The study pace among college students before and after a student aid reform: some Swedish results

In 2001, the Swedish system of student aid for college students was substantially re-formed; the grant-share of the total aid was increased, students were allowed to earn more without a reduction in student aid, and the repayment schedule of the loans was significantly tightened. In this paper, we examine the effects of the reform on individual study efficiency, measured as the number of credit points achieved each semester. We use all program students with a first registration at a Swedish college between 1995 and 2001(before the reform) and estimate a linear regression model including individual fixed effects. There is a slightly positive and significant effect of the reform on the ag-gregate level. However, dividing the sample conditionally on the parental educational level reveals that the individual study efficiency has increased only for students from a strong academic background. In other words, the relative study efficiency has decreased for students from a weak academic background. The different results between students from different parental backgrounds appear to be related to the reallocation of time be-tween work and studies.study efficiency; time-to-graduation; university education; student aid

Inferens av effektutvärdering på retrospektiva data : – baserad på en applikation om samverkan inom Resursteam i Uppsala 2004-2007

Matchning av observationer på bakgrundsvariabler är en metod att i praktiken undvika de problem som uppstår när vi i icke-deterministiska observationsstudier vill mäta potentiella effekter av exem-pelvis projektsatsningar inom sjukvården. Problemet är att vi är begränsade i våra val till potentiella kontrollindivider eftersom dessa ofta skiljer sig från de behandlade individerna i fråga om faktorer som ofta är högt korrelerade med effektvariabeln som vi är intresserade av. Med hjälp av matchning på retrospektiva data kan vi dock ändå estimera kontrafaktiska individer som därefter kan användas som kontroller i estimationen av behandlingseffekten. Inferens av denna effektutvärderingsestimator är dock problematisk då vissa individer potentiellt kan användas flera gånger i analysen och skapa sned-vridning i variansestimatorn. Istället motiveras i denna uppsats en alternativ metod att göra inferens; via subsampling. Utgångspunkten för denna procedur är att asymptotiskt skatta den empiriska fördel-ningen för estimatorn av intresse genom resampling och därefter göra inferens via denna approxima-tion. Uppsatsens empiriska del är baserad på en applikation om Resursteam som har som övergripande mål att förkorta sjukdomsperioderna för individer som ligger i riskzonen för att drabbas av långtids-sjukskrivningar. Som jämförelse används en tidigare utvärdering av Resursteam där ett annat län an-vänds för att välja lämpliga kontroller

Korrigering av sågplacering : En flervariabel tidsdiskret reglering av sågplacering i ett sågverk

Det här arbetet handlar om sågreglering i syfte att förbättra precisionen i sågningen. I dagens sågverk är utrustningen modern men sättet att bestämma korrigeringsvärden för bandsågar är omodernt. Arbetet innehåller analys, programmering samt kalkylering. En del i arbetet består av att finna störningar i sågprocessen och eliminera störningarna med hjälp av sågkorrigering. Mätningen sker med en noggrannheten på en tiondels millimeter. En algoritm som korrigerar sågarna för bästa möjliga resultat har implementerats i PLC och Excel. Denna algoritm ger ett snabbt svar för korrigeringsvärdet

Extending alcohol retailers’ opening hours:Evidence from Sweden

Excessive alcohol use is associated with a wide range of adverse outcomes that inflict large societal costs. This paper investigates the impacts of increases in regulated opening hours of Swedish alcohol retailers on alcohol purchases, health and crime outcomes by relating changes in these outcomes in municipalities that increased their retail opening hours to those in municipalities whose opening hours remained unchanged. We show that extended opening hours led to statistically and economically significant increases in alcohol purchases by around two percent per weekly opening hour, but find no corresponding increases in adverse outcomes related to the consumption of alcohol. We study potential mechanisms, such as consumption spillovers and on and off-premise substitution, and we discuss policy implications of our findings

Estimating returns to hospital volume : Evidence from advanced cancer surgery

High-volume hospitals typically perform better than low-volume hospitals. In this paper, we study whether such patterns reflect a causal effect of case volume on patient outcomes. To this end, we exploit closures and openings of entire cancer clinics in Swedish hospitals which provides sharp and arguably exogenous variation in case volumes. Using detailed register data on more than 100,000 treatment episodes of advanced cancer surgery, our results suggest substantial positive effects of operation volume on survival. Complementary analyses point to learning-by-doing as an important explanation

Sex differences in sickness absence and the morbidity-mortality paradox : a longitudinal study using Swedish administrative registers

OBJECTIVE: To analyse whether gender-specific health behaviour can be an explanation for why women outlive men, while having worse morbidity outcomes, known as the morbidity-mortality or gender paradox. SETTING: The working population in Sweden. PARTICIPANTS: Thirty per cent random sample of Swedish women and men aged 40-59 with a hospital admission in the 1993-2004 period were included. The sample for analysis consists of 233 274 individuals (115 430 men and 117 844 women) and in total 1 867 013 observations on sickness absence. INTERVENTION: Hospital admission across 18 disease categories. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: The main outcome measures were sickness absence (morbidity) and mortality. Longitudinal data at the individual level allow us to study how sickness absence changed after a hospital admission in men and women using a difference-in-differences regression analysis. Cox regression models are used to study differences in mortality after the admission. RESULTS: Women increased their sickness absence after a hospital admission by around five more days per year than men (95% CI 5.25 to 6.22). At the same time, men had higher mortality in the 18 diagnosis categories analysed. The pattern of more sickness absence in women was the same across 17 different diagnosis categories. For neoplasm, with a 57% higher risk of death for men (54.18%-59.89%), the results depended on the imputation method of sickness for those deceased. By using the premortality means of sickness absence, men had an additional 14.47 (-16.30- -12.64) days of absence, but with zero imputation women had an additional 1.6 days of absence (0.05-3.20). Analyses with or without covariates revealed a coherent picture. CONCLUSIONS: The pattern of increased sickness absence (morbidity) and lower mortality in women provides evidence on the more proactive and preventive behaviour of women than of men, which could thus explain the morbidity-mortality paradox