The 1991-reform of upper secondary school, in which the two-year vocational programmes were transformed into three-year programmes, was implemented all over the country in 1995/96. The reform was piloted in the final years of the 1980s. The pilot scheme is an example of a “natural...

This paper studies the effects of school choice on segregation. We analyze the effect of a reform in Stockholm that changed the admission system of public upper secondary schools. Before the year 2000, students had priority to the school situated closest to where they lived, but from the fall of...

This paper evaluates the long-term effects of class size in primary school. We use rich administrative data from Sweden and exploit variation in class size created by a maximum class size rule. Smaller classes in the last three years of primary school (age 10 to 13) are not only beneficial for...

A number of studies have shown that education reforms extending compulsory schooling reduce criminal behavior of those affected by the reform. We consider the effects of a major Swedish educational reform on crime by exploiting its staggered implementation across Sweden. We first show that the...

Swedish elementary school children stopped receiving written end of year report cards following a grading reform in 1982. Gradual implementation of the reform creates an opportunity to investigate the effects of being graded on adult educational attainments and earnings for children in the...

Since the mid-20th century many OECD countries have discarded their previous selective schools systems, in which students early on were separated between academic and vocational tracks, in favor of more comprehensive schools. The effects of these reforms have generally been difficult to evaluate...

This paper utilizes a policy change to estimate the effect of teacher density on student performance. We find that an increase in teacher density has a positive effect on student achievement. The baseline estimate – obtained by using the grade point average as the outcome variable – implies...

This paper investigates whether more general education reduces the risk of future unemployment by examining individuals’ labor market experiences during the “Great Recession” (2008–2010). To estimate the causal impact of differences in educational content, I exploit a reform in Sweden in...

This study investigates possible reasons for the gender difference in sickness absence. We estimate both short- and long-term effects of parenthood in a within-couple analysis based on the timing of parenthood. We find that after entering parenthood, women increase their sickness absence by...

This paper analyzes the consequences of the spacing of births for women’s subsequent labor income and wages. Spacing births in longer intervals may allow women to re-enter the labor market between childbearing events, thereby avoiding expanded work interruptions and, in turn, reducing the...