| 1. |
- Aaberge, Rolf, et al.
(författare)
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Income Inequality and Income Mobility in the Scandinavian Countries Compared to the United States
- 2002
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Ingår i: The Review of Income and Wealth. - : Blackwell Publishers Ltd. - 1475-4991 .- 0034-6586. ; 48:4, s. 443-469
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper compares income inequality and income mobility in the Scandinavian countries and the United States during 1980-90. The results suggest that inequality is greater in the United States than in the Scandinavian countries and that this inequality ranking of countries remains unchanged when the accounting period of income is extended from one to eleven years. The pattern of mobility turns out to be remarkably similar, in the sense that the proportionate reduction in inequality from extending the accounting period of income is much the same. But we do find evidence of greater dispersion of first differences of relative earnings and income in the United States. Relative income changes are associated with changes in labor market and marital status in all four countries, but the magnitude of such changes are largest in the United States.
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| 2. |
- Aalto, Aino-Maija
(författare)
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Incentives and Inequalities in Family and Working Life
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Essay I: Same-gender teachers may affect educational preferences by acting as role models for their students. I study the importance of the gender composition of teachers in math and science during lower secondary school on the likelihood to continue in math-intensive tracks in the next levels of education. I use population wide register data from Sweden and control for family fixed effects to account for sorting into schools. According to my results, the gender gap in graduating with a math-intensive track in upper secondary school would decrease by 16 percent if the share of female math and science teachers would be changed from none to all at lower secondary school. The gap in math-related university degrees would decrease by 22 percent from the same treatment. The performance is not affected by the higher share of female science teachers, only the likelihood to choose science, suggesting that the effects arise because female teachers serve as role models for female students.
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| 3. |
- Adermon, Adrian, 1981-, et al.
(författare)
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Dynastic Human Capital, Inequality, and Intergenerational Mobility
- 2021
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Ingår i: American Economic Review. - : American Economic Association. - 0002-8282 .- 1944-7981. ; 111:5, s. 1523-1548
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We estimate long-run intergenerational persistence in human capital using information on outcomes for the extended family: the dynasty. A dataset including the entire Swedish population, linking four generations, allows us to identify parents' siblings and cousins, their spouses, and spouses' siblings. Using various human capital measures, we show that traditional parent-child estimates underestimate long-run intergenerational persistence by at least one-third. By adding outcomes for more distant ancestors, we show that almost all of the persistence is captured by the parental generation. Data on adoptees show that at least one-third of -long-term persistence is attributed to environmental factors.
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| 4. |
- Ahlsson, Fredrik, 1967-, et al.
(författare)
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School Performance After Preterm Birth
- 2015
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Ingår i: Epidemiology. - 1044-3983 .- 1531-5487. ; 26:1, s. 106-111
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: An increased risk of poor school performance for children born preterm has been shown in many studies, but whether this increase is attributable to preterm birth per se or to other factors associated with preterm birth has not been resolved. Methods: We used data from the Swedish Medical Birth Register, the Longitudinal Integration Database for Sickness Insurance and Labor Market Study, the Swedish Multigeneration Register, and the National School Register to link records comprising the Swedish birth cohorts from 1974 through 1991. Linear regression was used to assess the association between gestational duration and school performance, both with and without controlling for parental and socioeconomic factors. In a restricted analysis, we compared siblings only with each other. Results: Preterm birth was strongly and negatively correlated with school performance. The distribution of school grades for children born at 31-33 weeks was on average 3.85 (95% confidence interval = -4.36 to -3.35) centiles lower than for children born at 40 weeks. For births at 22-24 weeks, the corresponding figure was -23.15 (-30.32 to -15.97). When taking confounders into account, the association remained. When restricting the analysis to siblings, however, the association between school performance and preterm birth after week 30 vanished completely, whereas it remained, less pronounced, for preterm birth before 30 weeks of gestation. Conclusions: Our study suggests that the association between school performance and preterm birth after 30 gestational weeks is attributable to factors other than preterm birth per se.
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| 5. |
- Ahrsjö, ulah0325, et al.
(författare)
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Identity in Court Decision-Making*
- 2022
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- We explore the role of identity along multiple dimensions in high-stakes decisionmaking.Our data contain information about demographic and socioeconomic indicatorsfor randomly assigned jurors and defendants in a Swedish court. Our results showthat defendants are 15 percent less likely to get a prison sentence if they and the jurorsbelong to the same identity-forming groups. Socioeconomic background and demographicattributes are at least as important, and combining several identities producesstronger e ects.
