Women's labor market opportunities and equality in the household (with Erik Grönqvist, Lena Hensvik and Yoko Okuyama) - R&R at Journal of Public Economics, IFAU WP
Abstract: We study how changes in couples’ relative wages affect the division of childcare. Using a nationwide wage reform that raised pay in the female-dominated teaching profession, we find that closing 25% of the earnings gap between female teachers and their male spouses led to a 12% reduction in the childcare time gap. This result holds when we extend the analysis to major pay raises for women at the population level. Data support the mechanism that women reduce their childcare time when the spouse can step in by working more from home. Policies that address female pay can foster household equality if men have access to flexible work arrangements
Firm productivity, manager origin, and immigrant-native earnings disparities (with Cristina Bratu, Stefano Lombardi and Olof Åslund) - Latest version, submitted
Abstract: We study the role of firm productivity in explaining the immigrant-native earnings gap using balance sheet and population-wide employer-employee data. The returns to working in firms with higher persistent productivity are especially high for immigrants, who gain the most from avoiding the least productive firms in which they are strongly over-represented. While immigrant-native skill differences can partly explain the differential sorting across firms, our results also suggest group-specific barriers to climbing the productivity ladder. We show that manager-worker homophily is an important mechanism that reinforces the unequal access to high-productive firms and differential ability of extracting firm rents.
Working paper: IFAU Working paper 2021:18
Employer concentration and wages for specialized workers, American Economic Journal: Applied Economics (2024) https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/app.20210280&&from=f
Abstract: This paper studies how wages respond to a sudden change in employer concentration by using the deregulation of the Swedish pharmacy industry. The reform involved a substantial and policy-driven increase in the number of employers that varied by local labor market. Exploiting this variation, elasticities of wages with respect to labor market concentration are estimated between −0.025 and −0.061. The positive wage effects from reduced employer concentration are most prevalent for more mobile workers as well as younger and foreign-born workers. Overall, the paper finds that employer concentration matters for wages in a context where skills are industry specific.
Teacher career opportunities and school quality (with Erik Grönqvist and Lena Hensvik), Labour Economics (2022) doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.labeco.2021.101997 Online appendix
Abstract: We study the effects of introducing a performance-based promotion program for teachers in Sweden. The program intended to make the teaching profession more attractive by raising wages for skilled teachers and taking advantage of teachers’ professional competence. Our results show that: (i) high-wage teachers are more likely to be promoted; (ii) the stipulated wage increase has full pass-through onto wages for promoted teachers; (iii) schools with promotions have lower teacher separations and an improved pool of teachers. These results suggest that performance-based promotions could be an important tool for raising teacher quality.
The impact of women's and men's careers on the family and children (with Ana Costa-Ramón, Ana Rodríguez-González, Erik Grönqvist, Lena Hensvik and Helena Svaleryd) - awarded Forte project grant SEK 4 750 000
The labor market impact of large scale crises (with researchers at Frisch Centre, VATT, Aarhus University, Uppsala University and IFAU)
Entry occupations, firm structure and future careers (with Cristina Bratu, Stefano Lombardi, Oskar Nordström Skans and Olof Åslund )
Nyanlända flyktingfamiljers inkomstkällor och deltagande i SFI och förskola (newly arrived refugee families' income sources and participation in language training and pre-school) (with Caroline Hall, Erica Lindahl and Malin Tallås Ahlzén) - WP (in Swedish)