This paper examines the effects of a major change in German parental transfer system on fertility. I use the largely unanticipated reform of 2007 as a natural experiment to assess how an earnings-dependent parental leave benefit effects higher-order fertility. Given the recent introduction, this...

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...

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...

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...

We estimate the effects on wage and employment growth rates of the introduction and subsequent increases of the minimum wage in the main construction industry of Germany. Using a regional dataset constructed from individual employment histories, we exploit the spatial dimension and border...

This paper evaluates two Swedish active labour market programmes for youth, namely youth practice and labour market training. A non-parametric matching approach is applied to estimate the average program effects. Moreover, the results obtained by matching are compared to results from standard...

Hoe does central bank conservatism affect labor market reform? In this paper we examine the economic forces at work. An increase in conservation triggers two opposite effects. It reduces the inflation bias of discretionary monetary policy and hence the benefits of a reform. It also increases...