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One of the services provided at the Swedish Public Employment Services is job coaching. Since 2012, that service has been organized according to a voucher-based choice system. In 2013, a performance indicator of job coaching providers was made available at an online website. This study examines to what extent such information affected job coaches' ability to attract participants, as well as how the use of provider ratings varied across different groups of participants. The results indicate that the performance indicator strengthened the positive link between "quality" of services and the number of new participants that signed up with a provider. At the same time, there is evidence showing that more vulnerable groups, such as the less educated and those born outside Europe, do not use the rating values to the same extent as others. It appears that there is a tradeoff as to efficiency and inequality with respect to services that are contracted to private companies in a system based on consumer choice.

Sweden has made its labour market more open for labour immigration since the mid1990 s: becoming member of the common labour market of EES/EU in 1994, no transitional rules introduced at the enlargement of European Union in 2004 and 2007, and opening up for labour migration from non-EES/EU countries in December 2008. The changes have led to increased labour immigration. The labour immigration expanded for example after the enlargement in 2004 but not so much as in for example the United Kingdom and Ireland. Other forms of immigration have been more important. On the other hand, the migration has been rather stable in the years after the crisis in 2008. The main explanation is most likely that the recession in Sweden was only for one year, 2009, and that it was concentrated to some parts of the manufacturing industry where few migrant workers were employed. If the present EMU crisis is spreading to Sweden the result may of course be different.

The tendency to underestimate the future value of a variable growing at a constant rate, an example of exponential growth bias, has been linked to household financial decision making. We show that exponential growth bias and standard measures of financial literacy are negatively correlated in a representative sample of Swedish adults. Since financial literacy is linked to household decision making, our results indicate that examining the relationship between exponential growth bias and household finance without adequate controls for financial literacy may generate biased results.

We examine rational learning among expert chess players and how they update their beliefs in repeated games with the same opponent. We present a model that explains how equilibrium play is affected when players change their choice of strategy when receiving additional information from each encounter. We employ a large international panel dataset with controls for risk preferences and playing skills whereby the latter accounts for ability. Although expert chess players are intelligent, productive and equipped with adequate data and specialized computer programs, we find large learning effects. Moreover, as predicted by the model, risk-averse players learn substantially faster.

Recent studies point to a positive correlation between ethnic heterogeneity due to immigration and the propensity of opting out from public schools for private alternatives. However, immigration across regions is hardly exogenous, which obstructs attempts to reveal causal mechanisms. This paper explores changes in the immigrant population in Danish municipalities 1992-2004, a period marked by a substantial influx of refugees, where a state-sponsored placement policy restricted their initial choice of residence. Besides such demographic changes, for more than hundred years Denmark has allowed parents to enroll their children into so called ‘free schools’, i.e. schools that are privately operated. Taken together, this provides a unique opportunity to determine if there has been ‘native flight’ from public schools to free schools. Results from this study indicate an increase in native Danes propensity to enroll their children in free schools as the share of children with immigrant background becomes larger in their municipality of residence. The effect is most pronounced in small and medium sized municipalities, while it seems absent in larger municipalities. One explanation for the latter holds that residential segregation within larger municipalities makes a choice of private alternatives less attractive.

Recent studies point to a positive correlation between ethnic heterogeneity due to immigration and thepropensity of opting out from public schools for private alternatives. However, immigration across regions is hardly exogenous, which obstructs attempts to reveal causal mechanisms. This paper explores changes in the immigrant population in Danish municipalities 1992-2004, a period marked by a substantial influx of refugees, where a state-sponsored placement policy restricted their initial choice of residence. Besides such demographic changes, for more than hundred years Denmark has allowed parents to enroll their children into so called ‘free schools’, i.e. schools that are privately operated. Taken together, this provides a unique opportunity to determine if there has been ‘native flight’ frompublic schools to free schools. Results from this study indicate an increase in native Danes propensity to enroll their children in free schools as the share of children with immigrant background becomes larger in their municipality of residence. The effect is most pronounced in small and medium sized municipalities, while it seems absent in larger municipalities. One explanation for the latter holds that residential segregation within larger municipalities makes a choice of private alternatives less attractive.

In this paper we study the effects on support for different political parties following an increase in the immigrant share in Danish municipalities during a period marked by a substantial influx of refugees. The two anti-immigration parties in the political landscape of Denmark are among those that win votes as a result of this influx, but so also does a pro-immigration party on the left. Controlling for a number of social-economic aspects, our results thus point to some discontent with immigration; however, they do not support predictions of a general decline for political parties that are in favour of a generouswelfare state, as proposed by some scholars.

We explore the relationship between attractiveness and risk taking in chess. We use a large international panel dataset on chess competitions which includes a control for the players' skill in chess. This data is combined with results from a survey on an online labor market where participants were asked to rate the photos of 626 expert chess players according to attractiveness. Our results suggest that male chess players choose significantly riskier strategies when playing against an attractive female opponent, even though this does not improve their performance. Women's strategies are not affected by the attractiveness of the opponent.

This paper looks at potential implications emerging from including shares as a control variable in fixed effect estimations. By shares I refer to the ratio of a sum of units over another, such as the share of immigrants in a city or school. As will be shown in this paper, a logarithmic transformation of shares has some methodological merits as compared to the use of shares defined as mere ratios. In certain empirical settings the use of the latter might result in coefficient estimates that, spuriously, are statistically significant more often than they should.

In this paper we study the effects on support for different political parties due to an increase in the immigrant share in Danish municipalities during the period 1989-2001. We find that the immigrant share has some notable effects. The anti-immigration parties are among those that win votes when the immigrant share increases, but a pro-immigration party on the left also gains from an increase in the immigrant share. The non-socialist party that is most pro-immigration, however, loses votes when the immigrant share increases. Our results indicate that in the elections some Danish voters voice their displeasure about immigration in their own neighbourhood. But we find no clear indication of a general decline in support for the welfare state on account of immigration, as several scholars have been predicting.