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| 6. |
- Ahrsjö, Ulrika, 1989-
(författare)
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Essays on Economic Disadvantage : Criminal Justice, Gender and Social Mobility
- 2022
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Youth Crime, Community Service and Labor Market OutcomesCan lifetime trajectories of youth offenders be improved through criminal justice policy? I evaluate the effects of a youth justice reform in Sweden that sharply increased the share of juveniles assigned to court-ordered community service --- i.e. unpaid, low-skilled work. On average, the reform did not affect post-conviction recidivism or labor market outcomes, but these average effects mask considerable heterogeneity depending on the most likely alternative sanction. In particular, post-reform recidivism and incarceration rates are lower for individuals for whom community service replaces fines. Applying a machine learning method for causal inference, I then evaluate the net financial effect of the policy conditional on observable characteristics and analyze how the program could be targeted for improved efficiency. The results suggest that community service can benefit youth offenders, but that it is not suitable as a universal program.Intergenerational Mobility Trends and the Changing Role of Female LaborWe present new evidence on the existence and drivers of trends in intergenerational income mobility using administrative income data from Scandinavia along with survey data from the United States. Harmonizing the data from Sweden, Denmark and Norway, we first find that intergenerational rank associations in income have increased uniformly across Scandinavia for cohorts of children born between 1951 and 1979. Splitting the trends by gender, we find that father-son mobility has been stable in all three countries, while correlations involving females display substantial trends. Similar patterns are confirmed in the US data, albeit with slightly different timing. Utilizing information about individual occupation, education and income in the Scandinavian data, we find that intergenerational mobility in latent economic status has remained relatively constant for all gender combinations. This is found to be driven by increased female labor market participation at the intensive as well as the extensive margin. The observed decline in intergenerational mobility in Scandinavia is thus consistent with a socially desirable development where female skills are increasingly valued in the labor market.Wage Inequality, Selection and the Evolution of the Gender Earnings Gap in Sweden We estimate the change in the gender wage gap between 1968 and 2019 in Sweden accounting for (1) changes in the intensive margin of labor supply; (2) changes in the overall wage inequality; (3) changes in selection into the labor market using parametric and non-parametric selection corrections. Our results show that between 1968 and 1991, about half of the changes in the gender wage gap can be attributed to changes in the overall wage distribution. Conversely, changes in the wage distribution from 1991 to 2019 mask a larger closure of the gender wage gap. Our corrections for selection into the labor force suggest that uncorrected estimates miss about half of the around 20 percentage points decrease in the gender wage gap over the 1968-2019 period.Identity in Court Decision-MakingWe explore the role of identity along multiple dimensions in high-stakes decision-making. Our data set contains information about gender, ethnic background, age and socioeconomic indicators for randomly assigned jurors and defendants in a Swedish district court. Our results show that defendants are significantly less likely to get a prison sentence if they and the jurors belong to the same identity-forming group. For example, a defendant is 15 percent less likely to get a prison sentence if he or she has the same level of education as all three jurors compared to if none of them have the same educational attainments.
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| 7. |
- Almén, Daniel, 1984-
(författare)
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Societal Impacts of Modern Conscription : Human Capital, Social Capital and Criminal Behaviour
- 2020
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Opportunity Costs and Conscription: An Unintended Progressive Tax?Throughout history to present days, policymakers, social commentators and others have oftentimes viewed conscription as a natural extension of secondary education, and an important institution for vocational training. This paper uses Swedish administrative data and exploits a reform in 2004, implying a sudden downsizing of the military, to identify the causal effects of peacetime conscription on later labour market outcomes and education. I find that unemployment increased in the short run, and lasted up to four years after service. There are no significant overall effects on income or educational attainment. However, these average effects hide a large heterogeneity. High ability conscripts fall behind their counterparts who did not start military service, both in terms of income and employment. Furthermore, the results suggest that the effect is attributed to high ability conscripts assigned as privates. In contrast, no such evidence is found for conscripts assigned to officer training, despite the fact that all of them have a high ability, and a longer time in service. Plausibly, high ability conscripts have high opportunity costs of doing military service, and the civilian benefits from training as privates are too small to counteract these costs. The results highlight the importance of precise matching of aptitude to type of training or education, an insight that might be generalized to other contexts beyond conscription.Citizenship, Social Capital and the Role of Conscription: Evidence from SwedenMany scholars have argued that conscription has played an important role as a nation-builder throughout history. Today, advocates of conscription often put forward its potential to induce citizenship and civic engagement. This paper addresses this claim by studying the causal effects of military service on civic engagement by using Swedish administrative data on election participation, blood donation, and the payment of a mandatory, but highly evaded, fee to the public broadcasting service. I study two qualitatively very different conscription systems from two different eras in Sweden, yielding a high external validity. To study the effects of universal conscription (almost all healthy and fit men serve) during the early 1990s, I use an empirical strategy similar in spirit to work using randomly assigned judges as an instrument. To identify the effects of selective conscription (a small fraction of motivated and positively selected men serve), I exploit a reform in 2004, implying a sudden downsizing of the military. In contrast to the previous correlational literature, the results show small and insignificant point estimates for all outcomes in both populations studied. Hence, I find no evidence of any causal effects of military service on civic engagement in either a selective-, or in a universal conscription systemThe Effect of Military Conscription on the Formation of Criminal Behaviour: Evidence from a Natural ExperimentConscription has been suggested to be a policy-tool to break young men's anti-social life-trajectories. This paper uses Swedish administrative data and exploits a reform in 2004, implying a sudden downsizing of the military, to identify the causal effects of peacetime conscription on contemporaneous, short- and medium-term crime. I find no evidence of any effects on criminal activity while in service. However, the post-service results show crime increasing effects of military service at the intensive margin (number of convictions), but not at the extensive margin (probability of conviction). The overall crime increasing effect seems to be primarily driven by thefts. This study finds no support for increased overall violent behaviour or that the military context per se induces anti-social behaviour. Rather, some suggestive evidence for worsened labour market opportunities for some groups is documented as a plausible mechanism behind the crime increasing results.
