News

Most countries introduced school closures during the spring of 2020 despite substantial uncertainty regarding the effectiveness in containing SARS-CoV-2. In Sweden, upper-secondary schools moved online while lower-secondary schools remained open. A comparison of parents with children in the final year of lower-secondary and first year of upper-secondary school shows that keeping the former open had limited consequences for the overall transmission of the virus. However, the infection rate doubled among lower-secondary teachers relative to upper-secondary ones. The infection rate among partners of lower-secondary teacher was 30 percent higher than among their upper-secondary counterparts.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2020 to the Stanford researchers Paul R. Milgrom and Robert B. Wilson.

The paper reports the results of a choice experiment designed to estimate the private welfare costs of stay-at-home policies during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study is conducted on a large and representative sample of the Swedish population. The results suggest that the welfare cost of a one-month stay-at-home policy, restricting non-working hours away from home, amounts to 9.1 percent of Sweden's monthly GDP.

Jonas Cederlöf has accpeted the offer of a lecturer position, or perhaps more commonly known as an assistant professor position, at The School of Economics at University of Edinburgh. He defended his thesis Job Loss: Consequences and Labor Market Policy on the 15th of May and will start his new position on the 1st of October. In between, he intends to spend time with his son on some well earned parental leave.

Maria Olsson, one of our Job Market Candidates, has found a job at the Business School in Oslo. Maria Olsson will defend her thesis Essays on Macroeconomics: Wage Rigidity and Aggregate Fluctuations in June.

The department has admitted 11 new PhD students to the PhD program. They will be starting August 17, 2020.

Welcome to the department!

Over the past ten years, the proportion of foreign-born pupils in grade 9 has doubled from 6 to 13 percent. This is a record increase. Hans Grönqvist at the Department of Economics and Susan Niknami at SOFI, Stockholm University, have mapped and analyzed the differences in study results between domestic and foreign-born pupils in primary and secondary education during the period 1990–2017.

We are delighted to announce that Yoko Okuyama, currently a PhD student in economics at Yale University, will start her work with the Department this fall.

At the General Meeting on 12 February Eva Mörk was elected a member of the Academy’s class for social sciences.

In the autumn semester of 2019, 11 new doctoral students from across the globe started at the Department of Economics, all with different situations and backgrounds. Universen met the new doctoral students to ask why they applied for doctoral education at Uppsala University.

The Nobel Laureates in Economics 2019 just visited Ekonomikum and gave an open lecture on the research that led to the award.

Uppsala Municipality allocates SEK 3 million to a new research program aimed at strengthening the quantitatively oriented urban research.

Students and faculty members interested in political economy gathered for a one-day workshop in the Economics department on the 19th of November. 

Hans Grönqvist's paper "Understanding How Low Levels of Lead Exposure Affects Children's Life Trajectories" (joint with Peter Nilsson and Per-Olof Robling) has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Political Economy, one of the top economics journals in the world.

The department has admitted 11 PhD students to the PhD program starting autumn 2019.

Welcome to the department!

Swedish municipalities are facing major challenges in the future. An aging population implies an increased demand for care services. At the same time, a decreasing number of people of working age will have to provide for an increasing number of people who do not work. Furthermore, Sweden has undergone a significant process of urbanization that has led to substantially different conditions for urban and rural municipalities, respectively. In addition, Sweden has received a large number of refugees, many of whom are young, which entails challenges for the education sector.

Peter Fredriksson has been elected new Chairman of the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.

Three research projects receive SEK 12,869,000 in total from Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (RJ) and Forte.

Gunnar Brandén defends his thesis  “Understanding Intergenerational Mobility. Inequality, student aid, and nature-nurture interactions” on 17 December at 13:15 in hörsal 2, Ekonomikum, Kyrkogårdsgatan 10.

Arizo Karimi's research on the effects of the Swedish reform in 1995, aimed at encouraging fathers to take some leave after the birth of a child, mentioned as an American Economic Association Research Highlight.

The Economics Association in Uppsala annually awards stipends from the Ingemar Carlsson Memorial Fund to students who, through their thesis, have displayed a “special aptitude for the subject Economics”. Stipends this year total 24,000 SEK. 

Read Nils Gottfries', Professor of Economics, popular science article on the development of the Swedish labor market. 

The department has admitted eight PhD students and one externally employed PhD student to the PhD program starting autumn 2018.

Welcome to the department!

The H. Gregg Lewis Prize for Best Paper in Journal of Labor Economics is presented biennially by the Society of Labor Economists to the authors of the best article in Journal of Labor Economics in the past two years.

Henrik Andersson defends his thesis Immigration and the Neighborhood – Essays on the Causes and Consequences of International Migration on 8 June, 13:15 in Hörsal 2 at Ekonomikum (Kyrkogårdsgatan 10).

Irina Andone defends her thesis Exchange Rates, Exports, Inflation, and International Monetary Cooperation on 29 maj, 10:15 at Ekonomikum (Kyrkogårdsgatan 10).
Lecture Hall: TBA

Helena Svaleryd started her position as Professor of Economics at the Department of Economics on 1 March.