| 1. |
- Andersson, Henrik
(author)
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Immigration and the Neighborhood : Essays on the Causes and Consequences of International Migration
- 2018
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Essay 1 (with Kristoffer Jutvik): This paper uses quasi-experimental evidence to understand how changes in migration policy affect the number of asylum seekers. We look specifically at a sudden, regulatory change in the Swedish reception of Syrian asylum seekers. The change took place in September 2013, and implied that all Syrian asylum seekers would be granted permanent, instead of temporary residence permits. Using high frequency data and an interrupted time series set-up, we study the extent to which this change caused more Syrian citizens to apply for asylum in Sweden, and how the change affected the distribution of asylum seekers in Europe. Results show that the change in policy almost doubled the number of asylum seekers from Syria within 2013, with a significant jump in numbers already within the first week after the implementation of the policy. While this also decreased the share of asylum seekers to other large recipient countries (Germany), the effects were highly temporary.Essay 2: In this paper I estimate the causal effect of ethnic enclaves on the probability of self-employment. To account for neighborhood selection I make use of a refugee dispersal program. Results indicate that larger ethnic enclaves, measured as the share of self-employed coethnics in the municipality immigrants first arrive into, affect the probability of self-employment positively, while the share of all other coethnics has a negative effect. Results however also indicate that there is a long term economic penalty to being placed with a larger share of self-employed coethnics, an effect which is partly mediated through the choice of self-employment.Essay 3 (with Heléne Berg and Matz Dahlberg): In this paper we investigate the migration behavior of the native population following foreign (refugee) immigration, with a particular focus on examining whether there is any support for an ethnically based migration response. If ethnicity is the mechanism driving the change in natives' migration behavior, our maintained hypothesis is that native-born individuals who are more ethnically similar to arriving refugees should not change their migration behavior to the same extent as native-born individuals with native-born parents (who are ethnically quite different from refugees). Using rich geo-coded register data from Sweden, spanning over 20 consecutive years, we account for possible endogeneity problems with an improved so-called ``shift-share" instrumental variable approach; in particular, our strategy combines policy-induced initial immigrant settlements with exogenous contemporaneous immigration as captured by refugee shocks. We find no evidence of neither native flight nor native avoidance when studying the full population. We do, however, find native flight among individuals who are expected to be more mobile, and within this group, we find that all natives, irrespective of their parents' foreign background, react similarly to increased immigration. Our results therefore indicate that preferences for ethnically homogeneous neighborhoods may not be the dominant channel inducing flight. Instead our estimates indicate that immigration leads to more socio-economically segregated neighborhoods. This conclusion can have important implications for the ethnically based tipping point literature.Essay 4 (with Matz Dahlberg): In this paper we examine the short-run housing market effects of refugee immigration to Sweden. Given that Sweden is a major refugee receiving country, it constitutes an interesting and important case to study. To deal with the endogeneity resulting from the refugees' location choices, we use an econometric specification that includes neighborhood fixed effects and an instrumental variable that is based on a historical settlement pattern mainly determined by a refugee placement policy. We find that refugee immigration to small neighborhoods has no average effect on changes in housing prices in that neighborhood. We find a positive effect on increased housing supply, measured as the number of objects on sale. The zero effect of immigration on housing prices stands in contrast to the negative results found in earlier studies. We hypothesize that the reason is due to different preferences for homogeneity in Sweden, and/or to institutional features in the Swedish rental sector.
