About me
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Welcome to my website! I am a junior researcher at The Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy (Institutet för arbetsmarknads- och utbildningspolitisk utvärdering, IFAU). I am also affiliated with the Uppsala Centre for Labour Studies (UCLS).
I have a general interest in labor economics and particularly focus on occupational structural change, wage formation, how suited workers with varying characteristics are for different jobs/tasks, the labor market integration of immigrants, and active labor market policy (ALMP).
Please find links to my CV, Google Scholar profile and e-mail address below. This website presents my on-going research and previous work.
Links and information
Working Papers and Manuscripts
Worker specialization and the consequences of occupational decline
Are workers with poor outside opportunities less responsive and more susceptible to negative demand shifts in routine occupations? To answer this, I create and estimate an occupation specialization index (OSI) using Swedish register data and machine learning tools. It measures the expected utility difference between a worker's occupation and his best outside option. This determines the loss he is willing to tolerate to avoid switching. Low-OSI generalists disproportionately left routine work. Their future wage growth was akin to comparable workers initially in non-routine occupations. By contrast, routine specialists largely stayed put and experienced lower wage growth than generalists and non-routine specialists.
Outside options and the sharing of match-specific rents
With Peter Fredriksson, Lena Hensvik and Oskar Nordström Skans
We provide two pieces of evidence that workers’ capacity to extract rents from match-specific productivity hinges on their outside options. Using a measure of match quality, derived from the relationship between workers’ multidimensional skills and job-specific skill requirements, we show that: (i) wages within ongoing matches are more closely aligned with match quality following an improvement of local labor market conditions; (ii) wages of job-to-job movers are positively related to the match quality in the previous job, even when controlling for previous wage. These findings are consistent with a framework where workers can use counteroffers to extract rents from match-specific productivity.
Understanding occupational wage growth
With Adrian Adermon, Georg Graetz and Yaroslav Yakymovych
Using a new identification strategy, we jointly estimate the growth in occupational wage premia as well as time-varying occupation-specific life-cycle profiles for Swedish workers 1996–2013. We document a substantial increase in between-occupation wage inequality due to differential growth in premia. However, due to worker re-allocation this increase is not apparent in raw wage data. The association of wage premium growth and employment growth is positive, suggesting that premium growth is predominantly driven by demand side factors. We also find that wage growth due to occupation-specific skill acquisition was more dispersed in the early years of the sample period. Our results are robust to allowing for occupation-level changes in returns to cognitive and psycho-social skills.
Work in progress
How important are local employment offices? Evidence from two natural experiments
With Josefine Andersson and Jonas Cederlöf
Making quasi-markets work: Provider value-added and jobseeker behaviour in outsourced employment services
With Jan Sauermann and Björn Öckert
Heterogeneous effects of outsourced employment services
With Lisa Laun and Johan Vikström
Previous work
Ek, S., Fredriksson, P., Hensvik, L., & Skans, O. N. (2025). Samspelet mellan matchkvalitet och externa jobberbjudanden påverkar lönebildningen (No. 2025: 20). IFAU-Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy. Report in Swedish
Ek, S. (2025). Yrkesspecialisering och minskad efterfrågan på arbetskraft (No. 2025: 11). IFAU-Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy. Report in Swedish
Ek, S., M. Hammarstedt & P. Skedinger (2024), "Low‐skilled jobs, language proficiency, and job opportunities for refugees: an experimental study", Scandinavian Journal of Economics, 126(2), 355-386. Article
Ek, S. (2023), Structural Change, Match Quality, and Integration in the Labor Market, Dissertation, Department of Economics, Uppsala University. Dissertation
Ek, S., M. Hammarstedt & P. Skedinger (2020), Enkla jobb och kunskaper i svenska–nycklar till integration?, SNS Förlag, Stockholm. Report
Ek, S. & M. Henrekson (2019), “The Geography and Concentration of Authorship in the Top-Five: Implications for European Economics”, Scottish Journal of Political Economy, 66(2), 215-245. Article
Ek, S. & M. Henrekson (2019), “Vem publicerar i topp-5 och vad betyder det för europeisk nationalekonomi?”, Ekonomisk Debatt, Nr 5, Årg 47. Article
Ek, S. & P. Skedinger (2019), “Wage Policies and the Integration of Immigrants”, in Calmfors, L. & Sánchez Gassen, N., Integrating Immigrants into the Nordic Labour Markets, Nordregio, Nordic Council of Ministers, Stockholm. Report
Calmfors, L., S. Ek, A.-S. Kolm, & P. Skedinger (2019), Kollektivavtal och lönebildning i en ny tid, Dialogos Förlag, Stockholm.
Calmfors, L., P. Danielsson, S. Ek, A.-S. Kolm, T. Pekkarinen & P. Skedinger (2018), Hur ska fler komma in på arbetsmarknaden?, Dialogos Förlag, Stockholm.
Ek, S. (2018), “Vart leder lågkvalificerade jobb?”, Ekonomisk Debatt, Nr 5, Årg 46. Article
Calmfors, L., S. Ek, A.-S. Kolm, T. Pekkarinen & P. Skedinger (2018), Olika vägar till jobb, Report 2018:2, Swedish Labour Policy Council, Stockholm. Report
Calmfors, L., S. Ek, A.-S. Kolm, T. Pekkarinen & P. Skedinger (2018), Hur fungerar kollektivavtalen?, Report 2018:1, Swedish Labour Policy Council, Stockholm. Report
Ek, S. & M. Henrekson (2018), “Citeringar: att mäta och att mäta rätt”, Ekonomisk Debatt, Nr 1, Årg 46. Article
Ek, S. & R. Svensson (2017), “Immateriella tillgångar, innovationer och ekonomisk tillväxt/välstånd på makronivå" in Samband mellan immateriella tillgångar, innovation och ekonomisk tillväxt: två kunskapsöversikter, Vinnova, Stockholm.
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