| 1. |
- Olofsson, Jon, 1986-
(författare)
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An Economic Backbone of Development : Essays in Financial and Political Economy
- 2023
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The thesis consists of three self-contained essays.Local Banking and Historical Innovation: the Effect of Swedish Savings BanksHow does access to credit affect innovation at the early stages of development? This essay uses digitized records from the Swedish savings banks movement, in combination with novel data on the universe of historical patenting, to study how savings banks affected innovation in Sweden between 1900 and 1949, a period when the country was still a developing economy. The empirical strategy exploits local variation in the openings and closings of the savings banks. Municipalities with bank presence experienced increased innovation, measured by more patents from innovators seated in the municipality. In particular, the head offices of the banks impacted innovation, as they were the executive unit and administered lending. Patents from industries more dependent on financing from external sources are driving the effect, along with places with a relatively high population, a developed industry, and a previous history of innovation. The results emphasize the importance of financial institutions with strong local ties and the ability to encourage and redirect savings to promote innovation in developing economies.The Effects of Local Banking: Historical Evidence from the Swedish Savings Bank MovementWhat is the long-term effect of local banking on industrial growth and economic progress in a developing economy? We shed light on this question using rich data covering the staggered rollout of the Swedish savings bank movement and information on industrial development, population statistics, and mortality in 2400 Swedish municipalities during the first half of the 20th century. The first part of the empirical analysis shows that the presence of a savings bank substantially affected industry structure and industry growth by increasing the number of firms, the degree of mechanization, and industry sales value. More advanced industries, reliant on external financing, experienced the most substantial impact. The second part shows that the savings banks also impacted general economic development, captured by population growth and reduced infant and child mortality. The study provides novel insights into the merits of local banking systems in the early stages of economic development.Lethal Police Violence and the Public Perception of the Police: Evidence from US CountiesThe public perception of the police is significant for the validity of the democratic system. Compared to white citizens, Afro-Americans have low confidence in the police. They are also more likely to fall victim to police violence with lethal outcomes. Therefore, ethnicity and group identity may influence how the public views police violence and, by extension, how police violence affects public perceptions. This essay explores this relationship using the timing of an individual-level survey and the occurrence of local police killings. Survey participants interviewed after a police killing of a black victim obtained worse attitudes toward the police. Mainly black participants and those who are young and have a high income or education level induce the effect. In contrast, events with non-black victims elevate the status of the police among non-black respondents and those with a lower level of education. The results are consistent with group identity theory and provide insight into how controversial events affect confidence in a political institution.
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| 2. |
- Blomqvist, Niklas, 1987-
(författare)
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Essays on Labor Economics : The Role of Government in Labor Supply Choices
- 2020
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- "Right to Work Full-time" Policies and Involuntary Part-time EmploymentThis paper investigates the effect of right to full-time policies implemented to decrease involuntary part-time work for public care workers employed by Swedish municipalities. Taking advantage of a staggered decision process, these policies are evaluated using a difference-in-differences approach. Results show that involuntary part-time employment is real and significant, with 10% of part-time employed workers choosing full-time when given the opportunity. The effect mainly comes from a decrease in contracts of <75% of full-time and an increase in contracts of 80% of full-time and above. Further results from the full-time policies show that being more flexible in the choice of hours worked is popular among workers, indicated by an increase in tenure and reduced turnover in municipalities that offer more flexibility in the choice of hours worked.Hours Constraints and Tax Elasticity Estimates - Evidence from Swedish Public Care WorkersThere is a concern that tax elasticity estimates may be downward biased in the presence of optimization frictions for workers. So far, there is limited evidence on the nature of these optimization frictions. This paper provides new insight into one part of the optimization frictions black box, namely hours constraints. Using unique and newly collected data, I exploit a staggered implementation of a policy that gave some public care workers the opportunity to choose their preferred hours of work. Taking advantage of this policy, I estimate differences in tax elasticities between constrained and unconstrained public care workers by comparing bunching at a large tax kink in the Swedish tax system. The empirical evidence points to the conclusion that hours constraints do not affect tax elasticity estimates.Restricting Residence Permits - Short-Run Evidence from a Swedish ReformIn June 2016, the Swedish parliament decided to restrict the granting of permanent residence permits for asylum seekers in Sweden. The new status quo for a refugee is a temporary rather than a permanent residence permit. In a first evaluation of this reform we use a Regression discontinuity analysis in which we follow refugees, aged 25-65, over their first years after arrival. Our main results show that a temporary residence permit increases the probability of working and enrolling in regular education.Mom and Dad Got Jobs: Natural Resources, Economic Activity, and Infant HealthThe impact of local economic shocks, such as the discovery and exploitation of natural resources, on labor markets and health is not well understood. Both positive and negative effects have been documented in the literature. In this paper, we show that the phase before active resource extraction begins directly affects the local economy. This implies that previous estimates – typically based on designs exploiting differences before and after the active phase of extraction begins - may have understated the actual effect of natural resource extraction on outcomes of interest. Using rich data from Sweden combined with differences in the timing and location of mineral exploitation permits, we find a positive impact on female and male employment and earnings and a negative effect on housing prices. Children’s health outcomes are also negatively affected, an effect likely driven by the increase in local economic activity rather than extraction-related externalities.
