We examine to what extent immigrant school performance is affected by the characteristics of the neighborhoods that they grow up in. We address this issue using a refugee placement policy which provides exogenous variation in the initial place of residence in Sweden. The main result is that...

The importance of investing in host country-specific human capital such as domestic language proficiency and domestic education is often cited as a determining factor for the labor market success of immigrants. This suggests that entirely domestic educations should even out the playing field...

The aim of this paper is to provide a new mechanism based on social interactions explaining why distance to jobs can have a negative impact on workers’ labor-market outcomes, especially ethnic minorities. Building on Granovetter’s idea that weak ties are superior to strong ties for providing...

This paper explores the identity formation of a cohort of students with immigrant backgrounds in Sweden and the consequences of identity for subsequent labor market outcomes. Unique for this study is that identity is defined according to a two-dimensional acculturation framework based on both...

A Trial Introduction Program (TIP) for newly-arrived immigrants to Sweden was implemented from October 2006 to June 2008 in order to meet the main criticisms directed at existing introduction programs. Two primary innovations were introduced, flexible language instruction parallel with other...

We compare the intergenerational earnings mobility of immigrants with natives in Sweden. We find an overall convergence in average earnings between immigrants and natives. This convergence hides a divergence in average earnings between groups of immigrants with different ethnic origins. We find...

This study examines the employment convergence patterns of <p> various immigrant groups to natives in Sweden. Using data with <p> annual information (1990-1997) on more than 200,000 individuals, <p> the probability of being regularly employed is estimated, by gender <p> and region of birth, for immigrants...</p></p></p></p>

We study the relationship between ethnic identity and labor-market outcomes of non-EU immigrants in Europe. Using the European Social Survey, we find that there is a penalty to be paid for immigrants with a strong identity. Being a first generation immigrant leads to a penalty of about 17...

This paper argues that gender-specific educational choices have macroeconomic consequences in terms of economic growth. The presence of a social norm affecting persons choosing gender atypical educations at the university level generates a suboptimal allocation of ability, which lowers...

Is the sickness absence of an individual affected by the sickness absence behavior of the neighbors? Well-known methodological problems, in particular the so-called reflection problem, arise when trying to answer such questions about group effects. Based on data from Sweden, we adopt several...