IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pri/indrel/332.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

An Evaluation of the Swedish Active Labor Market Policy: New and Received Wisdom

Author

Listed:
  • Anders Forslund

    (Uppsala University)

  • Alan B. Krueger

    (Princeton University and NBER)

Abstract

About 3% of GNP is spent on government labor market programs in Sweden, compared to 2% in Germany and less than 0.5% in the U.S. In Sweden these programs include extensive job training, public sector relief work, recruitment subsidies, youth programs, mobility bonuses, and unemployment benefits. Using county-level data, we provide new evidence that public relief workers displace other workers, especially in the construction sector. Our review of the previous literature suggests that job training programs have small effects on wages and re-employment in Sweden, but precise inferences are difficult because of small sample sizes. We also investigate alternative reasons for the stability of the Beveridge Curve in Sweden, and compare regional evolutions of employment and unemployment in Sweden and the U.S. Lastly, we present cross-country analysis for 1993 which, contrary to studies that use earlier data, shows that the extent of a country's active labor market programs is positively associated with the national unemployment rate.

Suggested Citation

  • Anders Forslund & Alan B. Krueger, 1994. "An Evaluation of the Swedish Active Labor Market Policy: New and Received Wisdom," Working Papers 711, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    • Handle: RePEc:pri:indrel:332
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://dataspace.princeton.edu/bitstream/88435/dsp01rj430453h/1/332.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Calmfors, Lars, 1993. "Lessons from the macroeconomic experience of Sweden," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 25-72, March.
    2. Decressin, Jorg & Fatas, Antonio, 1995. "Regional labor market dynamics in Europe," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 39(9), pages 1627-1655, December.
    3. Lindbeck, A., 1990. "The Swedish Experience," Papers 482, Stockholm - International Economic Studies.
    4. Carling, Kenneth & Edin, Per-Anders & Harkman, Anders & Holmlund, Bertil, 1996. "Unemployment duration, unemployment benefits, and labor market programs in Sweden," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(3), pages 313-334, March.
    5. Olivier Jean Blanchard & Lawrence F. Katz, 1992. "Regional Evolutions," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 23(1), pages 1-76.
    6. Michael E. Borus & Daniel S. Hamermesh, 1978. "Estimating Fiscal Substitution by Public Service Employment Programs," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 13(4), pages 561-565.
    7. repec:bla:econom:v:53:y:1986:i:210(s):p:s1-22 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Charles F. Adams Jr. & Robert F. Cook & Arthur J. Maurice, 1983. "A Pooled Time-Series Analysis of the Job-Creation Impact of Public Service Employment Grants to Large Cities," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 18(2), pages 283-294.
    9. Calmfors, Lars & Forslund, Anders, 1991. "Real-Wage Determination and Labour Market Policies: The Swedish Experience," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 101(408), pages 1130-1148, September.
    10. Gramlich, Edward M. & Ysander, Bengt-Christer, 1980. "Relief Work and Grant Displacement in Sweden," Working Paper Series 30, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    11. Per-Anders Edin & Robert Topel, 1997. "Wage Policy and Restructuring: The Swedish Labor Market since 1960," NBER Chapters, in: The Welfare State in Transition: Reforming the Swedish Model, pages 155-202, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. George E. Johnson & James D. Tomola, 1977. "The Fiscal Substitution Effect of Alternative Approaches to Public Service Employment Policy," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 12(1), pages 3-26.
    13. repec:bla:scandj:v:93:y:1991:i:4:p:531-43 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Spencer, Barbara J & Raubitschek, Ruth S, 1996. "High-Cost Domestic Joint Ventures and International Competition: Do Domestic Firms Gain?," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 37(2), pages 315-340, May.
    2. Calmfors, Lars & Forslund, Anders & Hemström, Maria, 2002. "Does active labour market policy work? Lessons from the Swedish experiences," Working Paper Series 2002:4, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    3. Fredriksson, Peter, 1999. "The Dynamics of Regional Labor Markets and Active Labor Market Policy: Swedish Evidence," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 51(4), pages 623-648, October.
    4. Ronald G. Ehrenberg & Daniel I. Rees & Dominic J. Brewer, 1993. "How Would Universities Respond to Increased Federal Support for Graduate Students?," NBER Chapters, in: Studies of Supply and Demand in Higher Education, pages 183-210, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Carol Taylor West, 1993. "The Problem of Unemployment in the United States: A Survey of 60 Years of National and State Policy Initiatives," International Regional Science Review, , vol. 16(1-2), pages 17-47, April.
    6. Ehrenberg, Ronald G. & Schwarz, Joshua L., 1987. "Public-sector labor markets," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & R. Layard (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 22, pages 1219-1260, Elsevier.
    7. Fidrmuc, Jan, 2001. "Migration and adjustment to shocks in transition economies," ZEI Working Papers B 23-2001, University of Bonn, ZEI - Center for European Integration Studies.
    8. Galiani, Sebastian & Lamarche, Carlos & Porto, Alberto & Sosa-Escudero, Walter, 2005. "Persistence and regional disparities in unemployment (Argentina 1980-1997)," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 375-394, July.
    9. Burt S. Barnow & Jeffrey Smith, 2015. "Employment and Training Programs," NBER Chapters, in: Economics of Means-Tested Transfer Programs in the United States, Volume 2, pages 127-234, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. McCormick, Barry, 1997. "Regional unemployment and labour mobility in the UK," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 41(3-5), pages 581-589, April.
    11. repec:zbw:bofrdp:1997_008 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Fredrik Carlsen & Kåre Johansen & Knut RØed, 2006. "Wage Formation, Regional Migration and Local Labour Market Tightness," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 68(4), pages 423-444, August.
    13. Mathilde Maurel & Gunther Schnabl, 2012. "Keynesian and Austrian Perspectives on Crisis, Shock Adjustment, Exchange Rate Regime and (Long-Term) Growth," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 23(5), pages 847-868, November.
    14. Jimeno, Juan F. & Bentolila, Samuel, 1998. "Regional unemployment persistence (Spain, 1976-1994)," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 5(1), pages 25-51, March.
    15. Mark D. Partridge & Dan S. Rickman & M. Rose Olfert & Ying Tan, 2015. "When Spatial Equilibrium Fails: Is Place-Based Policy Second Best?," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(8), pages 1303-1325, August.
    16. Aki Kangasharju & Jaakko Pehkonen, 2001. "Employment-output link in Finland : evidence from regional data," Finnish Economic Papers, Finnish Economic Association, vol. 14(1), pages 41-50, Spring.
    17. Fabio Canova & Evi Pappa, 2006. "Does It Cost to Be Virtuous? The Macroeconomic Effects of Fiscal Constraints," NBER Chapters, in: NBER International Seminar on Macroeconomics 2004, pages 327-370, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Stephen Machin & Kjell G. Salvanes & Panu Pelkonen, 2012. "Education And Mobility," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 10(2), pages 417-450, April.
    19. G Ottaviano & Diego Puga, 1997. "Agglomeration in a global Economy: A Survey," CEP Discussion Papers dp0356, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    20. Kondo, Keisuke, 2015. "Spatial persistence of Japanese unemployment rates," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 113-122.
    21. Kornelius Kraft, 1998. "An evaluation of active and passive labour market policy," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(6), pages 783-793.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Sweden; labor market; active labor market programs;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C25 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Discrete Regression and Qualitative Choice Models; Discrete Regressors; Proportions; Probabilities

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pri:indrel:332. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Bobray Bordelon (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/irprius.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.