We use a random survey of Swedish human resource managers to study the reasons for wage rigidity. Our findings are as follows. First, during the exceptional recession of the 1990s only 1.1 percent of workers received a wage cut. Second, much wage rigidity can be traced to behavioral mechanisms...

We report the results from a representative survey of human resource managers in 885 Swedish firms. We estimate that during the severe recession of the 1990s, only 1.1 percent of workers took a cut in regular nominal pay. We trace the lack of wage moderation to a combination of exogenous...

The role of school principals largely resembles that of corporate managers and the leadership they provide are often viewed as a crucial component for educational success. We estimate the impact of individual principals on various schooling outcomes, by constructing a principal-school panel data...

This paper evaluates the long-term effects of class size in primary school. We use rich data from Sweden and exploit variation in class size created by a maximum class size rule. Smaller classes in the last three years of primary school (age 10 to 13) are beneficial for cognitive and...

In Sweden, children typically start compulsory school the year they turn 7. Individuals born around the new year have about the same date of birth but enter school at different ages. We exploit this source of exogenous variation to identify effects of age at school entry on educational...