Employment and wage subsidies are used to combat long-term unemployment, yet there is little research to guide the design of such programs. Discontinuities in the design and implementation of wage subsidies under the Swedish New Start Jobs-policy allow us to study effects of both subsidy rate...

The rising numbers of young people with disability pension concerns many advanced economies. We present results from a comparative analysis of Sweden and Norway, two countries which are very similar in many respects, but differ regarding the policy mix to enhance the employability of the work...

This is a study of the link between taxes and youth self-employment, using a Swedish reform implemented in 2007–09 which suddenly made the payroll tax and the self-employment tax vary by age. The results suggest that youth self-employment is insensitive to tax reductions, both in the short run...

In 2007, the Swedish employer-paid payroll tax was cut on a large scale for young workers, substantially reducing labor costs for this group. We estimate a small impact, both on employment and on wages, implying a labor demand elasticity for young workers at around -0.31. Since the tax reduction...

We investigate the impact of commuter train access on individual labor market outcomes. Our study considers the introduction of a commuter train on a pre-existing railroad in Sweden, considerably decreasing commuting times by public transit and hence increasing access to the regional employment...

Fluoridation of the drinking water is a public policy whose aim is to improve dental health. Although the evidence is clear that fluoride is good for dental health, concerns have been raised regarding potential negative effects on cognitive development. We study the effects of fluoride exposure...

I study the effects of naturalizations on labor market outcomes and family formation. The results show that naturalizations are associated with improving economic outcomes for immigrants from outside the OECD. The strength of the correlation varies depending on the country group and gender. A...

This paper studies threat effects of unemployment insurance (UI) benefit sanctions on job exit rates. Using a difference-in-differences design, I exploit two reforms of the Swedish UI system that made monitoring and sanctions considerably stricter at different points in time for different...

This paper studies how New Start Jobs (Nystartsjobb) and Employment Subsidies Anställningsstöd) affect Swedish firms. We study effects on the number of employees, firm performance and other firm level outcomes. We use Swedish administrative data from the period 1998-2008. One result is that...

We have estimated effects of job practice for participants entering the programme between 1999 and 2006. On average the programme had a moderately sized positive effect for the participants - the expected time to work for the unemployed participants was reduced by around six per cent over a 700...