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| 2. |
- Ando, Michihito, 1981-
(author)
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Essays on the Evaluation of Public Policies
- 2015
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This thesis consists of four self-contained papers.Essay 1: This paper uses the synthetic control (SC) method to examine how the establishment of Nuclear Power Facilities (NPFs) in Japan in the 1970s and 1980s has affected local per capita income levels in the municipalities in which they were located (NPF municipalities). Eight quantitative case studies using the SC method clarify that the effects of NPF establishment on per capita taxable income levels are highly heterogeneous. The estimated effects are often economically meaningful and in some cases huge: the income level was 11% higher on average and 62% higher in one municipality in 2002 when compared with counterfactual units. On the other hand a few of the NPF municipalities have received only weak or negligible effects from NPF establishment. The post-estimation comparisons of employment between the NPF municipalities and the SC units suggest that the size of the direct labor demand shocks and subsequent indirect employment effects on nontradable service sectors have contributed to the increase in per capita income levels.Essay 2: In a regression kink (RK) design with a finite sample, a confounding smooth nonlinear relationship between an assignment variable and an outcome variable around a threshold can be spuriously picked up as a kink and result in a biased estimate. In order to investigate how well RK designs handle such confounding nonlinearity, I firstly implement Monte Carlo simulations and then study the effect of fiscal equalization grants on local expenditure in Japan using an RK design. Results in both the Monte Carlo simulations and the empirical application suggest that RK estimation without covariates can be easily biased, and this problem can be mitigated by adding basic covariates to the regressors. On the other hand, a smaller bandwidth or a higher order polynomial, even a quadratic polynomial, tends to result in imprecise estimates although they may be able to reduce estimation bias. In sum, RK estimation with a confounding nonlinearity often suffers from bias or imprecision and estimates are credible only when relevant covariates are controlled for.Essay 3: This paper investigates the effects of fiscal equalization grants on total expenditure and disaggregated expenditures by exploiting two different formula-based exogenous variations in grants. Examining the institutional settings of the Japanese fiscal equalization scheme and estimating local average grant effects with a regression kink design and an instrumental variable approach, I demonstrate that there exist heterogeneous grant effects for two groups of municipalities with different fiscal conditions. That is, estimated grant effects on total expenditure are approximately one-to-one for municipalities around the threshold of grant eligibility, but much more than one-to-one for municipalities that are heavily dependent on fiscal equalization grants. In addition, grant effects on disaggregated expenditures are dispersed across different expenditure items in the former type of municipality but concentrated on construction expenditures in the latter type. I then discuss that the observed grant effect heterogeneity is a consequence of the institutional settings of the Japanese fiscal equalization scheme.Essay 4 (with Reo Takaku): We evaluate the impact of patient cost sharing on the use of dentures and subjective chewing ability exploiting a sharp reduction in the coinsurance rate, the percentage of costs born by the user, from 30% to 10% at the age of 70 with a regression discontinuity design. Using data from the Japanese Study of Aging and Retirement (JSTAR), we find that the utilization rate of dentures increases from approximately 50% to 63% around the threshold, implying that the extensive margin elasticity of denture usage with respect to the coinsurance rate is about -0.41. In addition, we find this jump is almost entirely due to the change in the rate among women. On the other hand, we do not find a significant improvement in self-reported chewing ability. Our empirical findings are also confirmed by complementary analysis with randomization tests and placebo randomization tests.
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| 3. |
- Blind, Ina, 1977-
(author)
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Essays on Urban Economics
- 2015
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This thesis consists of four self-contained essays.Essay 1 (with Olof Åslund and Matz Dahlberg): In this essay we investigate the impact of commuter train access on individual labor market outcomes. Our study considers the exogenous introduction of a commuter train linking locations in the northern part of Uppsala County (Sweden) to the regional employment center, considerably decreasing commuting times by public transit to the center for those living close to the pre-existing railroad. Using difference-in-differences matching techniques on comprehensive individual panel data spanning over a decade, our intention-to-treat estimates show that the reform had mainly no impact on the earnings and employment development among the affected individuals.Essay 2: In this essay I look into the role of public transit for residential sorting by studying how the introduction of a commuter train linking locations in the northern part of Uppsala County (Sweden) to the regional employment center affected migration patterns in the areas served. Using a difference-in-difference(-in-difference) approach and comprehensive individual level data, I find that the commuter train had a positive effect on overall in-migration to the areas served and no effect on the average out-migration rate from these areas. With regards to sorting based on labor market status, I find