This paper investigates whether mandatory activation programs for welfare receivers have effects on welfare participation, employment and disposable income. In contrast to earlier studies we are able to capture both entry and exit effects. The empirical analysis makes use of a Swedish welfare...

Two different bootstrap approaches for GMM estimation have recently been suggested for use in dynamic panel data models (Brown & Newey (1995) and Hall & Horowitz (1996)) In this paper we compare the small sample properties of these estimators, suggest how sequential testing can be conducted...

Recent Monte Carlo evidence has shown that tests based on asymptotic critical values tend to reject a true null too often, while tests based on bootstrap critical values have empirical sizes that are very close to the nominal ones. This casts doubt on the growing number of studies indicating...

Earlier studies estimating the demand for local public services by means of the median voter model have typically assumed exogenous regressors and static set-ups. Furthermore, the commonly used log-linear specification of the demand function has in most cases not been supported by a well-defined...

Do governments increase public employment in election years? This paper investigates this question by using data from Sweden and Finland, two countries that are similar in many respects but in which local elections are held at different points in time. We can thereby separate an election effect...

Bureaucrats in the government sector have a double role since they are both suppliers and demanders of public employment; they are publicly employed (supply labor) and they have an important say in deciding the size of the municipal employment (demand labor). In this paper we present and...

This paper investigates whether mandatory activation programs for welfare receivers have effects on welfare participation, employment and disposable income. In contrast to earlier studies we are able to capture both entry and exit effects. The empirical analysis makes use of a Swedish welfare...

Card et al (2008a) formalize a model of ethnic residential segregation where an ethnically mixed neighborhood is dynamically stable until its minority share reaches a threshold (the tipping point). Once the neighborhood has surpassed the tipping point, it will experience massive white flight....

Do governments increase public employment in election years? This paper answers this question by using data from Sweden and Finland, two countries that are similar in many respects but in which local elections are held at different points in time. These facts make it possible for us to separate...

Using unique survey data that allows us to observe both voters’ and politicians’ preferences for local public spending as well as voting decisions, this paper tests if voters typically support parties in which the politicians’ preferences are closest to their own. Doing so would be...