A large body of research documents the importance of early life conditions for the health and human capital formation of children. The detrimental effects of alcohol exposure in utero are well documented, and therefore identifying effective methods for preventing harmful maternal alcohol...

A fundamental problem in all political systems is that the people in power may extract rents to the detriment of the general public. In a democracy, electoral competition and information provided by the media may keep such rent extraction at bay. We develop a simple model where rents are...

We examine the effect of corruption on foreign direct investments. Our model shows that corruption may have different effects on investments aimed at selling to a local market, in comparison to investments aimed at selling from the corrupt market. Using Swedish firm-level data, we find that...

Based on a two-million-observation panel dataset that matches public firms with detailed data on their employees, we find that entrenched managers pay their workers more. For example, our estimates show that CEOs with more control rights (votes) than all other blockholders together, pay their...

Theories of taste-based discrimination predict that competitive pressures will drive discriminatory behavior out of the market. Using detailed matched employer-employee data, we analyze how firm takeovers and product market competition are related to the gender composition of the firm's...

This paper studies whether the degree of women's representation in Swedish local councils affects local public expenditure patterns. Theoretically, the individual preferences of elected representatives may have an impact on public expenditure if full policy commitment is not feasible. To...

In this paper, we empirically address the hypothesis that there is a relationship between the supply of human capital and the rate and direction of skill-biased technical change (SBTC). Using country- and industry-level data on OECD countries, we find R&D to be positively related to the supply...

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 business cycle is likely to be of importance for self-employment rates. When the economy is growing, business opportunities open up and encourage the set-up of new firms. In downturns, self-employment may be a way to avoid unemployment. The strength of these pull and push factors may depend...

The business cycle is likely to be of importance for self-employment rates. When the economy is growing, business opportunities open up and encourage the set-up of new firms. In downturns, self-employment may be a way to avoid unemployment. The strength of these pull and push factors may depend...