This paper analyzes the design of optimal unemployment insurance in a search equilibrium framework where search effort among the unemployed is not perfectly observable. We examine to what extent the optimal policy involves monitoring of search effort and benefit sanctions if observed search is...

This paper discusses the evaluation problem using observational data when the timing of treatment is an outcome of a stochastic process. We show that, without additional assumptions, it is not possible to estimate the average treatment effect and treatment on the treated. It is, however,...

This paper provides a review of the recent literature on how incentives in unemployment insurance (UI) can be improved. We are particularly concerned with three instruments, viz. the duration of benefit payments (or more generally the time sequencing of benefits), monitoring in conjunction with...

This paper analyses crucial design features of unemployment insurance (UI) policies. We examine three different means of improving the efficiency of UI: the duration of benefit payments, monitoring in conjunction with sanctions, and workfare. To that end we develop a quantitative model of...

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...

In Sweden, children typically start compulsary school the year they turn seven. Individuals born just before or just after the new year, have about the same date of birth but start school att different ages. We exploit this source of exogenous variation, to identify the effects of age at school...

This paper utilizes a policy change to estimate the effect of teacher density on student performance. We find that an increase in teacher density has a positive effect on student achievement. The baseline estimate – obtained by using the grade point average as the outcome variable – implies...

This paper analyses crucial design features of unemployment insurance (UI) policies. We examine three different means of improving the efficiency of UI: the duration of benefit payments, monitoring in conjunction with sanctions, and workfare. To that end we develop a quantitative model of...

Immigrants typically perform worse than other students in the OECD countries. We examine to what extent this is due to the population characteristics of the neighborhoods that immigrants grow up in. We address this issue using a governmental refugee placement policy which provides exogenous...

We examine whether parental and school investments reinforce or compensate for student performance. Our analysis exploits school-starting-age rules in 34 countries, capturing achievement variation that arises because younger children typically underperform their older peers. Parents respond to...