This thesis consists of three self-contained essays. Essay 1: This essay estimates wage assimilation among non-western immigrants in Sweden, controlling for selection into employment by including individual fixed effects. Furthermore, using matched employer-employee panel data covering the complete Swedish labor market, this essay decomposes wage catch-up into relative wage growth within and between workplaces and occupations. The results show that failing to control for selection into employment is likely to underestimate relative wage growth of immigrants, as early entrants in the labor market differ from later entrants along unobservable dimensions. Even after 30 years in the country, the group of non-western immigrants still earns substantially lower wages than natives. Wages catch up mainly within workplaces and occupations, suggesting that improved signals of productivity, rather than improved knowledge of job options, are of importance for the wage growth of non-western immigrants. Essay 2: Earlier research has shown that immigrant- and minority entrepreneurs have difficulties accessing capital through the formal financial markets. This essay studies what role immigrant employees within the local bank sector have for the probability of immigrants to run their own businesses. I use linked employer-employee data covering the whole Swedish labor market for the years 1987 to 2003 and utilize a nationwide refugee dispersal policy to get exogenous variation in the exposure to co-ethnic bank employees. Results suggest that there is a positive relation between co-ethnic bank employees and the probability of being self-employed. This effect is most pronounced for immigrants who arrived with low education, for males and for those residing in metropolitan regions. The effects are substantial and robust to a wide set of controls for labor market characteristics of the ethnic group at the local level. These results provide evidence of an ethnic component in the formal credit markets. Essay 3 (with Oskar Nordström Skans): This essay investigates the impact of a collective agreement stipulating a one shot increase in establishment-specific wage levels in a public-sector setting where wages otherwise are set according to individualized wage bargaining. The agreement stipulated that wages should increase in proportion to the number of low-paid females within each establishment. We find that actual wages among incumbents responded to the share of females with a wage below the stipulated threshold, conditional on the separate effects of the share of low wage earners, and the share of females. We find clear evidence of path-dependence in wages, covered workers remained on higher wage levels 4 years after the agreement took effect. The increase in wages resulted in a reduced probability of exit among young workers with relatively good grades and a lower frequency of new hires at the establishment level.

Bakgrund: I dagens samhälle så skrivs det mycket om sex timmars arbetsdag i media. Att arbeta sex timmar men få betalt för åtta timmarsarbetsdag är något som väckt mångas intresse. År 1973 reglerades arbetstiden till 40 timmar per arbetsvecka, sedan dess har ingen ytterligare lagstadgad förändring skett. Det känns därför relevant att studera hur sex timmars arbetsdag påverkar individens psykiska och fysiska hälsa för att personalen och arbetsgivare ska få förståelse för vilka positiva samt negativa aspekter som det eventuellt kan medföra. Syfte: Syfte med denna undersökning är att kartlägga hur personalens självupplevda hälsa påverkas genom införandet av sex timmars arbetsdag, ur ett personalperspektiv. Metod: För denna uppsats har triangulering använts som metod. Där kvantitativa data har samlats in genom en attitydundersökning som utförts genom en enkätundersökning. Kvalitativa data har samlats in som komplement till denna enkätundersökning genom 13 stycken telefonintervjuer. Material har därutöver insamlats genom litteratur och vetenskapliga artiklar. Slutsats: Studien påvisar att sex timmars arbetsdag tenderar att ge personal många positiva vinster i form av förbättrad livskvalitet genom att respondenternas egendefinierande hälsa blivit bättre efter sex timmars arbetsdag infördes. För denna studie dras slutsatsen att majoriteten av respondenterna i denna undersökningen har en positiv upplevelse gentemot sex timmars arbetsdag. / Background: In today's society, media is writing a lot about reduction of hours of work. Working for six hours but getting paid for eight hours workday is something that aroused many people's interest. In 1973, working hours were regulated to 40 hours per working week, since then no further statutory change has taken place. It therefore feels relevant to investigate how reduction of hours of work affects the mental and physical health of the individual in order for the staff and employers to understand the positive and negative aspects that it may lead to. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to survey the staff's impact of a reduction of hours of work, six hours working day, from workers perspective. Method: For this essay triangulation has been used as a method. Where quantitative data has been collected through an attitudes survey conducted through a survey. Qualitative data has been collected in addition to this survey through 13 telephone interviews. Other material has been collected through literature and scientific articles. Conclusion: The study shows that six hours workday tends to give the staff many positive gains in terms of improved quality of life by improving the respondents' health after six hours of working day. For this study, it is concluded that most respondents in this survey have a positive experience over six hours of working day.

L'objectif sous-jacent aux trois chapitres qui composent cette thèse est la compréhension du fonctionnement du marché du travail, afin d'établir un diagnostic quant au rôle de régulation potentiel d'une autorité publique dans ce marché. Dans le premier chapitre, j'analyse, d'un point de vue purement "positif", la capacité du modèle avec frictions d'appariement à répliquer les fluctuations de court terme de variables du marché du travail aux États-Unis. Je propose une nouvelle stratégie de calibration, dans le cadre d'analyse est celui d'un modèle de fluctuations avec rigidité de prix. Dans le deuxième chapitre (co-écrit avec F. Langot), nous étudions les déterminants des évolutions de l'offre de travail sur les cinquante dernières années. L'évolution du coin fiscal, ainsi que de deux variables reflétant le cadre institutionnel (la générosité du revenu en cas de "non-emploi" et le pouvoir de négociation des travailleurs), permettent d'expliquer les différentes trajectoires du taux d'emploi et des heures travaillées observées aux États-Unis et dans trois économies européennes (France, Allemagne et Royaume-Uni). Dans le troisième chapitre, j'analyse la performance de deux systèmes alternatifs de sécurité sociale, dans le cadre d'un modèle avec agents hétérogènes en termes de richesse. Les agents sont soumis à un risque de chômage, et le planificateur peut fournir de l'assurance à travers un système fiscal redistributif, basé sur une taxe progressive et/ou l'assurance chômage. Le système fiscal progressif est supérieur, en termes de bien-être agrégé, à l'assurance fournie à travers des allocations chômage, à travers son effet sur le fonctionnement du marché du travail. / The objective underlying the three chapters of this thesis is the understanding of the functioning of the labor market to make a diagnosis about the potential regulatory role of a public authority in this market. ln the first chapter, I analyze, from a purely "positive" point of view, the ability of the model with search and matching frictions to reproduce short-term fluctuations of labor market variables in the United States. I propose a new calibration strategy, within a general equilibrium framework with sticky prices. In the second chapter (co-written with F. Langot), we study the determinants of changes in the labor supply over the last fifty years. Changes in the tax wedge, and two variables reflecting the institutional framework (the generosity of income in case of "non-employment" and workers' bargaining power), can explain the different trajectories of the rate employment and hours worked observed in the United States and three European economies (France, Germany and the United Kingdom). ln the third chapter, I analyze the performance of two alternative systems of social security, within the framework of a model with heterogeneous agents in terms of wealth. The agents are subject to a risk of unemployment, and the planner can provide insurance through a redistibutive tax system, based on a progressive tax and / or unemployment insurance. The progressive tax system is superior in terms of aggregate welfare to the insurance provided through unemployment benefits, through its effect on the functioning of the labor market.