no evidence of sorting based on employment status but some evidence that the train introduction increased the probability of moving out of the areas served for individuals with high labor incomes relative to the probability for individuals with lower income. Considering sorting along other lines than labor market status, the analysis suggests that people born in non-western countries came to be particularly attracted towards the areas served by the commuter train as compared to other similar areas.Essay 3: In this essay I look into the relation between housing mix and social mix in metropolitan Stockholm (Sweden) over the period 1990-2008. Using entropy measures, I find that although the distribution of tenure types over metropolitan Stockholm became somewhat more even over the studied period, people living in different tenure types still to a large extent tended to live in different parts of the city in 2008. The degree of residential segregation was much lower between different population groups. I further find that the mix of family types, and over time also of birth region groups and income groups, was rather different between different tenure types in the same municipality. The mix of different groups however tended to be similar within different tenure types in the same neighborhood. While the entropy measures provide a purely descriptive picture, the findings thus suggest that tenure type mix could be more useful for creating social mix at the municipal level than for creating social mix at the neighborhood level.Essay 4 (with Matz Dahlberg): The last decade’s immigration to western European countries has resulted in a culturally and religiously more diverse population in these countries. This diversification manifests itself in several ways, where one is through new features in the cityscape. Using a quasi-experimental approach, essay 4 examines how one such new feature, public calls to prayer, affects neighborhood dynamics (house prices and migration). The quasi-experiment is based on an unexpected political process that lead way to the first public call to prayer from a mosque in Sweden combined with rich (daily) information on housing sales. While our results indicate that the public calls to prayer increased house prices closer to the mosque, we find no evidence that the public calls to prayer served as a driver of residential segregation between natives and people born abroad around the mosque in question (no significant effects on migration behavior). Our findings are consistent with a story where some people have a willingness to pay for the possibility to more fully exert their religion which puts an upward pressure on housing in the vicinity of a mosque with public calls to prayer.
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| 4. |
- Hansson, Fredrik, 1987-
(author)
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Consequences of Poor Housing : Essays on Urban and Health Economics
- 2020
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Essay I: Research shows that low fetal doses of radiation from nuclear catastrophes and atmospheric test bombings of nuclear weapons cause cognitive birth defects. These events are uncommon and the radioactive isotopes they create rarely reach harmful levels in nature. The findings would have greater external validity if they could be extrapolated to other more common isotopes and sources of everyday radiation exposure. Two such isotopes are uranium and radon, which exist in various concentrations across the globe. In this paper, I study the in utero impact of indoor radiation from radon gas and uranium rich concrete on cognitive ability. The results show no evidence suggesting that everyday levels of indoor radiation may affect children’s human capital development.Essay II: This paper studies if indoor radiation from uranium and radon is capitalized into housing prices. Using detailed measurements on the level of radiation, I estimate housing price elasticities with respect to radiation among both single-family detached homes and apartments in multi-story buildings. The results for the single-family homes show that both uranium in the bedrock and indoor radon levels are negatively correlated with the housing price. While the estimates for the single-family homes might be biased due to omitted geographical variables that are correlated with the level of radiation, the capitalization of radiation among apartments in multi-story buildings can be estimated using only within-building variation in the level of radiation. I use building-fixed effects to test for the existence of a vertical pollution price component to the vertical rent curve. Radon gas is heavier than average indoor air and higher concentrations are mostly found on lower floors in areas with high uranium concentrations in the bedrock. Theory predicts that apartments on higher floors will be priced higher relative to the first floor in more polluted areas, but I find no empirical support for this hypothesis.Essay III: This paper tests for asymmetric effects of changes in population and hous-ing prices on subjective well-being among homeowners and renters. I first look at some descriptive facts and find that housing is an important determinant of subjective well-being and that residents in suburbs are slightly less happy than both inner city and countryside residents once homeownership and individual characteristics are controlled for. Looking at subjective well-being across cities, I analyze the effect of population growth on happiness and show that homeowners and renters experience asymmetric happiness effects from city growth. This leads me to test the hypothesis that the asymmetric effect is due to differences in wealth from migration-induced increases in housing prices and rents. The findings suggest that unexpected dynamic fluctuations in housing prices and asymmetric wealth effects among homeowners and renters cause spatial differences in subjective well-being that persist over time and space.
