| 1. |
- Näsman, Mattias, 1989-, et al.
(författare)
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A promised land? : First summary of the research program
- 2023
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This document lays out the background for the research program “A promised land? Drivers, challenges and opportunities related to the (green) industrialization of Northern Sweden,” (nr. M22-0029) awarded by the Swedish Riksbankens Jubileumsfond’s in 2022. The document summarizes work in progress and may therefore be updated and republished in different versions according to the requirements of the program. This interdisciplinary program aims to understand the economic, social, and political challenges and opportunities of the ongoing industrial transformation in northern Sweden. A key element of the program is to identify drivers, obstacles, and preconditions in a historical, present, and forward-looking process-perspective.
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| 2. |
- Rataj, Marcin, et al.
(författare)
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Entrepreneurship in rural Sweden : the role of weak ties, strong ties, and 'good enough' internet access
- 2021
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Ingår i: The Rural Enterprise Economy. - : Taylor & Francis Group. - 9780367471873 - 9781032118017 - 9781003034001 ; , s. 178-192
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This chapter assesses to what extent broadband internet access and social capital influence entrepreneurship in rural Sweden. The chapter combines a quantitative assessment of the relation between broadband access and the start-up rates of micro-enterprises in Swedish municipalities between 2007 and 2012 with a qualitative case study on Dutch lifestyle migrants. Our results show that broadband access is positively correlated with entrepreneurial efforts in rural Sweden compared to larger urban regions. Nevertheless, investments in broadband access may not be the optimal allocation of public resources. Instead, the results suggest that mixing various types of social embeddedness and technical connectivity on a satisfactory, but not necessarily high, level may allow entrepreneurs to take advantage of synergies and create resilient business strategies based on local resources.
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| 3. |
- Adjei, Evans, et al.
(författare)
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Family co-occurrence and firm productivity
- 2021
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Ingår i: Family Business and Regional Development. - London : Routledge. - 9780367178611 - 9780429058097 ; , s. 83-102
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Our book chapter examines the effects of family co-occurrence (i.e. the presence of familial relationships inside a firm, including between co-workers and between employees and the owner) on firm productivity. Analysing a set of Swedish firms over the 1995–2012 period, we find a positive and significant relationship between family co-occurrence and firm productivity. This positive relationship is particularly evident in smaller regions characterized by a more specialized industry mix. When looking at the specific case of family co-occurrence involving familial relationships with firm owners, we find that the positive productivity effect of familial relationships with firm owners varies depending on the type of family tie. While familial co-occurrence involving partners or spouses is positive and abates the negative effects of employees having very similar or very diverse skills (e.g. based on education), family co-occurrence involving siblings is pretty much non-existent. In sum, our findings suggest that family co-occurrence in workplaces does influence productivity and that the positive or negative impact of familial relationships on productivity is contingent on the type of family tie, the family members’ skills, and the regional context.
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| 4. |
- Adjei, Evans Korang, et al.
(författare)
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The effects of a large industrial investment on employment in a remote and sparsely populated area using a synthetic control approach
- 2023
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Ingår i: Regional Science Policy & Practice. - : John Wiley & Sons. - 1757-7802. ; 15:7, s. 1553-1576
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article examines the impact of establishing a large industrial manufacturing entity on employment and the labor market in a remote, sparsely populated part of Sweden, focusing on how it affects total regional employment because industrial policies aiming to attract investment and reignite employment in stagnating regions have been a central policy tool. The empirical analysis is based on the synthetic control method, which enables the estimation of place-specific causal effects. Using aggregated microdata from 1995 to 2019, the results indicate that employment in the treated region, as compared to synthetic regions, has been negatively affected by the manufacturing establishment. However, the short- and long-term effects differ across different labor market segments (same, related, and unrelated industries) and according to firm size. Overall, the findings suggest that large manufacturing investment does not necessarily have a positive or instantaneous impact on total regional employment. It does, however, provide some potential for long-term diversification because employment in related activities grows in the long run.
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| 5. |
- Adjei, Evans, et al.
(författare)
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Regional labour market effects of immigration on low-skilled workers: the case of Sweden 1990–2003
- 2021
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Ingår i: International Journal of Social Economics. - : Emerald Group Publishing Limited. - 0306-8293 .- 1758-6712. ; 48:3, s. 456-476
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of immigration on the labour market outcomes of low-educated natives (i.e. residents without a university diploma). Using the labour market competition theory, which argues that the labour market effects of natives depend on the skill set of immigrants, the paper addresses whether immigrants are complementary to or substitutes for native workers.Design/methodology/approach: Longitudinal matched employer–employee data on Sweden are used to estimate how low-educated natives, in regions experiencing the greatest influx of refugees from the Balkan wars, responded to this supply shock with regard to real wages, employment and job mobility between 1990 and 2003.Findings: First, the analysis shows that low-educated native workers respond to the arrival of immigrants with an increase in real wages. Second, although employment prospects in general worsened for low-skilled workers in most regions, this is not attributable to the regions experiencing the largest supply shock. Third, there are indications that low-skilled natives in immigration-rich regions are more likely to change workplace, particularly in combination with moving upwards in the wage distribution.Originality/value: Rather than seeing an emergence of the commonly perceived displacement mechanism when an economy is subject to a supply shock, the regional findings suggest that high inflows of immigrants tend to induce a mechanism that pulls native workers upwards in the wage distribution. This is important, as the proportion of immigrants is seldom evenly distributed within a nation.
