Niklas’ thesis contains four self-contained essays on the role of government in labor supply choices.
In the first paper, Niklas investigates the effect of right to full-time policies implemented to decrease involuntary part-time work for public care workers employed by Swedish municipalities. Taking advantage of a staggered decision process, these policies are evaluated using a difference-in-differences approach. Results show that involuntary part-time employment is real and significant, with 10% of part-time employed workers choosing full-time when given the opportunity. Further results from the full-time policies show that being more flexible in the choice of hours worked is popular among workers, indicated by an increase in tenure and reduced turnover in municipalities that offer more flexibility in the choice of hours worked.
The second essay, provides new insight into optimization frictions in the form of hours constraints and its impact on empirical tax elasticity estimates. Using unique and newly collected data Niklas estimate differences in tax elasticities between constrained and unconstrained public care workers by comparing bunching at a large tax kink in the Swedish tax system. The empirical evidence points to the conclusion that hours constraints do not affect tax elasticity estimates for this group of workers.
In the third essay, co-authored with Peter Skogman Thoursie and Björn Tyrefors, the labor market impact of receiving temporary, instead of permanent, residence permits as a refugee is studied. They use a Regression discontinuity analysis of a Swedish reform following refugees, aged 25-65, over their first years after arrival. The main results show that a temporary residence permit increases the probability of enrolling in regular education.
Niklas fourth paper, co-authored with Andreas Madestam, Emilia Simeonova, and Björn Tyrefors, estimate the labor market and health impact of the preparatory phase of exploitation of natural resources, before the active phase of resource extraction begins. This paper shows that the phase before active resource extraction begins directly affects the local economy. This implies that previous estimates – typically based on designs exploiting differences before and after the active phase of extraction begins - may have understated the actual effect of natural resource extraction on outcomes of interest.
We would like to thank Spencer Bastani from Linnéuniversitetet, for an excellent and engaging discussion.
We would also like to express our sincerest congratulations to Niklas on his PhD and wish him all the best in his future endeavours!