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| 5. |
- Kindström, Gabriella, 1992-
(author)
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Urban Dynamics and Contemporary Challenges : Essays on Housing and Neighborhood Amenities
- 2024
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Essay I (with Che-Yuan Liang) We use microdata on the Swedish population and housing stock to investigate how building new homes affects the housing distribution across income groups. While primarily rich people move into new homes, poor people are well represented among in-movers to vacated homes. As homes age and deteriorate, they filter down; it takes approximately 30 years for new homes to reach an even income distribution. We also find that in municipalities with higher construction rates, every income group gets better access to newer housing and housing space. Overall, we conclude that new homes, even those initially primarily inhabited by rich people, lead to substantial trickle-down effects.Essay II (with Fabian Brunåker, Matz Dahlberg, and Che-Yuan Liang) Using almost three decades of full-population register data with detailed geo-coded information on how and where all individuals in Sweden live, their moving patterns, and their socio-economic characteristics, this paper examines if new large-scale housing construction is a suitable policy tool for revitalizing poor neighborhoods. The answer is yes. We find that not only do new large developments of market-rate condominiums lead to an increase in the average income of 15% in the poorest quartile of neighborhoods, but the average income rises by 10% also in pre-existing homes. We do not find any signs of displacement of incumbent residents.Essay III Homeowners often oppose new housing due to a fear of declining property values. However, the effect on prices is theoretically ambiguous. In this paper, I study the impact of new large-scale housing on housing prices using Swedish registry data, data on housing prices, and neighborhood amenities. I find that new housing increases prices in low-income neighborhoods. In contrast, high-income neighborhoods experience a decline in prices, including within their pre-existing housing stock. The latter could partly stem from a suggested increase in densification.Essay IV Can policymakers affect spatial inequalities by providing local amenities? In this study, I explore the effects of schools on neighborhoods by studying school closures. Using geo-coded, full-population Swedish microdata, I find that school closures decrease the share of high-income earners, primarily attributed to individuals with children. This effect is more pronounced in urban areas, while rural areas become depopulated. These effects align with pre-existing trends, indicating that school closures exacerbate initial spatial inequalities.
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| 6. |
- Lundqvist, Heléne, 1982-
(author)
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Empirical Essays in Political and Public Economics
- 2011
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This thesis consists of four self-contained essays. Essay 1: Despite the key role played by political payoffs in theory, very little is known empirically about the types of payoffs that motivate politicians. The purpose of this paper is to bring light onto this. I estimate causal effects of being elected in a local election on monetary returns. The claim for causality, I argue, can be made thanks to a research design where the income of some candidate who just barely won a seat is compared to that of some other candidate who was close to winning a seat for the same party, but ultimately did not. This research design is made possible thanks to a comprehensive, detailed data set covering all Swedish politicians who have run for office in the period 1991—2006. I establish that monetary returns are absent both in the short and long run. In stead, politicians seem to be motivated by non-monetary payoffs that can be realized with a successful political career. Essay 2 (with Matz Dahlberg and Karin Edmark): In recent decades, the immigration of workers and refugees toEurope has increased substantially, and the composition of the population in many countries has consequently become much more heterogeneous in terms of ethnic background. If people exhibit in-group bias in the sense of being more altruistic to one's own kind, such increased heterogeneity will lead to reduced support for redistribution among natives. This paper exploits a nationwide program placing refugees in municipalities throughoutSweden during the period 1985—94 to isolate exogenous variation in immigrant shares. We match data on refugee placement to panel survey data on inhabitants of the receiving municipalities to estimate the causal effects of increased immigrant shares on preferences for redistribution. The results show that a larger immigrant population leads to less support for redistribution in the form of preferred social benefit levels. This reduction in support is especially pronounced for respondents with high income and wealth. We also establish that OLS estimators that do not properly deal with endogeneity problems – as in earlier studies – are likely to yield positively biased (i.e., less negative) effects of ethnic heterogeneity on preferences for redistribution. Essay 3: While the literature on how intergovernmental grants affect the budget of receiving jurisdictions is numerous, the very few studies that explicitly deal with likely endogeneity problems focus on grants targeted towards specific sectors or specific type of recipients. The results from these studies are mixed and make it clear that the knowledge about grants effects is to this date still insufficient. This paper contributes to this literature by estimating causal effects on local expenditures and income tax rates of general, non-targeted grants. This is done in a difference-in-difference model utilizing policy-induced increases in grants to a group of remotely populated municipalities inFinland. The robust finding is that increased grants have a negligible effect on local income tax rates, but that there is a substantial positive immediate response in local expenditures. Furthermore, there is no evidence of dynamic crowding-out – i.e., that the immediate response in expenditures is reversed