Assessing the Effects of the Child-Care Fee Reform on Public Expenditures and Taxation

This paper studies the effects of the Swedish child-care fee reform on public expenditures and taxation in the municipalities. The reform implied a common system of child-care fees among all the municipalities and was introduced in 2002. In order to study its effects, we employ a difference-in-difference approach, where outcomes are compared with respect to differences in the municipalities’ pre-reform fee systems. It was found that pre-reform characteristics determine taxes and expenditures in the post-reform period. We then discuss the likely causes of these differences and find that the reform did change the child-care demand in municipalities that had applied time rates relative to those who applied income dependent fees prior to reform. Changes in child-care quality were not connected to the pre-reform fee systems characteristics.