International migration has had a steady growth over the last decades and the integration of immigrants into the labour market is a challenge for many countries. Previous literature has found that immigrants, especially non-European immigrants, are disadvantaged in the labour market, and that the size of this disadvantage differs between male and female immigrants. One potential explanation for non-European immigrants’ labour market disadvantage is discrimination, which can be expressed through negative attitudes towards immigrants. Using individual data from the European Social Survey, this paper investigates whether there is a relation between negative attitudes towards immigrants and the employment gap between non-European immigrants and natives in Sweden, and whether this relation differs by gender. The results, however not statistically significant, indicate that there is a negative relation between negative attitudes towards immigrants and the immigrant-native employment gap. Moreover, the female immigrant-native employment gap is found to be more negatively affected by negative attitudes towards immigrants. 

Frågan om ekonomisk ojämlikhet tillhör kanske en av de mest kontroversiella frågorna genom historien. Åsikterna om fördelar och nackdelar med ekonomisk ojämlikhet, men kanske framförallt graden av ojämlikhet går isär. Det har till en början inom forskningen antagits att ekonomisk ojämlikhet är en förutsättning för tillväxt genom att det frambringar investeringar och är viktigt för incitamentsskapandet. Ny forskning tyder däremot på att tillväxt och ekonomisk ojämlikhet har ett negativt samband, särskilt när förhållandet studeras på lång sikt. Om så är fallet har detta stor betydelse för ekonomiska och politiska beslut. Dessutom anses det att en hög grad av ekonomisk ojämlikhet hindrar ett politiskt och ekonomisk inkluderande samhälle vilket kan slå tillbaka på tillväxttakten. Denna uppsats, med avstamp i en mixad metod, undersöker förhållandet mellan ekonomisk ojämlikhet och tillväxt.

Global warming issues are a widespread problem around the world and the emissions of greenhouse gases is one of the main contributors. The transport sector emits a significant amount of greenhouse gas emissions; thus, this contributes to global warming. To tackle this challenge the Swedish state introduced in July 2018 a system called bonus-malus system which aims to increase the proportion of eco-friendly cars and in the long run reducing greenhouse gases emissions from the transport sector. This paper examines the tax system within the Bonus-Malus system. Primarily investigating if Malus, tax system, impacted the demand for electric vehicles since it introduced. The study conducted based on a short panel data from Sweden´s 21 counties for the period 2016-2020 and the analysis method applied is a regression analysis. The results of this thesis confirm a strong positive relationship between the share of newly registered battery electric vehicles (BEV) and the Malus, but much weaker influence of the other studied variables. Suggesting that tax system induce on emission seem to be efficient at boost the demand for BEV 

In this paper we investigate how anonymous exams impact the grades for foreign-named students and if there are differences in this treatment effect against them when considering the gender of the graders. By obtaining data from Stockholm University, we used a difference-in-difference model to estimate our results. Our results show that there was no negative treatment effect against foreign-named students when considering their test scores prior and after the reform of writing exams anonymously. The results are interpreted through the fact that foreign-named students received even lower test scores after the reform, meaning that the foreign-named students did not gain from the reform. Moreover it can be said that these results can be related to “reverse-bias”, which indicates that the grader is more lenient towards foreign-named students.

Further, when estimating the relationship between the gender of the teacher and the treatment effect, our results showed evidence of female graders treating foreign-named students more negatively compared to male graders. This, due to the results which implied that male graders showed a strong positive treatment effect against foreign-named students, but hence a negative treatment against Swedish named students. Moreover the female graders showed a positive treatment effect against Swedish-named students and the contrary against foreign-named students.

