Unemployment insurance systems include monitoring of unemployed workers and punitive sanctions if job search requirements are violated. We analyze the effect of sanctions on the ensuing job quality, notably on wage rates and hours worked, and we examine how often a sanction leads to a lower...

Based on a Cox Proportional Hazard analysis of German unemployment spells, structural change of the production process is identified as a major explanation for long-term unemployment. Other important covariates capture labor market institutions, macroeconomic stress factors, and individual...

This paper estimates the effect of a major education reform on the intergenerational income mobility in Finland. The Finnish comprehensive school reform of 1972-1977 replaced the old two-track school system with a uniform nine-year comprehensive school and significantly reduced the degree of...

Using employer-employee data covering the whole Swedish economy over a uniquely long time period from 1986 to 2002, we examine how job flows and worker flows have been distributed both on an aggregate level and across educational levels. We find that job and worker flows vary by educational...

To examine the macro economic effects of government tax and punishment policies, this paper develops a three-sector general quilibrium model featuring matching frictions, heterogenous abilities and an informal sector with tax evasion. The choice of education is determined endogenously. Job...

This paper examines if the probability of leaving unemployment changes for unemployed parents with young children when childcare is available. To investigate this, I use the heterogeneity among Swedish municipalities before the implementation of a 2001 Swedish childcare reform making it...

In 2001 and 2002, Sweden introduced several unemployment insurance reforms. A major innovation in the first reform was the introduction of a two-tiered benefit structure for some unemployed individuals. This system involved supplementary compensation during the first 20 weeks of unemployment....

We investigate the effect of conseling and monitoring on the individual transition rate to employment. We theoretically analyze these policies in a job search model with two search channels and endogenous search effort. In the empirical analysis we use unique administrative and survey data...

Labor market programs may affect unemployed individuals' behavior before they enroll. Such ex ante effects are hard to identify without model assumptions. We develop a novel method that relates self-reported perceived treatment rates and job-search behavioral outcomes, like the reservation wage,...

In June 1995, the Swedish parliament decided to cut the replacement rate in unemployment insurance from 80 percent to 75 percent, a change that took effect on January 1, 1996. This paper examines how this change affected job finding rates among unemployed insured individuals. To identify the...