We examine peer effects in welfare use among immigrants to Sweden by exploiting a governmental refugee placement policy. We distinguish between the quantity of contacts - the number of individuals of the same ethnicity - and the quality of contacts - welfare use among members of the ethnic...

Recent immigrants tend to locate in ethnic enclaves within metropolitan areas. The economic consequence of living in such enclaves is still an unresolved issue. We use an immigrant policy initiative in Sweden, when government authorities distributed refugee immigrants across locales in a way...

Many countries consider the residential concentration among immigrants a problem. This paper studies the factors influencing individual location decisions and evaluates a Swedish attempt to change the residential distribution of refugee immigrants in the late 1980's. Despite common perceptions,...

Many developed countries, e.g. the UK, Germany, and Sweden, use or have used settlement policies to direct the inflow of new immigrants away from immigrant dense metropolitan areas. We evaluate a reform of Swedish immigration policy that featured dispersion of refugee immigrants across the...