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| 8. |
- Almond, Douglas, et al.
(författare)
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An adaptive significance of morning sickness? Trivers-Willard and Hyperemesis Gravidarum
- 2016
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Ingår i: Economics and Human Biology. - : Elsevier BV. - 1570-677X .- 1873-6130. ; 21, s. 167-171
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Nausea during pregnancy, with or without vomiting, is a common early indication of pregnancy in humans. The severe form, Hyperemesis Gravidarum (HG), can be fatal. The aetiology of HG is unknown. We propose that HG may be a proximate mechanism for the Trivers-Willard (T-W) evolutionary hypothesis that mothers in poor condition should favor daughters. Using Swedish linked registry data, 1987-2005, we analyze all pregnancies that resulted in an HG admission and/or a live birth, 1.65 million pregnancies in all. Consistent with the T-W hypothesis, we find that: (i) HG is associated with poor maternal condition as proxied by low education; (ii) HG in the first two months of pregnancy is associated with a 7% point increase in live girl births; and (iii) HG affected pregnancies have a 34-percent average rate of inferred pregnancy loss, higher among less educated women.
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| 9. |
- Almond, Douglas, et al.
(författare)
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Chernobyl's subclinical legacy : prenatal exposure to radioactive fallout and school outcomes in sweden
- 2009
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Ingår i: Quarterly Journal of Economics. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 0033-5533 .- 1531-4650. ; 124:4, s. 1729-1772
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We use prenatal exposure to Chernobyl fallout in Sweden as a natural experiment inducing variation in cognitive ability. Students born in regions of Sweden with higher fallout performed worse in secondary school, in mathematics in particular. Damage is accentuated within families (i.e., siblings comparison) and among children born to parents with low education. In contrast, we detect no corresponding damage to health outcomes. To the extent that parents responded to the cognitive endowment, we infer that parental investments reinforced the initial Chernobyl damage. From a public health perspective, our findings suggest that cognitive ability is compromised at radiation doses currently considered harmless.
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| 10. |
- Axbard, Sebastian, 1987-
(författare)
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Crime, Corruption and Development
- 2016
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Essay I: Prosecuting and convicting corrupt officials is a common strategy to combat corruption. Despite this, little is known about the effectiveness of such anti-corruption policies. Theoretically it has been argued that convictions might not achieve much in a highly corrupt environment, since incentives are likely to favor persistence of corrupt behavior. This study investigates the causal effect of convicting corrupt local officials by exploiting exogenous variation in the probability of conviction caused by the random assignment of cases to differently strict justices in the Philippines. Results show that convictions affect both who the local leaders are and the policy choices they make. In particular, families lose their monopoly power over the local government and spending is re-directed from general administrative items (e.g. mayoral office) towards public goods provision. In the long run, this leads to fewer corruption cases and a suggestive improvement of governance. An investigation of the mechanism proposes that the information provided by convictions is important in the political process. This illustrates the complimentary role that political and judiciary institutions can have in the fight against corruption.Essay II (with Jonas Poulsen and Anja Tolonen): The role of extractive industries for development is highly debated. A large literature focusing on poor countries with weak institutions has shown that such industries can spur conflict and war by providing appropriable resources. This study investigates whether this relationship persists later in the development process. More specifically, we examine whether the extensive mining industry in South Africa affects local property and violent crime. To estimate the causal effect, our empirical strategy exploits local production changes caused by fluctuations in international mineral prices. In contrast to earlier studies, we find that an increase in mining activity lowers the local crime rate. Several tests suggest that this effect is driven by better income opportunities, affecting the opportunity cost of engaging in criminal activity. In order for this effect to materialize, local institutional quality needs to be sufficiently high. If such conditions are met, the appropriation channel emphasized in the earlier literature is dominated by the change in opportunity costs of crime. Essay III: The effect of climatic variation on conflict and crime is well established, but less is known about the mechanism through which this effect operates. This study contributes to the literature by exploiting a new source of exogenous variation in climate to study the effect of fishermen's income opportunities on sea piracy. Using satellite data to construct a monthly measure of local fishing conditions it is found that better income opportunities reduce piracy. A wide range of approaches are employed to ensure that these effects are driven by income opportunities rather than other mechanisms through which climate could affect piracy.
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