Unemployment insurance systems include the monitoring of unemployed workers and punitive sanctions if job search requirements are violated. We analyze the causal effect of sanctions on the ensuing job quality, notably on wages and occupational level. We use Swedish data and estimate duration...

Using a panel of 250 Swedish municipalities over the period 1987-1996, we examine the direct displacement effects of active labour market programmes (ALMPs). Compared to earlier studies on this topic, we have more and better data. Based on our GMM estimations, we find that there are direct...

According to the standard union bargaining model, unemployment benefits should have big effects on wages, but product-market prices and productivity should play no role in the wage bargain. We formulate an alternative strategic bargaining model, where labour and product-market conditions...