Work in progress
"Reforming Teacher Education: Academic Selection and Occupational Matching" Job Market Paper
Abstract: This paper examines whether changes to teacher education attract academically stronger students and how they shape graduates' entry into the labor market. I study Sweden's 2011 reform, which aimed to make teacher education more attractive and better suited to the demands of different teaching occupations. The reform introduced more distinct pathways for preschool and primary teachers and raised educational requirements in primary and selected upper-secondary programs. Using nationwide administrative data and a difference-in-differences design, I estimate effects separately for each affected program group by comparing changes across entry cohorts with those in programs without corresponding changes. Relative to the comparison programs, average pre-entry GPA increased by 0.11 standard deviations among preschool teacher graduates and 0.14 among primary teacher graduates. Similar increases were already evident among students entering these programs. These gains were larger at universities where preschool and primary teacher education were less differentiated before the reform, suggesting that clearer professional pathways contributed to improved academic selection. The reform also affected graduates' entry into the labor market, but the effects differed across programs. Primary teacher graduates became more likely to enter compulsory-school rather than preschool teaching and earned more, without a clear increase in overall entry into teaching. In contrast, preschool teacher graduates, who already had high rates of occupational matching before the reform, experienced relative declines in employment, the likelihood of working as teachers, and earnings. Graduates from the extended upper-secondary programs also earned more, despite no clear changes in academic selection, suggesting potential benefits from additional subject preparation. Overall, the findings suggest that clearer professional pathways can attract academically stronger students, but that more targeted preparation may come at the cost of broader occupational opportunities.
"Permanent residency policy and skilled immigration: Evidence from a Swedish reform" with Akib Khan (SSE).
Abstract: Aging populations and labor shortages in skill-intensive sectors have led many countries topursue targeted policies to attract international talent. We study a migration reform in Sweden that offered international doctoral students from outside the EU an easier path to permanent residency. Implemented in 2014, the reform shortened the required period of residence from eight to four years, allowed these students to obtain permanent residency immediately after graduation, and granted their spouses a work permit during their doctoral studies. Using the European students as a comparison group in a difference-in-differences design, we find that the treated international students are 10.5 pp (18%) more likely to stay in Sweden three years after graduation. Higher settlement prospects also increase their language investments and marriage rates during the PhD. These effects are larger for cohorts that have longer exposure to the reform and for those who carry out their doctoral research in STEM. In addition, the reform raises both employment and language investments among the partners of the treated international students. Taken together, the policy increases permanent residency among international graduates as well as leads them and their families to make long-term choices conducive to integration. Finally, using a shift-share design, where we combine the reform with the pre-existing variation in the share of international students across research fields, we find positive peer effects on residency. More international students settling in Sweden increases the probability of their European peers making the same choice.
"Does Education Foster Civic-Minded Citizens? Evidence from Compulsory Schooling Reforms" with Daniel Almen (IBF, UU), Mikael Elinder (UU), Per Engström (UU), Oscar Erixson (IBF, UU), and Mårten Palme (SU)
Abstract: Throughout history, a common belief among prominent thinkers is that education is key in fostering good citizens. In this paper, we exploit education reforms in Sweden, and other EU countries, to estimate causal effects of a longer and modernized compulsory education. In most countries, the compulsory education was extended with 1-2 years and the curricula reformed to emphasize that the compulsory education should aim at developing democratic, socially responsible, and tolerant citizens. We make use of high quality population-wide register data from Sweden and survey data for other EU countries on: electoral participation, charitable giving, blood donations, and tolerance. Strikingly, we find no positive effects on any of the outcomes. In general, we have precisely estimated zero effects, and can rule out rather small positive effects. These results suggests that many European post WWII compulsory education reforms were not successful in fostering more civic-minded citizens.
Conditionally accepted at Journal of the European Economic Association (JEEA)
"Age at crime, punishment, and human capital investments: Evidence from the removal of penalty discounts for young criminals in Sweden" with Daniel Cunha Byström (Gothenburg U) and Akib Khan (SSE)
Early stage project - Data collection ongoing