in later years. The flypaper behavior displayed by the treatment group can potentially be explained by “separate mental accounting” – i.e., voters treating the government budget constraint separately from their own. Essay 4 (with Matz Dahlberg and Eva Mörk): Public employment plays an important role in most countries, as it is closely linked to both the quality of publicly provided welfare services and total employment. Large parts of those employed by the public sector are typically employed by lower-level governments, and one potential instrument with which central decision-makers can affect public employment is thus grants to lower-level governments. This paper investigates the effects of general grants on local public employment. Applying the regression kink design to the Swedish grant system, we are able to estimate causal effects of intergovernmental grants on personnel in different local government sectors. Our robust conclusion is that there was a substantial increase in personnel in the central administration after a marginal increase in grants, but that such an effect was lacking both for total personnel and personnel in child care, schools, elderly care, social welfare and technical services. We suggest several potential reasons for these results, such as heterogeneous treatment effects and bureaucratic influence in the local decision-making process.
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| 7. |
- Norén, Anna, 1984-
(author)
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Caring, Sharing, and Childbearing : Essays on Labor Supply, Infant Health, and Family Policies
- 2017
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Essay I: I study the consequences on labor market outcomes and sick leave of having an elderly parent in need of care. Caring for an elderly parent may be associated with opportunity costs such as productivity loss on the labor market if informal caregivers are of working age. Using Swedish register data I compare the labor market outcome trajectories of adult children before and after their parent suffer a health shock. I find that employment and income of adult children are slightly reduced in the years leading up to the demise of their parent, but that the size of the impact is largest in the year, and the year after, parental demise. I also find that daughter's sick leave absence increases in the year that the parent dies. No effects on labor market outcomes are found from having a parent suffering stroke. Furthermore, I find no clear gender differences between sons and daughters in the impact of having a parent with increased care demand. Taken together, the results suggest that the opportunity costs of parental care need in the form of adverse labor market impacts are small.
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| 8. |
- Persson, Anna
(author)
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Activation Programs, Benefit Take-Up, and Labor Market Attachment
- 2013
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Essay 1 (with Ulrika Vikman): Previous literature shows that activation requirements for welfare participants reduce welfare participation, but the dynamics behind these results have not been fully examined. In this paper we use a rich set of register data covering the entire working age population in a Swedish municipality to study how the introduction of mandatory activation programs aimed at unemployed welfare participants affect the probability of entering and exiting welfare. Our results indicate that the reduction in the number of welfare participants is mainly due to an increase in welfare exits. The effect is larger for unmarried individuals without children and for young individuals. Among the young we also find a reduction in welfare entries. It thus seems that individuals with fewer family responsibilities are more responsive to the reform.Essay 2: We study the impact of a set of labour market programs directed to unemployed welfare participants on criminal behaviour. To isolate the causal effect we exploit the sequential implementation of activation programs in municipalities and districts in Stockholm county. We find that criminal activity increased as a result of the programs. The size and significance levels of the estimates should be interpreted with caution, but we can conclude that the reform did at least not have a mitigating effect on crime. We find no evidence that the effect is larger for financially motivated crime.Essay 3: Given the trend towards more active policies on reducing the take-up of welfare benefits, the consequences of leaving welfare constitutes an important issue. This paper studies disposable income and poverty among welfare leavers in Sweden during 19 years (1990-2008). Using a rich set of register data we can accurately measure disposable income and labor market outcomes. We find that there are large significant differences in post welfare financial situation among those working full time and those who work only a little or not at all. Leavers neither working nor receiving benefits from social insurance are likely to be financially dependent on family members, and are more likely than others to be in poverty. We conclude that leaving welfare is not always associated with becoming financially better off, post welfare well being depend heavily on labor market outcomes.Essay 4 (with Matz Dahlberg and Linna Martén): In 1999, the Swedish government announced one of the largest reforms of the national defense in modern times, which led to closures and significant downsizing of several military bases, as well as large reductions of the workforce. Previous studies have found that workers that have been displaced from their previous employers experience significant earnings declines, even in the long run. In this paper we study the labor market effects of the involuntary job losses following the drastic changes of the Swedish security policy. Using population wide register data we estimate how labor income and unemployment benefit take-up changed among those employed at the affected military bases, relative to workers at unaffected military units. We find a decrease in labor earnings, primarily among civil servants. We find no effect on neither unemployment nor employment, indicating that the drop in earnings is likely to be driven by lower re-employment wages.