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| 6. |
- Andersson, Lars-Fredrik, et al.
(författare)
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Workers’ participation in regional economic change following establishment closure
- 2020
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Ingår i: Small Business Economics. - : Springer. - 0921-898X .- 1573-0913. ; 54:2, s. 589-604
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article analyses if and when workers affected by economic destruction in the form of establishment closures move to more productive or newly started establishments in the region, become self-employed, leave the region or become displaced. Results from multinominal probit models show that the majority of these workers face destructive employment outcomes from a Schumpeterian point of view compared to a matched sample of workers not subject to a closure. However, we do find indications of a creative destruction as a small, albeit significant, share become employed in young establishments. Different types of human capital influence the likelihood of triggering positive or negative regional outcomes. While higher education significantly decreases the risk for unemployment, high-income earners more often become engaged in creative outcomes. Firm tenure increases the likelihood of becoming employed in younger establishments. There are significant spatial differences where metropolitan regions excel as loci of creative change, whereas smaller and peripheral regions face far less creative outcomes of economic transformation.
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| 7. |
- Baranowska-Rataj, Anna, 1980-, et al.
(författare)
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Escaping from low-wage employment : the role of co-worker networks
- 2022
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Ingår i: Research in Social Stratification and Mobility. - : Elsevier. - 0276-5624 .- 1878-5654. ; 83
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Low-wage jobs are often regarded as dead-ends in the labour market careers of young people. Previous research focused on disentangling to what degree the association between a low-wage job at the start of working life and limited chances of transitioning to better-paid employment is causal or spurious. Less attention has been paid to the channels that may facilitate the upward wage mobility of low-wage workers. We focus on such mechanisms, and we scrutinize the impact of social ties to higher-educated co-workers. Due to knowledge spillovers, job referrals, as well as firm-level productivity gains, having higher-educated co-workers may improve an individual's chances of transitioning to a better-paid job. We use linked employer-employee data from longitudinal Swedish registers and panel data models that incorporate measures of low-wage workers' social ties to higher-educated co-workers. Our results confirm that having social ties to higher-educated co-workers increases individual chances of transitioning to better-paid employment.
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| 8. |
- Blombäck, William, 1999-, et al.
(författare)
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Skellefteå under omvandling : en studie av yrkesstruktur och flyttmönster under etableringsfasen av Northvolt
- 2024
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Rapport (populärvet., debatt m.m.)abstract
- In recent years, Skellefteå has had significant population growth linked to the establishment of Northvolt. Between 2020 and 2023, the population growth in Skellefteå was 4.6 percent, which should be compared with an average population growth of 1.7 percent in Sweden. The main purpose of the report has been to describe how the labor market in Skellefteå has changed after 2017. The population growth can largely be explained by a sharp increase in immigration. For many years, the municipality has indeed had a positive net migration which, however, has not been able to compensate for the aging population. Therefore, the population has remained at stable levels until 2017. The strong immigration in recent years is mainly made up of men aged 25 to 64. In general, the proportion of men in the age range 15 to 64 is increasing, while the number of women aged 15 to 24 is decreasing, which may pose a future challenge connected to how to break the negative nativity trend. Even before 2017, Skellefteå had a high proportion of men, and the reduction in the number of women aged 15 to 24 may in the long run lead to a further distortion of the gender balance. A large part of the immigrants has for a long time consisted of people from the immediate area (mainly Umeå, but also smaller municipalities). This trend continues after 2017, when the number of migrants from Umeå increased even further. A significant part of the immigrants are also primarily men, but also women, from other countries. This too can pose a future challenge if they are not integrated into society.Those who move to Skellefteå often get jobs that only require shorter training or introduction. This has increased since the establishment of Northvolt regardless of education level. At the same time, the degree of job changes is high among these immigrants, which indicates that these occupations are entry-level occupations. We also see that emigration has also increased in recent years, and this mainly concerns women aged 15–24. While immigrants mainly come from the surrounding municipalities, young Skellefteå residents move to university towns and the larger cities. In addition to the migration patterns, the commuting patterns have also changed somewhat over time. Commuters to Skellefteå mainly come from Umeå, and this has increased after 2017, followed by Stockholm (which, however, is less than half the number compared to those from Umeå) closely followed by Piteå, Luleå, Norsjö and Robertsfors. Apart from Umeå and to some extent Luleå, the number of individuals for all municipalities to commute from has decreased after 2017, while commuting from Skellefteå also has generally increased. Here too, Umeå is the most common place of work, followed by the neighboring municipalities.The proportion of employees in professions that require a longer university or college education is increasing in Skellefteå, which in itself is a positive development as it generally reduces sensitivity to future structural changes. On the other hand, the percentage who get a job immediately after graduation is decreasing, even among those with a longer university or college education. This applies both to those already living in Skellefteå, but above all to immigrants who, to an increasingly lesser extent, start working in professions that require a university degree. This may be due to a matching problem between the applicants and the employers. But it may also be due to a change in search behavior among job seekers, where new graduates immediately after graduation first apply for a simpler profession and then for more qualified professions. It may also be due to higher requirements for work experience