This paper presents and empirically evaluates the idea that individual level political tolerance is influenced by the overall tolerance in society. Hence, the expectation is that more politically tolerant attitudes would be developed as a consequence of exposure to a social environment in which people in general are more inclined to accept freedom of speech, also when the message (or the messenger as such) challenges one’s own values and beliefs. The theoretical base of the analyses is a learning model, according to which more broad-minded and permissive attitudes, from a democratic point of view, are adopted as a result of (1) an adjustment stimulated by mere observation of an overall high-level of political tolerance in society (‘passive learning’), and (2) an adjustment due to cognition and interaction within important spheres in society (‘active learning’). Using surveydata, we explore empirically how length of residence among immigrants in high-tolerance Sweden are related to attitudinal measures of political tolerance, and to what extent a time-related effect is mediated through participation in ‘learning institutions’ of education, working-life, civil society and political involvement. In concert with expectations, the empirical findings suggest that an observed positive effect of time in Sweden on political tolerance may be explained by a gradual adoption of the principle that political rights should be recognized. Such an adoption, however, seems to require participation in activities of learning institutions, as we find that passive learning alone is not sufficient.

Immigrants in Western countries in general participate less in politics, and show lower levels of political efficacy, than native-born citizens. Research is scarce when it comes to immigrants’ knowledge about politics and public affairs in their new home country, and about what happens with this knowledge over the years. This paper focuses on immigrants in Sweden, a country known for ambitious multicultural policies, but where immigrants also face disadvantages in areas such as labor and housing markets. Utilizing particularly suitable survey data we find that immigrants in general know less about Swedish politics than natives, but also that this difference disappears with time. Exploring the positive influence of length of residence on political knowledge, the paper shows that the positive effect of time in Sweden among immigrants remains after controlling for an extensive set of background factors. Moreover, the paper examines this political learning effect through the lens of an Ability– Motivation–Opportunity (AMO) model. The findings suggest that the development of an actual ability to learn about Swedish politics—via education in Sweden, and by improved Swedish language skills—is an especially important explanation for the increase in political knowledge.

Our essay focuses on short-term capital inflows and their effects on China’s economy.The reason for this work was the increasing vulnerability of China’s economy and the risk of newupcoming world financial crisis, all because of uncontrollable amounts of speculative capitalflows. Because of this problem, we raised a main question that we try to answer in this essayhowto reduce the possibility and the severity of the future financial crisis in China? In order tosolve this problem, first we searched for the existing theory of capital flows, mainly short-termcapital inflows. We analysed why investors choose capital flows and some specific countries,why it is profitable, but also risky and what could be done by countries, to stop these inflows orat least to diminish their effect on domestic markets. After that, we looked for past experiencesof countries faced with surges of capital flows and their measures for controlling them, weanalysed, if the theoretical tools were actually effective in reality. To finish the model, weapplied these measures to China’s economy and gave our viewpoint on what could be changedin order to avoid the dangers of short-term capital inflows. Last, we sum up the whole essay andsuggest the best mix of measures that China could use to control capital inflows as well as theireffects on the economy.

The smallpox vaccination method was the paramount medical innovation of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. We exploit the introduction of the smallpox vaccine in Sweden to identify the causal effect of early-life mortality on fertility. Our analysis shows that parishes in counties with higher levels of smallpox mortality prior to the introduction of vaccination experienced greater declines in infant mortality afterward. Exploiting this finding in an instrumental-variable approach reveals that the decline in infant mortality had a negative effect on the number of children born, whereas we find a small insignificant effect on the number of surviving children and natural population growth.

Little is known about how individuating information about job applicants influences ethnic discrimination. In the present field experiment, we sent out 5,636 job applications varying how Swedish (in-group) and Arab (out-group) applicants presented themselves in terms of two fundamental dimensions of social judgment: warmth and competence. Results indicate substantial discrimination where Arab applicants receive fewer invitations to job interviews. Furthermore, conveying a warmer or more competent personality increases invitations. However, appearing both warm and competent seems to be especially important for Arab applicants. In conclusion, the results show that Arab applicants need to appear warmer and more competent than Swedish applicants to be invited equally often. The practical importance of signaling warmth and competence in labor market contexts is discussed.

