This paper estimates capitalisation effects of farm attributes with a particular focus on the decoupled Single Farm Payment (SFP) on prices. The spatial analysis employs a sample of mainly small- and medium-sized Swedish farm transactions sold all across Sweden; the results from a spatial multiple-membership model suggest that decoupled SFP has no influence on farm prices. Prices are profoundly influenced by residential characteristics and accessibility to urban amenities. Spatial heterogeneity is found for both regional and local levels, and a large spatial spillover effect is found between neighbouring farms. Results are confirmed by sensitivity analyses.

This paper investigates the extent to which differences in the probability to exit from part-time unemployment to a full-time job are accountable for by spatial contextual factors and individual characteristics. To correctly incorporate contextual effects a multilevel analysis applied using a mixed-effects model, a method frequently used in other disciplines but rarely used in economics, is adopted here to explore whether contextual factors account for differences in the probability of transition to full-time employment between individuals with different characteristics. The results indicate that there is a contextual effect and that there are some spatial spill-over effects from neighbouring municipalities, and unemployment rate partly explains the context variability. Furthermore, the contextual effect is found to be especially large for individuals without a university degree.

This thesis consists of four individual essays and an introduction chapter. The essays are in the field of multilevel analysis of economic data. The first essay estimates capitalisation effects of farm attributes, with a particular focus on single farm payments (SFP), into the price of farms. Using a sample of Swedish farm transactions sold all across the country, the results from a spatial multiple-membership model suggests that the local effect of SFP is negative while there is a positive between-region effect of SFP, on farm prices.

The second essay investigates the extent to which differences in the probability to exit from part-time unemployment to a full-time job can be accounted for by spatial contextual factors and individual characteristics. To correctly incorporate contextual effects, a multilevel analysis was applied to explore whether contextual factors account for differences in the probability of transition to full-time employment between individuals with different characteristics. The results indicate that there is a contextual effect and that there are some spatial spill-over effects from neighbouring municipalities.

The third essay investigates the determinants of educational attainment for third-generation immigrants and natives in Sweden. Using a mixed-effects model that includes unobserved family heterogeneity, for linked register data, the main result is that the effect of parent’s educational attainment is mainly due to the between-parental education effect of family income.

The fourth and last essay presents a new robust strategy for performance evaluation in the case of panel data that is based on routinely collected variables or indicators. The suggested strategy applies a cross-classified, mixed-effect model. The strategy is implemented in two illustrative empirical examples, and the robustness is investigated in a Monte Carlo study.

This paper investigates the determinants of educational attainment for third-generation immigrants and natives in Sweden. Using a mixed-effects model that includes unobserved family heterogeneity for linked register data, the main result is that the effect of parent’s educational attainment is mainly due to the between-parental education (PE) effect of family income. Within-PE, families with high family income have the same impact on child education attainment as familes with low family income for third-generation immigrants and for natives, high family income has a positive impact on child education attainment. While between-PE, PE with high average family income has increased probabilites for high child education attainment. Moreover, immigrant paternal grandmothers from Europe were found to have a negative impact on educational attainment for third-generation immigrants. Immigrant paternal grandfathers from East Europe and maternal grandfathers from other European (not Nordic or East European countries) were found to have a positive impact.

This paper estimates capitalisation effects of farm attributes, with a particular focus on single farm payments (SFP), on the price of farms. Using a sample of Swedish farm transactions sold all across, the results from a spatial multiple-membership model suggests that the local effect of SFP is negative while there is a positive between-region effect of SFP on farm prices. Spatial heterogeneity was found for both regional and local levels, and a large spatial spill-over effect was found between neighbouring farms transactions.