Capital-Skill Complementarity and Inequality in Sweden

Income inequality increased in Sweden during the 1980’s and 90’s as did the returns to higher education. The main conclusion of this study is that increased income inequality between high and low skilled workers is demand driven and is due to the presence of capital-skill complementarity in production. Increased investments in new, more efficient capital equipment, together with a slowdown in the growth rate of skilled labor, have raised the ratio of effective capital inputs per skilled worker, which, in turn, has increased the relative demand (and market return) for skilled labor through the capital-skill complementarity mechanism.capital-skill complementarity; inequality; relative wages; skill premium; university wage premium

The Dynamics of Child Poverty in Sweden

The purpose of this paper is to study (empirically) the dynamics of child poverty in Sweden, the quintessential welfare state. We find that 1 out of every 5 children is disposable income poor at least once during his or her childhood, while only 2 percent of all children are chronically poor. We also document a strong life-cycle profile for child poverty. Just over 20 percent of all children are born into poverty. The average poverty rate then drops dramatically to about 7.5 percent among 1-year old children. After which, it declines (monotonically) to about 3.9 percent among 17-year olds. Children in Sweden are largely protected (economically) from a number of quite serious events, such as parental unemployment, sickness and death. Family dissolution and longterm unemployment, however, do push children into poverty. But for most of these children, poverty is only temporary. Single mothers, for example, are overrepresented among the poor, but not among the chronically poor. Children with immigrant parents are strongly overrepresented among the chronically poor; as are children whose parents have unusually low educations. We argue that information about the dynamics of child poverty may help policy makers to construct more salient policies for fighting child poverty.child poverty; chronic poverty; poverty dynamics

Life-Cycle Variations in the Association between Current and Lifetime Income: Country, Cohort and Gender Comparisons

This study applies Haider and Solon’s (2005) generalized errors-in-variables model to Swedish income tax data in order to produce estimates of the association between current and lifetime income. Our estimates of this association demonstrate strong life-cycle patterns. This implies that the widespread use of current income as a proxy for lifetime income (following the standard errors-in-variables model) leads to inconsistent parameter estimates (a.k.a. life-cycle bias). Estimates for comparable cohorts of Swedish and American men demonstrate surprising similarities. There are, however, significant gender and cohort differences in this association which, in turn, lead to statistically significant and quantitatively meaningful differences in life-cycle biases. The results from this study can aid the applied researcher in analyzing and correcting for life-cycle bias.errors-in-variables model; life-cycle bias; lifetime income

Is the Swedish Central Government a Wage Leader?

Is the Swedish central government a wage leader? This question is studied empirically in a vector error-correction model using a unique, high quality data set. Private sector salaries are found to be weakly exogenous to the system of equations. This means that the private sector is the wage leader in the long-run model. We also find that salaries in these two sectors do not converge to a common salary in the long-run and that changes in central government salaries do not Granger cause changes in private sector salaries. Together, these findings clearly demonstrate that the central government is not placing undue pressure on salaries in the private sector. The central government is not acting as a wage leader.public sector wages; Sweden; vector error-correction model; wage leadership.

What More Than Parental Income? An Exploration of What Swedish Siblings Get from Their Parents

Sibling correlations are used as overall measures of the impact of family background and community influences on individual outcomes. While most correlation studies show that siblings are quite similar in terms of future achievement, we lack specific knowledge of what it is about family background that really matters. Studies on intergenerational income mobility show that parental income matters to some extent, but they also show that more than half of the family background and community influences that siblings share are not even correlated with parental income. In this paper, we employ a data set that contains rich information about families in order to explore what factors in addition to parental income can explain why siblings tend to have such similar outcomes. Our results show that measures of family structure and social problems account for very little of sibling similarities in adult income above and beyond that already accounted for by parental income. However, when we add a set of indicators for parental involvement and attitudes, the explanatory power of all our variables increased from about a third (using only traditional indicators of socio-economic status) to just over half. Interestingly, indicators of parents' patience, i.e., propensity to plan ahead and willingness to postpone benefits to the future, are particularly important.family background, intergenerational mobility, parents, siblings, long-run income

BETASCAN: Probable β\beta-amyloids Identified by Pairwise Probabilistic Analysis

Amyloids and prion proteins are clinically and biologically important $\beta$-structures, whose supersecondary structures are difficult to determine by standard experimental or computational means. In addition, significant conformational heterogeneity is known or suspected to exist in many amyloid fibrils. Recent work has indicated the utility of pairwise probabilistic statistics in $\beta$-structure prediction. We develop here a new strategy for $\beta$-structure prediction, emphasizing the determination of $\beta$-strands and pairs of $\beta$-strands as fundamental units of $\beta$-structure. Our program, BETASCAN, calculates likelihood scores for potential $\beta$-strands and strand-pairs based on correlations observed in parallel $\beta$-sheets. The program then determines the strands and pairs with the greatest local likelihood for all of the sequence's potential $\beta$-structures. BETASCAN suggests multiple alternate folding patterns and assigns relative a priori probabilities based solely on amino acid sequence, probability tables, and pre-chosen parameters. The algorithm compares favorably with the results of previous algorithms (BETAPRO, PASTA, SALSA, TANGO, and Zyggregator) in $\beta$-structure prediction and amyloid propensity prediction. Accurate prediction is demonstrated for experimentally determined amyloid $\beta$-structures, for a set of known $\beta$-aggregates, and for the parallel $\beta$-strands of $\beta$-helices, amyloid-like globular proteins. BETASCAN is able both to detect $\beta$-strands with higher sensitivity and to detect the edges of $\beta$-strands in a richly $\beta$-like sequence. For two proteins (A$\beta$ and Het-s), there exist multiple sets of experimental data implying contradictory structures; BETASCAN is able to detect each competing structure as a potential structure variant. The ability to correlate multiple alternate $\beta$-structures to experiment opens the possibility of computational investigation of prion strains and structural heterogeneity of amyloid. BETASCAN is publicly accessible on the Web at http://betascan.csail.mit.edu