Although previous research has established that physical height matters in hiring contexts, it is less clear through which channels height exerts its effect. The current research examines several potential components of the height premium: warmth, competence, job competency for a leadership position, physical health, and attractiveness. We made target individuals taller or shorter by digitally manipulating photographs, and attached these to job applications that were evaluated by real recruiters. The results show that in the context of hiring a project leader, the height premium consists of increased perceptions of the candidate's general competence, job competency, and health, whereas warmth and attractiveness seem to matter less.

Judicial courts form a stringent example of public services using partially sticky inputs and outputs with heterogeneous quality. Notwithstanding, governments internationally are striving to improve the efficiency of and diminish the budget spent on court systems. Frontier methods such as data envelopment analysis are sometimes used in investigations of structural changes in the form of mergers. This essay reviews the methods used to evaluate the ex post efficiency of horizontal mergers. Identification of impacts is difficult. Therefore, three analytical frameworks are applied: (1) a technical efficiency comparison over time, (2) a metafrontier approach among mergers and non-mergers, and (3) a conditional difference-in-differences approach where non-merged twins of the actual mergers are identified by matching. In addition, both time heterogeneity and sources of efficiency change are examined ex post. The method is applied to evaluate the impact on efficiency of merging the Swedish district courts from 95 to 48 between 2000 and 2009. Whereas the stated ambition for the mergers was to improve efficiency, no structured ex post analysis has been done. Swedish courts are shown to improve efficiency from merging. In addition to the particular application, this work may inform a more general discussion on public service efficiency measurement under structural changes, and their limits and potential.

Using quasi-experimental data, this article examines the relationship between religiosity and prosocial behavior. In contrast to previous studies that identify religious people by how often they attend religious services or by their self-reported religiosity, this study compares the behavior of highly devout students who are preparing to enter the clergy to the behavior of other students in a public goods game and in the dictator game. The results show that religious students were significantly more cooperative in the public goods game and significantly more generous in the dictator game than other students.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine whether education and training affect pro-social behavior. Economics students are often accused of being less pro-social. The explanations given are that less pro-social people choose to study economics or that economics studies indoctrinate students to selfish behavior. The paper experimentally tests these postulations.

Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses the prisoner's dilemma game and stag hunt game to study cooperation across different groups of students.

Findings – The experiment supports neither of the postulations: economics students would be indoctrinated or less pro-social people choose to study economics. However, the study shows that police cadets, who go through an education where teamwork and cooperation is promoted, become more cooperative and pro-social after their completed education.

Originality/value – In contrast to earlier studies, this paper does not simply study economics students, but also examines if students in educational programs that promote loyalty and cooperation and encourage teamwork are more pro-social than other students.

This paper investigates whether people are conditional reciprocators in an investment game experiment, in the sense that the more they are trusted, the more they reciprocate. The results show that the majority of participants are conditional reciprocators but that they can be classified into three types: (1) exploitative reciprocators who do not reciprocate and exploit trust; (2) egoistic reciprocators who neither exploit nor reward trust; and (3) generous reciprocators who reward trusting behavior.

This paper studies how group identity, social distance and intergroup bias may aVect economic decision-making. Two types of experimental groupings are created, and subjects are then paired with either an in-group member or an out-group member in a number of two-person games. The result of this experiment shows that out-group members face a risk of being discriminated against. The cause of the discrimination is not hostility toward out-group members; the discrimination is triggered because of higher expectations or favoritism of in-group members. This type of behavior holds, regardless of the grouping procedure.

Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, there has been considerable concern about whether Muslims living in Western countries are targets of prejudice. A considerable amount of survey-based evidence suggests that Muslims are victims of discrimination. This paper tested this hypothesis. Two lost-letter experiments were conducted to test whether the difference in returned letters would be attributable to whether the addressee was Muslim or Swedish. The results show that Muslims receive far fewer letters than do Swedes. However, this discrimination only appears when the lost letters contain money; in which case, the finder gains by not posting the letter.