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| 3. |
- Jansson, Joakim, 1986-
(författare)
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We are (not) anonymous : Essays on anonymity, discrimination and online hate
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Haters gonna hate? - Anonymity, misogyny and hate against foreigners in online discussions on political topics. A crucial aspect of freedom of expression is anonymity, but anonymity is a contentious matter. It enables individuals to discuss without fear of repercussions, but anonymity can also lead to hateful writings threatening other's freedom. In this paper, we predict hateful content as well as estimate the causal link between anonymity and hateful content in civic discussions online. First, we make use of a supervised machine-learning model to predict hate in general, hate against foreigners and hate against females and feminists on a dominating Swedish Internet discussion forum. Second, using a difference-in-difference model we show that an exogenous decrease in anonymity leads to less hateful content in general hate and hate against foreigners, but an increase in hate against females and feminists. The mechanisms behind the changes is a combination of a decrease in writing hateful, as well as a decrease in writing in general and a substitution of hate against one group to another.Gender grading bias at Stockholm University: quasi-experimental evidence from an anonymous grading reform. In this paper, we first present novel evidence of grading bias against women at the university level. This is in contrast to previous results at the secondary education level. Contrary to the gender composition at lower levels of education in Sweden, the teachers and graders at the university level are predominantly male. Thus, an in-group bias mechanism could consistently explain the evidence from both the university and secondary education level. However, we find that in-group bias can only explain approximately 20 percent of the total grading bias effect at the university level.Anticipation Effects of a Board Room Gender Quota Law: Evidence from a Credible Threat in Sweden. Board room quota laws have recently received an increasing amount of attention. However, laws are typically anticipated and firms can react before the effective date. This paper provides new results on female board participation and firm performance in Sweden due to a credible threat of a quota law enacted by the Swedish deputy prime minister. The threat caused a substantial and rapid increase in the share of female board members in firms listed on the Stockholm stock exchange. This increase was accompanied by an increase in different measures of firm performance in the same years, which were related to higher sales and lower labor costs. The results highlight that anticipatory effects of a law could be detrimental to the analysis.Differences in prison sentencing between the genders and immigration background in Sweden: discrepancies and possible explanations. I use data on punished drunk drivers to document differences in sentencing for the same crime between immigrants and native born and males and females respectively. Differences in past criminal activity or other individual observables can not explain the difference in sentencing. Instead, the difference between immigrants and native born seem to be due to statistical discrimination, while differences in recidivism rates might explain the gender difference. However, the higher incarceration rate for immigrants does not reduce their future number of crimes.
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| 4. |
- Lindgren, Erik, 1981-
(författare)
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One coin - One vote : the rural political power shift that pushed Sweden towards industrialization
- 2022
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The Causal Effect of Political Power on the Provision of Public Education: Evidence from a Weighted Voting SystemWe estimate how political power affects the provision of public education in local governments, using data from a nondemocratic society where voters received votes in proportion to their taxable income. This was the system used in Swedish local governments during the period 1862–1909. We use two different identification strategies, a threshold regression analysis and a generalized event-study design, both of which exploit nonlinearities or discontinuities in the effect of political power between two opposing local elites: agricultural landowners and emerging industrialists. The results suggest that school spending is approximately 90–120% higher if the non-agrarian interest controls all of the votes compared to when landowners have a majority.The Causal Effect of Transport Infrastructure: Evidence from a New Historical DatabaseWe analyze the effect of railroad investments on economic growth and find large effects of having access to railways. For real non-agricultural income, the cumulative treatment effect is approximately 130% after 30 years. We also show that the effect is likely to reflect growth rather than a reorganization of existing economic activity since no spillover effects between treated and untreated regions are found. Our results are consistent with the big push hypothesis that argues that simultaneous and coordinated investment can generate economic growth if there are strong aggregate demand externalities. We corroborate this mechanism by using plant-level data and find that investments in local railways significantly increase local industrial production and employment.The Political Economics of Growth, Labor Control and Coercion: Evidence from a Suffrage Reform Here we analyze the breadth of Sweden’s industrial, economic and social development from the 1860s to the 1910s. By using a novel constructed historical dataset of approximately 2,400 Swedish local governments we find that the change in suffrage affected several outcomes at the local level. These outcomes include factor price manipulation in the form of entry barriers such as investments in local public education and transportation; technology adoption and labor productivity in agriculture and industry; changes in the real wage structure, composition of employment, and the structure of production; organized labor and labor coercion; demographic transition; and persistence in dysfunctional local political institutions. Our results support the idea that political institutions are a key determinant of long-term development and growth. Precipitation and Infant Mortality: Evidence from Sweden 1881–1950I analyze the dynamic effects of precipitation on infant mortality, using a panel dataset containing monthly mortality data from approximately 2,150 Swedish parishes and monthly precipitation levels collected at a number of weather stations around the country. Given that I use data from 1881 to 1950, the size of this novel panel dataset is considerable. Parishes have been matched to the closest weather station for every given month. Given that precipitation, is neither binary nor constant, a binned event-study design is used to estimate the dynamic effects with respect to the precipitation intensity. The results show that increased precipitation decreases infant mortality for both male and female infants. The dynamic effect after 4 months is about 8 percent.
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