among employers. As the large majority of immigrants with university qualifications remain within this occupational group, it indicates a growing matching problem driven by over-education as the labour market segments experiencing employment growth do not require university education.A high school diploma (gymnasium) is the most common highest level of education in Skellefteå. At the same time, the number of employees in professions that require a shorter education or introduction is decreasing. The fact that the number of people employed decreases in professions that require a shorter education or introduction need not be a negative thing given that it does not lead to increased unemployment. It can even be a positive development if it leads to more people being employed with more advanced tasks. On the other hand, it can lead to increased unemployment among individuals with a shorter education, a group that has more difficulty adapting to changed conditions on the labor market. Given such a development, it may become necessary to carry out continuing education efforts for that group. A certain increase in the workforce that has not completed upper secondary education can be seen in recent years and is also a trend that should be actively countered.Incomes in Skellefteå have risen since 2017, especially men's incomes. Immigrants to Skellefteå generally have lower wages compared to the population as a whole. This is probably due to the fact that the immigrants work to a greater extent in occupations that require shorter training or introduction. The move-in together with generally higher wages and limited construction has had a positive effect on housing prices. Higher housing prices should lead to increased construction in the municipality, but this can be dampened by a higher cost situation (wages, building materials, interest, etc.) in the construction sector. Limited housing construction leads to a redistribution of income from wage earners to property owners. Those who move into Skellefteå live to a greater extent in tenements and condominiums compared to the average Skellefteå resident. Immigrants settle to a large extent in the central parts of Skellefteå. Again, this does not have to be negative as it often takes time for a new mover to get to know a new city and it can take time to find longer-term accommodation. Given that the moving surplus also consists of many young men, centrally located apartments are more suitable for this group compared to detached houses for families with children. The limited mobility on the housing market can be another reason why immigrants end up in certain areas and in certain types of housing to a large extent. It is possible to make some comparisons with the labor market, where a simpler job can be an entry-level job while you are looking for a longer-term job.
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| 9. |
- Czaller, László, et al.
(författare)
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Reducing automation risk through career mobility : where and for whom?
- 2021
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Ingår i: Papers in regional science (Print). - : John Wiley & Sons. - 1056-8190 .- 1435-5957. ; 100:6, s. 1545-1569
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Automation risk prevails less in large cities compared to small cities but little is known about the drivers of this emerging urban phenomenon. A major challenge is that automation risk is quantified by work-related tasks that allows for measurement through occupation, which is in turn implicitly related to local economic structure and to individual career paths. This paper examines the role of working in cities on changes in automation risk through individual career mobility. Using panel data on Swedish workers, we show that the metropolitan effect of reducing automation risk is mainly induced through inter-firm job mobility. Separate estimates for different groups show that this effect accrues mostly to native, high-skilled and male workers.
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| 10. |
- Danley, Therese, 1986-
(författare)
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Rough starts and tough times : geographies of workers and firms in transition
- 2021
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Economic change can lead to multiple and sometimes conflicting outcomes for workers, employers, and regions. At the center of economic change are the dynamic interactions among diverse workers and firms in specific labor market contexts. This thesis approached those spatial interactions from the perspective of labor market matching, where the different opportunities for workers and firms to match were investigated. This adds to the growing body of literature that seeks to understand what factors are behind the growing regional divergence in earnings and employment, and who is particularly impacted by the uneven labor market changes. To this end, the aim of this thesis was to analyze the regional patterns and outcomes for workers and firms in the labor market matching process. Four quantitative studies were conducted using data from Swedish administrative registers from 1995 to 2012. Given that the dynamics of labor market matching are complex, the studies approached the aim from different angles and for different groups of workers. In particular, the outcomes and patterns were investigated in relation to crucial periods for workers and firms, where frictions in labor market matching could potentially have particularly negative effects. The studies investigated earnings, employment, and hiring for young workers in low-paid jobs, for workers displaced by firm closures, and for new firms competing for survival. The empirical results indicate the importance of a flexible labor market that facilitates the matching process where individuals' existing competencies can be applied and developed. This is a particular challenge for workers who lose their jobs to establishment closures outside the large regions, since the results show that worse job matches and less productive re-employment opportunities are more common and can have particularly negative consequences in smaller and more peripheral regions. However, even if there are more job opportunities in larger regions, the results suggest the opportunities are not necessarily accessible to everyone. Results indicate that workers in low-wage jobs do not benefit from a boost in earnings in larger regions, which may put them in a precarious situation considering the higher cost of living in those regions. Lastly, the thesis highlights the importance of not only individual human capital in determining a job match, but also its relational dimension which captures how well different workers’ skills are matched to one another in the workplace. This was found to be associated with individual earnings recovery after plant closure and new firm survival. The findings call for policies that carefully combine supply- and demand-side approaches in economic development.
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