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...

This paper considers the optimal hiring strategy of a firm that is unable to observe the productive abilities of all its applicants. Whom the firm considers as hireable, will depend crucially on the extent to which the firm can use its wage setting to mirror productivity differences. However,...

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...

We use the Swedish Job Applicant Database to empirically investigate whether being unemployed per se reduces the probability to get contacted by a firm. This database contains personal characteristics and preferences over the type of job the applicant wants to find. The data is submitted both by...

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...

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,...

Using the Implicit Association Test, we investigate whether employers and students possess implicit and explicit negative attitudes and implicit performance stereotypes toward Arab-Muslim men relative to native Swedish men. We also examine if employers and students have implicit and explicit...

Labor market programs may affect unemployed individuals’ behavior before they enroll. Such ex ante effects may differ according to ethnic origin. We apply a novel method that relates self-reported perceived treatment rates and job search behav­ioral outcomes, such as the reservation wage or...