In this paper, we present a directed search model of the housing market. The pricing mechanism we analyze reflects the way houses are bought and sold in the United States. Our model is consistent with the observation that houses are sometimes sold above, sometimes below and sometimes at the...

The Swedish adult education program known as the Knowledge Lift (1997--2002) was unprecedented in its size and scope, aiming to raise the skill level of large numbers of low-skill workers. This paper evaluates the potential effects of this program on aggregate labour market outcomes. This is...

Many developed countries, e.g. the UK, Germany, and Sweden, use or have used settlement policies to direct the inflow of new immigrants away from immigrant dense metropolitan areas. We evaluate a reform of Swedish immigration policy that featured dispersion of refugee immigrants across the...

Standard search theory and some empirical evidence suggest that an unemployed individual's probability of entering employment increases as they approach the time when unemployment benefits are due to expire. This pattern may not carry over to countries such as Sweden, where labour market...

Recent immigrants tend to locate in ethnic ‘enclaves’ within metropolitan areas. The economic consequence of living in such enclaves is still an unresolved issue. We use an immigrant policy initiative in Sweden, when government authorities distributed refugee immigrants across locales in a...

This Paper presents a test of the educational signalling hypothesis. If employers use education as a signal in the hiring process, they will rely more on education when less is otherwise known about applicants. We find that employers are more likely to lower educational standards when an...