In this paper, I first show that Swedish job polarization is - contrary to common belief - a long-run phenomenon: the share of middle-wage jobs has declined relative to the highest- and lowest-paid jobs since at least the 1950s. Based on previous results for the US, I then demonstrate that the...

Earlier studies on income inequality and crime have typically used total income or total earnings. However, it is quite likely that it is changes in permanent rather than in transitory income that affects crime rates. The purpose of this paper is therefore to disentangle the two effects by,...

This paper investigates the role of skill depreciation in the relationship between work interruptions and subsequent wages. Using unique longitudinal microdata containing information on the ability to understand and practically employ printed information, we are able to analyze changes in skills...

We present new evidence on the influence of income inequality on generalized trust. Using individual panel data from Swedish counties together with an instrumental variable strategy, we find that differences in disposable income, and especially differences among people in the bottom half of the...

In this paper, I first show that Swedish job polarization is - contrary to common belief - a long-run phenomenon: the share of middle-wage jobs has declined relative to the highest- and lowest-paid jobs since at least the 1950s. Based on previous results for the US, I then demonstrate that the...

This article decomposes the rise in the cross-sectional variance of male annual earnings in Sweden between 1991 and 1999 into its persistent and transitory components. The results show that the persistent component accounts for basically all of the increase in earnings dispersion. This implies...

This paper investigates the role of skill depreciation in the relationship between work interruptions and subsequent wages. Using unique longitudinal microdata containing information on the ability to understand and practically employ printed information, we are able to analyze changes in skills...

Changes in the Swedish wage structure from 1992 to 2001 are investigated and placed in a longer-term perspective. The results show that the increase in overall wage dispersion that began in the early 1980s have continued during the 1990s, and that the increase during the 1990s is driven by...

This paper investigates the role of skill depreciation in the relationship between work interruptions and subsequent wages. Using Swedish data from two waves (1994 and 1998) of the International Adult Literacy Survey, which included results of tests gauging respondents' ability to read and make...

This paper disentangles the effect of inequality in permanent and transitory wages on hours worked by, first, estimating the two components for Swedish industries and, second, using the resulting estimates as explanatory variables in an hours-worked equation. Consistent with Bell and Freeman’s...