Co-Authors: Erika Forsberg and Martin Nybom

To what extent does the sorting of workers across firms contribute to intergenerational persistence, and why? We show that differences in firm pay premia account for 31% of the intergenerational elasticity of earnings in Sweden, rising to 38% when including dynamic returns to firm-specific experience. Firm pay gaps open already at career start, suggesting that children from more privileged backgrounds find more favorable entry points to the labor market. Their pay advantage widens further in early career as they climb the firm pay ladder faster, switch firms more frequently and secure higher pay gains conditional on switching. Skill sorting explains most of the widening in early career, but not the initial pay gaps at career start. These results are robust to accounting for compensating differentials and using alternative measures of firm quality.

Apprenticeships play a key role in enabling successful school-to-work transitions in many countries but, in the presence of imperfect information, the specificity of this type of training may entail important costs for those working outside their training fields. I study this issue in one of the most prominent training settings, the German apprenticeship system. Using administrative data and a broad occupational classification, I find that 40% of individuals work in occupations different from their training. I estimate the cost of mismatch using vacancy instruments and extend methodological approaches in high-dimensional selection settings. Lacking training in one’s occupation entails an average wage penalty of 14%, the equivalent of two years of work experience. The penalty increases with the task distance between training and occupation. My findings suggest that retraining is crucial to mitigate the adverse consequences from imperfect information in specialized training settings.

TBA

Genetic endowments are fixed at conception, and they remain constant over the life course of individuals. Therefore, genetic inequality contradicts the widespread goal of providing equal educational opportunities to all members of society. In line with this policy goal, there is a long-standing literature in economics, sociology, and psychology that poses “the question of how well schools reduce the inequity of birth” (Coleman et al., 1966, p.36). In this paper, we investigate the question of how well schools address inequalities based on genetic disadvantages by providing the first causal study to estimate the interaction between genetic endowments and school quality. To this end, we combine Norwegian data on genetic trios (mothers, fathers, fathers) with validated measures of school value-added. Our (preliminary) findings suggest that schools equalize opportunities by reducing genetic gradients in reading (but not numeracy).

Co-Authors: Rinni Norlinder, J. Lucas Tilley, and Emma von Essen

Until 2013, Sweden required transgender people to undergo sterilizing surgery before changing their legal gender. We analyze whether the removal of this requirement led to an increase in the number of people changing legal gender, and if dropping the requirement had an impact on health and earnings among those who did so. Our analysis uses population-wide administrative data from 2006 to 2020, including information on legal gender changes, medical records, and socioeconomic traits. We find that 3-4 times as many people changed legal gender, and 30% of trans women and 55% of trans men chose not to have surgery within 5 years when it was no longer mandated. We also find positive effects on earnings growth and a lower rate of sick leave.

TBA