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| 9. |
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| 10. |
- Öhman, Mattias, 1982-
(author)
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Essays on Cognitive Development and Medical Care
- 2016
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This thesis consists of four self-contained papers.Essay I (with Linuz Aggeborn): Fluoridation of the drinking water is a public policy whose aim is to improve dental health. Although the evidence is clear that fluoride is good for dental health, concerns have been raised regarding potential negative effects on cognitive development. We study the effects of fluoride exposure through the drinking water in early life on cognitive and non-cognitive ability, education and labor market outcomes in a large-scale setting. We use a rich Swedish register dataset for the cohorts born 1985-1992, together with drinking water fluoride data. To estimate the effects, we exploit intra-municipality variation of fluoride, stemming from an exogenous variation in the bedrock. First, we investigate and confirm the long-established positive relationship between fluoride and dental health. Second, we find precisely estimated zero-effects on cognitive ability, non-cognitive ability and education for fluoride levels below 1.5 mg/l. Third, we find evidence that fluoride improves later labor market outcomes, which indicates that good dental health is a positive factor on the labor market.Essay II: I study the associations between cognitive and non-cognitive abilities and mortality using a population-wide dataset of almost 700,000 Swedish men born between 1950 and 1965. The abilities were measured at the Swedish military enlistment at age 18-20. In addition, I investigate if income and education are good proxies for the abilities. The results suggest that both cognitive and non-cognitive abilities are strongly associated with mortality, but that non-cognitive ability is a stronger predictor. The associations are only partly mediated through income and education. For middle and high income earners and individuals with a college education there are no associations with mortality. However, for low income earners and individuals without a college education, both abilities are strongly associated with mortality. The associations are mainly driven by the bottom of the distributions.Essay III (with Matz Dahlberg, Kevin Mani and Anders Wanhainen): We examine how health information affects individuals' well-being using a regression discontinuity design on data from a screening program for an asymptomatic disease, abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA). The information provided to the individuals is guided by the measured aorta size and its relation to pre-determined levels. When comparing individuals that receive information that they are healthy with those that receive information that they are in the risk zone for AAA, we find no effects. However, when comparing those that receive information that they have a small AAA, and will be under increased surveillance, with those who receive information that they are in the risk zone, we find a weak positive effect on well-being. This indicates that the positive information about increased surveillance may outweigh the negative information about worse health.Essay IV: I estimate the effect of SSRI antidepressants on the risk of mortality for myocardial infarction (MI) patients using Propensity Score Matching on individual health variables such as pharmaceutical drug prescription, patient history and severity of the MI. The effect of antidepressants on mortality is a heavily debated topic. MI patients have an elevated risk of developing depression, and antidepressants are among the most common treatments for depression and anxiety. However, there are indications that some classes of antidepressants may have drug-induced cardiovascular effects and could be harmful for individuals with heart problems, but there is a lack of large-scale studies using credible identification strategies. My findings indicate no increased risk of two-year mortality for MI patients using SSRI. The results are stable for several specifications and robustness checks.
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