent on external finance for growth, for non-divisional buyouts, and for buyouts just prior to 2001.“Temporary Disability Insurance and Spousal Labor Supply”We use a reform in the Swedish temporary disability insurance to show that the partner’s benefit level affects spousal labour supply: an eleven percent increase of the partner’s benefit level is estimated to prolong spousal sick spells with around eight percent, which corresponds to an elasticity of sick days with respect to the partner’s benefit of three-quarters of the own labor supply elasticity of unity.
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| 8. |
- Sheard, Nicholas, 1979-
(författare)
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Regional Economics, Trade, and Transport Infrastructure
- 2012
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt)abstract
- “Regional Policy in a Multiregional Setting: When the Poorest are Hurt by Subsidies” Regional subsidies have a positive short-term effect on the recipient regions, but as they alter migration patterns the long-term effects are less clear. This paper demonstrates using a three-region general equilibrium model that subsidising the poorest region may be to its detriment in the long term and thereby increase inter-regional inequality, if the subsidy draws firms from a nearby region that would function better as a production centre. The result has important implications for the design of regional policies, which are often applied simply according to per-capita incomes. “Learning to Export and the Timing of Entry to Export Markets” Standard trade models are essentially static and do not explain why entry to export markets would be delayed after the instant a firm is formed. This paper proposes a model that endogenously generates the timing of entry to new markets through a learning mechanism. Firms in the model gain experience by entering markets, which eases entry to subsequent markets. The mechanism motivates delays in entry to some markets. More productive firms are less sensitive to the learning effect and thus enter markets sooner and begin by exporting to larger markets. These predictions are confirmed using Swedish firm-level data. “Airports and the Production of Goods and Services” This paper estimates the effects of airport infrastructure on local employment in certain sectors, using data from the United States. Airport sizes are instrumented for using the 1944 National Airport Plan of the Civil Aeronautics Administration. Airport size is found to have a positive effect on local employment in tradable services, with an elasticity of approximately 0.1, and a negative effect on manufacturing. There is no measurable effect on non-tradable services. The results are relevant to the evaluation of airport improvement projects, which are often carried out using public funds.
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| 9. |
- von Essen, Emma, 1979-
(författare)
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Understanding unequal outcomes
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt)abstract
- In economics there are two main domains of explanation for understanding unequal outcomes. The first considers differences in individual preferences, while the second concerns differences in how individuals are treated.Part I of the thesis comprises four articles pertaining to the first explanation. The main focus of these articles is gender differences in preference. The behaviors studied therein are risk preferences, competitiveness, altruism and cooperativeness. The first study finds no gender differences in performance under a competitive setting, across tasks with varying gender stereotyping. In the second study we find the gender gap in choosing to compete to be present only in the mathematical and not the verbal domain among adolescents. Moreover, its presence can largely be accounted for by other factors, such as performance beliefs. The third and fourth study compares children in Colombia and Sweden. In this sample there are no gender differences in Colombia, but in Sweden boys choose to compete more than girls. In risk-aversion however we find the gender gap to be larger in Colombia. Girls compared to boys also seem to be less cooperative in Colombia, whereas we find the opposite in Sweden.Part II comprises two articles relating to how individuals are treated by others. The first article explores how social status influences third party punishment. Punishment decisions made by male third parties in response to a norm violation are in this study found to be affected by both the social status and the gender of the judged individual. The second article investigates how transient anonymity interacts with discrimination in online markets. The results show buyer discrimination in the feedback system against male sellers with foreign-sounding names. This discrimination only occurs when sellers are anonymous; that is, if they chose not to reveal their name in their username.
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| 10. |
- Carlén, Björn, 1965-
(författare)
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Studies in climate change policy : theory and experiments
- 2000
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt)abstract
- Emission Quota Trade Among the Few: Laboratory Evidence of Joint Implementation Among Committed Countries. The purpose of the laboratory tests reported here is to identify a well-functioning design, tailored for an upcoming unique experiment using real-world relevant decision makers for carbon emission reductions trade among four countries committed to binding carbon emission limits, a form of so-called joint implementation. The design is required to promote high trade efficiency and a limited scope for arbitrage. All designs tested reached high levels of efficiency (87-99 %), which is noteworthy given the small number of traders. Attempts to adjust the design to reduce or eliminate arbitrage were successful in the final test rounds.The Role of Market Power in International Emissions Trading: A Laboratory Experiment. Several policy advisers have expressed concerns that market power will characterize international greenhouse gas emissions trading, especially since presumed large buyers or sellers, e.g., the US or Russia or, eventually, China, would be allowed to trade directly on the market. The experiment reported here mimics a case where twelve countries, one of which is a large buyer, trade carbon emissions on a double auction market and where traders have essentially full information about the underlying net demand. The findings deviate from those of the standard version of market power effects in that trade volumes are efficient and prices are for the most part competitive.Cost-effective Approaches to Attracting Low-Income Countries to International Emissions Trading: Theory and Experiments. The cost-effectiveness of the Kyoto Protocol and any similar non-global climate treaty would be enhanced by attracting as many new countries as possible to international emissions trading and achieving these additions as soon as possible. This paper focuses on two forms of compensation that can be used to attract poor, risk-averse countries to participate in emissions trading. The theoretical as well as experimental evidence presented here suggests that, if poor countries are more risk averse than rich countries, partial compensation in terms of financial transfers is more cost-effective than relying solely on giving the poor countries large emission quotas as has been the case so far. In fact, the theoretical argument for cost-effectiveness indicates that significant parts of the emission quotas to new participating countries should be replaced by financial transfers. Using money for partial compensation would also reduce the risk for 'hot air' allocations and the ensuing political obstacles to cost-effectiveness that such allocations tend to create.On the Interaction Effects of Environmental Policies. Recent literature has shown that environmental policies interact with the tax system in a way that may substantially increase the social cost of environmental control, the so-called interaction effect. So far, this literature has focused on specific types of environmental problems and an interaction effect that arises on the labor market. Allowing for more than one primary factor and other types of environmental problems, other interaction effect may arise. Some of these may reduce the social cost of environmental control. This is so, for example, if inputs that harm the environment when used in one activity are harmless in others, as is the case for some location-specific externalities. In fact, the aggregate interaction effect may well be cost reducing. In addition, it is even possible that the interaction effect on the labor market is cost reducing.
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