This article reports results from two experiments that investigate possible incidence of discrimination against people with foreign backgrounds in Sweden. In the first experiment, participants played the trust game and the dictator game with co-players of different ethnic affiliation. The family name of the players was exposed to their co-players. Results for the trust game showed no significant discrimination against co-players with foreign backgrounds. On the other hand, the results for the dictator game showed a statistically significant discriminatory behaviour by men against co-players with non-European backgrounds. The discriminatory behaviour was solely a male phenomenon. In the second experiment, the dictator game was replicated to check the stability of the results in the first experiment. The second experiment also examined whether people with foreign backgrounds discriminate against other people with foreign backgrounds; that is, the purpose was to discover whether discrimination is systematic. The observations in the second experiment underlined the results found in the first experiment: foreign co-players are discriminated against by Swedish players. However, we did not find that people with foreign backgrounds discriminated against other people with foreign backgrounds.

Are women less competitive than men? Many experimental and nonexperimental studies have documented gender differences in competitiveness. This article presents the results from a study that examines gender differences in competitiveness in the television show Come Dine with Me. It is a cooking show in which amateur chefs compete against each other for a cash prize. The show provides an unusual opportunity to study gender differences in a high-stakes game environment. The results demonstrate that there are no gender differences in competitiveness.

This paper presents the first field experiment on sexual orientation discrimination in the hiring process in the Swedish labor market. Job applications were sent to about 4,000 employers in 10 different occupations in Sweden. Gender and sexual orientation were randomly assigned to applications. The results show that sexual orientation discrimination exists in the Swedish labor market. The discrimination against gays and lesbian varies across different occupations and appears only in the private sector. The results also seem to suggest a new dimension of traditional gender roles; the gay applicant was discriminated against in typical male-dominated occupations whereas the lesbian applicant was discriminated against in typical female-dominated occupations. Thus, the results suggest that gays to some extent face the same obstacles on the labor market as heterosexual women.

This paper presents a field experiment, conducted over the Internet, studying possible discrimination against lesbians in the rental housing market in Sweden. We let two fictitious couples, one heterosexual and one lesbian, apply for vacant rental apartments advertised by landlords on the Internet. We then investigated whether there were differences between the couples in the number of received call-backs, invitations to further contact, and invitations to immediate showings. Our findings show no indication of differential treatment of lesbians by landlords. A discussion relating to earlier findings is provided.

We investigate how increasing the information about applicantsaffects discrimination in the rental housing market. We letfour fictitious applicants, two with typical Arab/Muslim namesand two with typical Swedish names, use application letterscontaining different amounts of information to apply for apartmentsover the Internet in Sweden. The Arab/Muslim applicants receivedfewer responses from the landlords than did the Swedish applicants.All of the applicants gained by providing more information aboutthemselves, but the amount of discrimination against the Arab/Muslimapplicants remained unchanged, indicating that increasing theamount of information about the applicants will not reduce discrimination

Previous research has documented earnings differentials due to sexual orientation. In this paper we take a closer look at such differentials and the explanations for them. By studying yearly earnings as well as full-time monthly earnings, we are able to observe the extent to which the earnings disadvantage that is often observed for homosexual males and the earnings advantage often observed for homosexual females remain when we control for factors such as their number of hours worked. Our results suggest that male homosexuals are also at an earnings disadvantage compared to male heterosexuals after controlling for number of hours worked. This disadvantage is larger at the top than at the bottom of the earnings distribution. However, for females the earnings differential is considerably smaller when we study full-time monthly earnings than when we study yearly earnings. Thus, the results indicate that male homosexuals face obstacles on the labour market that hinder them from reaching top-level positions and high earnings levels; the earnings advantage often observed for homosexual females in previous research is more likely to stem from the fact that female homosexuals devote more time to market labour than heterosexual females do.

This paper presents the first field experiment regarding ethnic discrimination in the market place of small business transfers. We let two fictitious prospective buyers, one with a typical Swedish name and one with a typical Arab/Muslim name, respond to advertisements of small business transfers on the Internet in Sweden. We then recorded the number contacts achieved by each fictitious buyer with sellers. We found that sellers discriminated against the buyer with an Arab/Muslim name in the sense that the buyer with an Arab/Muslim name obtained fewer contacts with sellers than did the buyer with a Swedish name.

