Health responses to a wealth shock: Evidence from a Swedish tax reform

This essay contributes in two ways to the literature on the effects of economic circumstances on health. First, it deals with reverse causality and omitted variable bias by exploiting exogenous variation in inherited wealth generated by the unexpected repeal of the Swedish inheritance tax. Second, it analyzes responses in health outcomes from administrative registers. The results show that increased wealth has limited impacts on objective adult health over a period of six years. This is in line with what has been documented previously regarding subjective health outcomes. If anything, it appears as if the wealth shock resulting from the tax reform leads people to seek care for symptoms of disease, which result in that cancer is detected and possibly treated earlier. One possible explanation for this preventive response is that good health is needed for enjoying the improved consumption prospects generated by the wealth shock

Health responses to a wealth shock : evidence from a Swedish tax reform

This paper makes two contributions to the literature on the effects of wealth on health. First, it deals with reverse causality and omitted variable bias by exploiting exogenous variation in inherited wealth generated by the repeal of the Swedish inheritance tax. Second, it analyzes responses in health outcomes through the use of administrative registers. The results show that increased wealth has limited short to medium run impacts on objective adult health. This is in line with what has previously been reported in the literature

Health responses to a wealth shock: Evidence from a Swedish tax reform

This essay contributes in two ways to the literature on the effects of economic circumstances on health. First, it deals with reverse causality and omitted variable bias by exploiting exogenous variation in inherited wealth generated by the unexpected repeal of the Swedish inheritance tax. Second, it analyzes responses in health outcomes from administrative registers. The results show that increased wealth has limited impacts on objective adult health over a period of six years. This is in line with what has been documented previously regarding subjective health outcomes. If anything, it appears as if the wealth shock resulting from the tax reform leads people to seek care for symptoms of disease, which result in that cancer is detected and possibly treated earlier. One possible explanation for this preventive response is that good health is needed for enjoying the improved consumption prospects generated by the wealth shock

Health responses to a wealth shock: Evidence from a Swedish tax reform

This essay contributes in two ways to the literature on the effects of economic circumstances on health. First, it deals with reverse causality and omitted variable bias by exploiting exogenous variation in inherited wealth generated by the unexpected repeal of the Swedish inheritance tax. Second, it analyzes responses in health outcomes from administrative registers. The results show that increased wealth has limited impacts on objective adult health over a period of six years. This is in line with what has been documented previously regarding subjective health outcomes. If anything, it appears as if the wealth shock resulting from the tax reform leads people to seek care for symptoms of disease, which result in that cancer is detected and possibly treated earlier. One possible explanation for this preventive response is that good health is needed for enjoying the improved consumption prospects generated by the wealth shock

Estate division: Equal sharing as choice, social norm, and legal requirement

The objective of this essay is to study to what extent parents divide their estates unequally between their children and the determinants of this decision. We use a new dataset based on the estate reports for almost 70,000 Swedish widows, widowers, divorcees and unmarried individuals who died with positive estates and at least two children. Unequal sharing is unusual; depending on definitions only 2–12 percent of the estates are unequally divided. Previous studies for other countries, particularly from the US, find that around 20–40 percent of parents divide their estates unequally. We argue that the relatively low frequency of unequal sharing in Sweden might be explained by contextual factors such as the inheritance law, the transfer tax system, the income distribution, and the welfare state. We also estimate models with family fixed effects to study how the characteristics of children to parents who choose unequal division affect the size of the transfer. The empirical estimates show that bequests are not used to compensate for income differences between children, suggesting that bequests are not guided by altruistic motives. Children who are likely to have provided services to the parent receive more than their siblings however. This suggests that, at least some bequests are guided by exchange motives

Fördelar, nackdelar och paradoxer : En eklektisk genomgång av Kina som värdland för svenska direktinvesteringar

I uppsatsen ger vi en överblick av Kina som värdland för svenska direktinvesteringar. Kinas komparativa fördelar enligt grundläggande handelsteori är naturtillgångar, låg arbetskrafts-kostnad samt stor marknad. De komparativa fördelarna blir till lokaliseringsspecifika fördelar vid företagens val mellan export och direktinvestering. Vid direktinvestering etablerar företaget dotterbolag för verksamhet i värdlandet. Av stor vikt för företaget är värdlandets förmåga att kunna erbjuda en gynnsam miljö för företagsspecifika fördelar. Vår studie tyder på att Kinas ekonomiska reformer sedan 1979 har bidragit till rikt inflöde av utländska direktinvesteringar vilka gynnat Kina som land. Vår slutsats är att marknadens storlek och låg arbetskraftskostnad hittills är de främsta orsakerna till att Kina är ett attraktivt värdland för svenska företags direktinvesteringar

Every man for himself : Gender, Norms and Survival in Maritime Disasters

Since the sinking of the Titanic, there has been a widespread belief that the social norm of ‘women and children first’ gives women a survival advantage over men in maritime disasters, and that captains and crew give priority to passengers. We analyze a database of 18 maritime disasters spanning three centuries, covering the fate of over 15,000 individuals of more than 30 nationalities. Our results provide a new picture of maritime disasters. Women have a distinct survival disadvantage compared to men. Captains and crew survive at a significantly higher rate than passengers. We also find that the captain has the power to enforce normative behavior, that the gender gap in survival rates has declined, that women have a larger disadvantage in British shipwrecks, and that there seems to be no association between duration of a disaster and the impact of social norms. Taken together, our findings show that behavior in life-and-death situation is best captured by the expression ‘Every man for himself’

Estate division : equal sharing as choice, social norm, and legal requirement

The objective of this essay is to study to what extent parents divide their estates unequally between their children and the determinants of this decision. We use a new dataset based on the estate reports for almost 70,000 Swedish widows, widowers, divorcees and unmarried individuals who died with positive estates and at least two children. Unequal sharing is unusual; depending on definitions only 2–12 percent of the estates are unequally divided. Previous studies for other countries, particularly from the US, find that around 20–40 percent of parents divide their estates unequally. We argue that the relatively low frequency of unequal sharing in Sweden might be explained by contextual factors such as the inheritance law, the transfer tax system, the income distribution, and the welfare state. We also estimate models with family fixed effects to study how the characteristics of children to parents who choose unequal division affect the size of the transfer. The empirical estimates show that bequests are not used to compensate for income differences between children, suggesting that bequests are not guided by altruistic motives. Children who are likely to have provided services to the parent receive more than their siblings however. This suggests that, at least some bequests are guided by exchange motives