This paper studies the cross-border health and productivity effects of alcohol taxes. We estimate the effect of a large cut in the Finnish alcohol tax on mortality, alcohol-related illnesses and work absenteeism in Sweden. This tax cut led to large differences in the prices of alcoholic...

The issue considered in this study is whether objective, official reports on disability status are reliable. While there is a rather large literature on the reliability of self-reported disability, evidence regarding objective data is scant. It seems to be a widely held view among researchers...

We study how economic incentives affect labor force exit through different income security programs, old-age pensions as well as income taxes in Sweden. We use the option value for staying in the labor force as a measure of economic incentives and estimate an econometric model for the choice of...

The identification of average causal effects of a treatment in observational studies is typically based either on the unconfoundedness assumption or on the availability of an instrument. When available, instruments may also be used to test for the unconfoundedness assumption (exogeneity of the...

Women are on average more absent from work for health reasons than men. At the same time, they live longer. This conflicting pattern suggests that part of the gender difference in health-related absenteeism arises from differences between the genders unrelated to actual health. An overlooked...

This paper studies gender differences in the extent to which social preferences affect workers' shirking decisions. Using exogenous variation in work absence induced by a randomized field experiment that increased treated workers' absence, we find that also non-treated workers increased their...

This paper examines the effect of income inequality on health for a group of particularly disadvantaged individuals: refugees. Our analysis draws on longitudinal hospitalization records coupled with a settlement policy where Swedish authorities assigned newly arrived refugees to their first area...

We study the recruitment behavior of Swedish employers using data from a stated choice experiment. In the experiment, the employers are first asked to describe an employee who recently and voluntarily left the firm, and then to choose between two hypothetical applicants to invite to a job...

Sweden has obligatory sickness and disability insurance which is both financed (from payroll taxes) and administered by the government. In order to receive sickness benefits, insured individuals must have certificates issued by a medical doctor. Since health care is administered at the county...

This paper studies empirically the consequences of retirement on health. We make use of a targeted retirement offer to army employees 55 years of age or older. Before the offer was implemented in the Swedish defense, the normal retirement age was 60 years of age. Estimating the effect of the...