We present earnings differentials between homosexuals and heterosexuals. In line with previous research, we find that gay males earn less than heterosexual males, and that lesbians earn more than heterosexual females. However, when combining the individuals into households, our results are strikingly different: very small earnings differentials between gay households and heterosexual households are found. Lesbian households earn considerably less. The largest earnings inequalities between spouses are found among gay males followed by heterosexuals. Studying sexual orientation and earnings is complex, and household earnings have to be taken into consideration when conclusions are drawn.

This paper presents a study of differences in occupational rank between gay and heterosexual males as well as between lesbian and heterosexual females. We estimate different specifications of an ordered probit model on register data from Sweden. Our data consist of married heterosexual men and women and homosexual men and women living in civil unions. We find that homosexual men have a lower probability of working in a profession demanding a longer university education or a management profession than heterosexual men. In contrast, we find that homosexual women are more likely than heterosexual women to work in such professions.

I denna artikel presenteras resultaten av en experimentell studie om etnisk diskriminering. Undersökningen visar att det främst är infödda män som tenderar att ha ett diskriminerande beteende. I Sverige finns lagstiftning som förbjuder etnisk diskriminering. Vi har också en särskild myndighet – diskrimineringsombudsmannen – som skall motverka etnisk diskriminering. Den presenterade undersökningen kan ge en ny infallsvinkel. Ett sätt att motverka diskriminering av invandrare kan vara att se till att andelen kvinnor som är personalchefer i företag och myndigheter ökar. Frågan om etnisk diskriminering är kanske också en jämställdhetsfråga.

We examined customer and worker discrimination against gay and lesbian business owners using a web-based experiment conducted at a Swedish university campus. Participants (N = 1,406) were presented with a prospective restaurant establishment on the campus. They then stated whether they would be positive to such an establishment, whether they would be interested in working at the restaurant, and what their reservation wage would be if they were interested in the job. Owners’ sexual orientation was randomized across participants. Results showed that participants were less positive to a restaurant opening if the owners were lesbians, and they were less interested in an available job if the owners were gay. The participants had higher reservation wages if the owners were lesbians. In fact, the participants increased their wage demands when the number of women among the owners increased. Our study underlines that gay and lesbian people face various inequalities in society.

This paper studies customer discrimination against fictive male and female food truck owners with Arabic names on a Swedish University campus using a web-based experiment. Students at a Swedish university campus were asked to participate in a market survey and state if they think it is a good idea to have a food truck establishment on the campus. Further, they were also asked about their own beliefs, and their beliefs about others’ willingness to pay for a baguette and a kebab sold by the food truck on the campus. Four names—one male Swede, one female Swede, one male Arab, and one female Arab—were randomly assigned to the food truck. We found no evidence of customer discrimination against food truck owners with Arabic names. In fact, the respondents were slightly more positive to a food truck establishment run by an Arabic male than by a Swedish male. We conclude that our results are representative in an environment with relatively young and highly educated customers and that customer discrimination may vary across different markets. More research in this area is needed.

This paper presents the first field experiment studying discrimination against homosexuals on the housing market. The study is conducted on the rental housing market in Sweden using the internet as a research platform. Two fictitious couples, one heterosexual and one male homosexual, apply for vacant rental apartments advertised by landlords on the internet. Our findings show that homosexual males are discriminated against on the Swedish housing market, since the homosexual couple gets far fewer call-backs and fewer invitations to further contacts and to showings of apartments than the heterosexual couple.

This paper presents a field experiment on discrimination in the housing market, using the Internet as a research platform. The procedure involved our creating three fictitious persons with distinctive sounding ethnic and gender names. These individuals applied for vacant rental apartments in Sweden that were advertised by landlords on the Internet. Our findings show that the Arabic/Muslim male received far fewer call backs, enquiries, and showings than the Swedish male. Our observations also indicate that the Swedish female met with less difficulty in terms of finding an apartment than the Swedish male. Thus, based on our findings, we conclude that ethnic, as well as gender discrimination exists in the Swedish rental housing market.

