This paper presents annual Swedish time series data on the top marginal tax wedge and marginal tax wedges on labor income for a low-, average- and high-income earners for the period 1862 to 2013. The tax wedges were initially low and the tax system proportional. The tax wedges began to increase...

This paper describes the evolution of capital income taxation, including corporate, dividend, interest, capital gains and wealth taxation, in Sweden between 1862 and 2010. To illustrate the evolution, we present annual time-series data on the marginal effective tax rates on capital income (METR)...

The analysis provides a new explanation for two widespread problems concerning European unemployment policy: the disappointingly small effect of many past reform measures on unemployment, and the political difficulties in implementing more extensive reform programs. We argue that the heart of...

An "incentive subsidy" policy for subsidizing private R & D is proposed that can be more efficient, from a social point of view, than subsidy policies in common use such as a "normal" subsidy policy (fixed amount granted at project start), and conditional loans (loan is repaid only if project is...

Government subsidized industrial R & D stands for a large and increasing segment of the total R & D conducted. Yet very little is known about the effectiveness of such subsidies. This paper summarizes the empirical literature concerning direct project subsidies, tax credits, and support for...

An important issue in the debate on voucher systems and school choice is what effects competition from independent schools will have on public schools. Sweden has made a radical reform of its system for financing schools. Independent and public schools operate on close to equal terms under a...

The paper analyses the interaction between economic incentives and work norms in the context of social insurance. If the work norm is endogenous in the sense that it is weaker when the population share of beneficiaries is higher, then voters will choose less generous benefits than otherwise. We...

Children who can count on support from altruistic parents may not try hard to succeed in the labor market. Moreover, parental altruism makes withdrawal of such support non-credible. To promote work effort, parents may want to instill norms which later cause their children to experience guilt or...

We study the effect of child care costs on the fertility behavior of Swedish women and find that reductions in child care charges influence fertility decisions, even when costs are initially highly subsidized. Exploiting the exogenous variation in child care costs caused by a Swedish child care...

The paper discusses a number of threats to the financial sustainability of social spending: increased internationalization of national economies, gradually higher relative costs of producing a number of human services, the “graying” of the population, slower productivity growth in the...