An Assessment of Putin’s Economic Policy

Wirtschaftspolitik, Volkswirtschaft, Russland, Economic policy, Economy, Russia

Now and forever? Initial and subsequent location choices of immigrants

This paper exploits a natural experiment to study the influence of regional factors on initial and subsequent location choices among immigrants. The results suggest that immigrants to Sweden are attracted to regions with high representation from the individual’s birth country and large overall immigrant populations. Labor market opportunities affect location decisions, but people also tend to choose localities with many welfare recipients. The impact of most regional factors does not change over time. Thus, there is little evidence that information improves or that preferences differ between initial and subsequent stages.Immigration; location choice; secondary migration

Autocrat of the Armchair

Structural analysis is a standard tool to identify submodels that can be used to design model based diagnostic tests. Structural approaches typically operate on models described by a set of equations. This work extends such methods to be able to handle models with constraints, e.g. inequality constraints on state variables. The objective is to improve isolability properties of a diagnosis system by extending the class of redundancy relations. An algorithm is developed that identifies which are the constraints and equations that can be used together to derive a new test that can not be found using previous approachesCADIC

Family size and child outcomes: Is there really no trade-off?

Recent empirical work questions the negative relationship between family size and children’s attainments proposed by theoretical work and supported by a large empirical literature. We use twin births as an exogenous source of variation in family size in an unusually rich dataset where it is possible to separately look at intermediate and long run outcomes. We find little evidence of a causal effect on long term outcomes such as years of schooling and earnings, and studies that do not take selection effects into account are likely to overstate the effects. We do, however, find a small but significant negative impact of family size on grades in compulsory and secondary school.Family size; twin births; education; earnings

Ethnic enclaves and welfare cultures - quasi-experimental evidence

We examine peer effects in welfare use among immigrants to Sweden by exploiting a governmental refugee placement policy. We distinguish between the quantity of contacts – the number of individuals of the same ethnicity – and the quality of contacts – welfare use among members of the ethnic group. OLS regressions suggest that both these factors are positively related to individual welfare use. Instrumental variables estimations yield the conclusion that only the quality of contacts matter. An increase of the fraction of the ethnic group on welfare by 10 percent raises the individual probability of welfare use by almost 7 percent.Ethnic enclaves; welfare use; immigrants

Ethnic Enclaves and Welfare Cultures – Quasi-Experimental Evidence

We examine peer effects in welfare use among immigrants to Sweden by exploiting a governmental refugee placement policy. We distinguish between the quantity of contacts—the number of individuals of the same ethnicity—and the quality of contacts – welfare use among members of the ethnic group. OLS regressions suggest that both these factors are positively related to individual welfare use. Instrumental variables estimations yield the conclusion that only the quality of contacts matter. An increase of the fraction of the ethnic group on welfare by 10 percent raises the individual probability of welfare use by almost 7 percent.immigrants, welfare use, ethnic concentration, welfare cultures, immigration

The Eurasian Growth Paradox

In the first decade of postcommunist transition, multiple growth regressions showed that the more radical and comprehensive market economic reform was, the earlier a country returned to economic growth and the more vigorous its growth, and that Central Europe took the lead. Since 2000, however, the Commonweath of Independent States (CIS) countries have had more than 4 percentage points higher annual growth than the Central European countries. A regression analysis for 20 postcommunist countries shows, with strong significance, that reducing public expenditures has most effectively stimulated economic growth. As expected, oil exports are also positive and significant. The distance from the European Union is also positive and significant: that is, the further from the European Union, the higher the economic growth. The effect of corruption is negative for growth but only marginally significant. Neither the laggard effect nor investment reveals any significant effect. The conclusion is that at least among postcommunist countries more emphasis should be given to reducing public expenditures to boost economic growth.economic systems, transition, economic growth, public sector economy, oil

Virtues of SIN - effects of an immigrant workplace introduction program

We evaluate an immigrant workplace introduction program aimed at helping individuals considered employable but at the same time expected to experience substantial difficulties in finding work. Using supported employment methods, the SIN program may influence outcomes through several channels. We use in-dividual data and a difference-in-differences approach to estimate the effects of the program. The results suggest that the program increased transitions from unemployment to work experience schemes, and improved future employment probabilities for those who entered these schemes.Unemployment; labor market programs; immigrants

The Purchase by Railroads of Their Own Obligations

Recent studies from several authors show that it is possible to lower the fuel consumption for heavy trucks by utilizing information about the road topography ahead of the vehicle. The approach in these studies is receding horizon control where horizon length and residual cost are main topics. To approach these topics, fuel equivalents previously introduced based on physical intuition are given a mathematical interpretation in terms of Lagrange multipliers. Measures for the suboptimality, caused by the truncated horizon and the residual cost approximation, are defined and evaluated for different routes and parameters.Original Publication: Erik Hellström, Jan Åslund and Lars Nielsen, Horizon length and fuel equivalents for fuel-optimal look-ahead control, 2010, 6th IFAC Symposium Advances in Automatic Control. Copyright: INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION OF AUTOMATIC CONTROL IFAC.</p

Measuring conditional segregation: methods and empirical examples

In empirical studies of segregation it is often desirable to quantify segregation that cannot be explained by underlying characteristics. To this end, we propose a fully non-parametric method for accounting for covariates in any measure of segregation. The basic idea is that given a set of discrete characteristics, there is a certain probability that a person belongs to a particular group, which can be used to compute an expected level of segregation. We also demonstrate that a modified index of exposure has both favorable analytical features and interpre-tational advantages in such settings. The methods are illustrated by an applica-tion to ethnic workplace segregation in Sweden. We also show how one can use a measure of exposure to study the earnings consequences of segregation stemming from different sources.Exposure; covariates; ethnic workplace segregation