Vi presenterar resultat från ett experiment utfört på ett universitetscampus.Deltagarna fick se bilder av olika food-trucks och svara på om de tyckte det varen god idé att en food-truck etablerade sig på campusområdet samt ange sinbetalningsvilja för olika varor. Deltagarna i experimentet var mer positivatill en etablering av en food-truck ägd av en man med arabiskt namn än till enetablering av en food-truck ägd av en man med svenskt namn. Resultaten är avintresse för integrationspolitiken, då de visar att egenföretagare med ursprung iMellanöstern inte diskrimineras i en bransch där de ofta är verksamma.

We present a field experiment conducted in order to explore the existence of ethnic discrimination in contact with public authorities. Two fictitious parents, one with a Swedish-sounding name and one with an Arabic-sounding name, sent email inquiries to all Swedish municipalities asking for information about preschool admission for their children. Results show that the parents were treated differently by the municipalities since the individual with the Swedish-sounding name received significantly more responses that answered the question in the inquiry than the individual with the Arabic-sounding name. Also, the individual with the Swedish-sounding name received more warm answers than the individual with the Arabic soundingname in the sense that the answer from the municipality started with a personal salutation. We conclude that ethnic discrimination is prevalent in public sector contacts and that this discrimination has implications for the integration of immigrants and their children.

We present a field experiment conducted in order to explore the existence of ethnic discrimination in contact with public authorities. Two fictitious parents, one with a Swedish-sounding name and one with an Arabic-sounding name, sent email inquiries to all Swedish municipalities asking for information about preschool admission for their children. Results show that the parents were treated differently by the municipalities since the individual with the Swedish-sounding name received significantly more responses that answered the question in the inquiry than the individual with the Arabic-sounding name. Also, the individual with the Swedish-sounding name received more warm answers than the individual with the Arabic-sounding name in the sense that the answer from the municipality started with a personal salutation. We conclude that ethnic discrimination is prevalent in public sector contacts and that this discrimination has implications for the integration of immigrants and their children.

We present a field experiment conducted in order to explore the existence of ethnic discrimination in contact with public authorities. Two fictitious parents, one with a Swedish-sounding name and one with an Arabic-sounding name, sent email inquiries to all Swedish municipalities asking for information about preschool admission for their children. Results show that the parents were treated differently by the municipalities since the individual with the Swedish-sounding name received significantly more responses that answered the question in the inquiry than the individual with the Arabic-sounding name. Also, the individual with the Swedish-sounding name received more warm answers than the individual with the Arabic soundingname in the sense that the answer from the municipality started with a personal salutation. We conclude that ethnic discrimination is prevalent in public sector contacts and that this discrimination has implications for the integration of immigrants and their children.

The development of methods for detecting labour market discrimination is characterized by a shift from observational data to different forms of experimental data. At the same time, there has been a shift from examining differences in treatment of groups of employees to differences in hiring.

Observational data are associated with omitted variable problems. Field experiments in the form of audit and correspondence studies give better control of what is observed by both employers and the researcher. A limitation is that they can typically be employed only for certain types of (low-skill, early career) jobs and the initial (call-back) stage of the hiring process. Another is that employers’ beliefs cannot be controlled for. Natural and lab experiments can address some of these concerns. Most studies are not able to distinguish theories of between taste-based and statistical discrimination.

This paper examines earnings differentials between homo- and heterosexual individuals by identifying sexual orientation with the help of information from register data. Register data enable us to avoid the misclassifications of sexual orientation often mentioned as a potential bias in survey-based studies. The results show that gay men are at an earnings disadvantage as compared to male heterosexuals while the earnings differential between lesbians and heterosexual women is very small. Our results are in line with results from previous research but are more reliable since we use a more reliable measure of sexual orientation than previous research.