STITCHER: Dynamic assembly of likely amyloid and prion β-structures from secondary structure predictions

The supersecondary structure of amyloids and prions, proteins of intense clinical and biological interest, are difficult to determine by standard experimental or computational means. In addition, significant conformational heterogeneity is known or suspected to exist in many amyloid fibrils. Previous work has demonstrated that probability-based prediction of discrete β-strand pairs can offer insight into these structures. Here, we devise a system of energetic rules that can be used to dynamically assemble these discrete β-strand pairs into complete amyloid β-structures. The STITCHER algorithm progressively ‘stitches’ strand-pairs into full β-sheets based on a novel free-energy model, incorporating experimentally observed amino-acid side-chain stacking contributions, entropic estimates, and steric restrictions for amyloidal parallel β-sheet construction. A dynamic program computes the top 50 structures and returns both the highest scoring structure and a consensus structure taken by polling this list for common discrete elements. Putative structural heterogeneity can be inferred from sequence regions that compose poorly. Predictions show agreement with experimental models of Alzheimer's amyloid beta peptide and the Podospora anserina Het-s prion. Predictions of the HET-s homolog HET-S also reflect experimental observations of poor amyloid formation. We put forward predicted structures for the yeast prion Sup35, suggesting N-terminal structural stability enabled by tyrosine ladders, and C-terminal heterogeneity. Predictions for the Rnq1 prion and alpha-synuclein are also given, identifying a similar mix of homogenous and heterogeneous secondary structure elements. STITCHER provides novel insight into the energetic basis of amyloid structure, provides accurate structure predictions, and can help guide future experimental studies. Proteins 2011

Evidence from Sibling Correlations

We assess the broad importance of family and community background for entrepreneurship outcomes. We go beyond traditional, intergenerational associations by estimating sibling correlations in unincorporated and incorporated entrepreneurship using register data from Sweden. Sibling correlations range from 20% to 50%. They are consistently higher for more committed and incorporated entrepreneurship than for less committed or unincorporated entrepreneurship; they are also higher for brothers than sisters. We then assess what factors drive these correlations: parental entrepreneurship, neighborhoods, shared genes and financial resources help explain these high correlations, whereas immigration status, family structure and sibling peer effects have a limited contribution. The higher correlation for incorporated versus unincorporated entrepreneurship is explained mainly by the type of parental entrepreneurial engagement and financial resources, while the gap between brother and sister correlations in unincorporated entrepreneurship is largely driven by the geographic concentration of male dominated industries

Quantum state preparation and macroscopic entanglement in gravitational-wave detectors

Long-baseline laser-interferometer gravitational-wave detectors are operating at a factor of 10 (in amplitude) above the standard quantum limit (SQL) within a broad frequency band. Such a low classical noise budget has already allowed the creation of a controlled 2.7 kg macroscopic oscillator with an effective eigenfrequency of 150 Hz and an occupation number of 200. This result, along with the prospect for further improvements, heralds the new possibility of experimentally probing macroscopic quantum mechanics (MQM) - quantum mechanical behavior of objects in the realm of everyday experience - using gravitational-wave detectors. In this paper, we provide the mathematical foundation for the first step of a MQM experiment: the preparation of a macroscopic test mass into a nearly minimum-Heisenberg-limited Gaussian quantum state, which is possible if the interferometer's classical noise beats the SQL in a broad frequency band. Our formalism, based on Wiener filtering, allows a straightforward conversion from the classical noise budget of a laser interferometer, in terms of noise spectra, into the strategy for quantum state preparation, and the quality of the prepared state. Using this formalism, we consider how Gaussian entanglement can be built among two macroscopic test masses, and the performance of the planned Advanced LIGO interferometers in quantum-state preparation

Upper limits on the strength of periodic gravitational waves from PSR J1939+2134

The first science run of the LIGO and GEO gravitational wave detectors presented the opportunity to test methods of searching for gravitational waves from known pulsars. Here we present new direct upper limits on the strength of waves from the pulsar PSR J1939+2134 using two independent analysis methods, one in the frequency domain using frequentist statistics and one in the time domain using Bayesian inference. Both methods show that the strain amplitude at Earth from this pulsar is less than a few times $10^{-22}$.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figure, to appear in the Proceedings of the 5th Edoardo Amaldi Conference on Gravitational Waves, Tirrenia, Pisa, Italy, 6-11 July 200