This study investigates, with a critical approach, if portfolios consisting of high beta stocks yields more than portfolios consisting of low beta stocks in the Swedish stock exchange market. The chosen period is 1999-2016, covering both the DotCom Bubble and the financial crisis of 2008. We also investigate if the Capital Asset Pricing Model is valid by doing a test similar to Fama and Macbeth’s of 1973.

Based on earlier studies in the field and our own study we come to the conclusion that high beta stocks does not outperform low beta stocks in the Swedish stock market 1999-2016. We believe that this relationship arises from inefficiencies in the market and irrational investing. By doing this study we observe that, the use of beta as the only risk factor for explaining expected returns on stocks or portfolios is not correct.

This thesis examines whether active or passive fund management has performed better during the corona pandemic in the Swedish fund market. With the help of Refinitiv Eikon and Morningstar, we have collected relevant weekly data for 20 actively managed funds and 12 passively managed funds between 2020-03-06 and 2022-02-11. After careful calculation of the various performance measures in Microsoft Excel, we can state that the passive management has performed better during the corona pandemic, but this result is not a guarantee for future fund choices during future crises or economic shocks.

Nedskräpning av plast är ett globalt problem, inte minst i Sverige. Plastbärkassen är ett vanligt förekommande skräp vilket ledde till att regeringen 2020 införde en skatt på plastbärkassar. Syftet med skatten är att minska nedskräpningen men även att uppnå EU:s förbrukningsmål. Idag, två år senare, finns det inte mycket tidigare forskning kring konsekvenserna av skatten. Arbetet vill därför kunna förklara hur försäljningen ser ut efter införandet av skatten jämfört med innan, om skatten är rätt motiverad samt om regleringen har fått önskade och eventuellt oönskade effekter. Såväl en kvantitativ som en kvalitativ metod ligger till grund för arbetets utförande, där den kvantitativa datan utgör en bra bas för att kunna dra välgrundade slutsatser och kompletteras av den kvalitativa datan som ger siffrorna en förklaring.Syftet med uppsatsen var att analysera och undersöka effekterna av den införda punktskatten på plastbärkassar i Sverige. Resultatet visar att försäljningen av plastbärkassar har minskat. En positiv effekt är att skatten lett till ett ökat medvetande hos konsumenterna att i högre grad ta med en egen, återanvändningsbar, bärkasse. Trots att det inte var syftet med skatten är det faktum att det substituerats till andra typer av bärkassar troligen en önskad effekt av skattens införande. Frågan är om det ur miljösynpunkt kan rättfärdigas då försäljningen av avfallspåsar och papperspåsar ökat till följd av skatten. Kanske hade det behövts mer information kring bärkassarnas miljöpåverkan för att substitutionen skulle blivit optimal då substituten inte behöver vara bättre för miljön. För producenterna går det att se såväl negativa som positiva effekter, men för enskilda producenter kan konsekvenserna vara mer betydande.Naturligtvis är det faktum att skattens mål och syfte har uppfyllts en önskad effekt, och likväl att EU-målet har uppfyllts. Ser man till skattens syfte kan skatten ses som motiverad då förbrukningen minskat och antagligen även nedskräpningen, trots att nedskräpning svårt att mäta. Då det har förts en diskussion kring om nedskräpning är ett stort problem i Sverige gör detta att skatten kan ses som omotiverad om nedskräpning inte kan ses som ett stort problem. Till följd av dessa brister har skatten fått oönskade effekter i form av missnöjdhet, förvirring och eventuell dödviktsförlust. Skatten bör oavsett resultatet ha motiverats bättre.

The main aim of this paper is to investigate the volatility determinants of crude oil and foreign exchange markets and jump spillover between them. We consider currencies of two major oil-importing countries (India and China) over the sample period of January 1.2013 to October 31, 2019. We find evidence of positive return spillover from the oil to the foreign exchange market; however, there is a lack of return spillover in the other direction. Oil jumps appear to have a negative impact on exchange rate conditional volatility, and the latter responds asymmetrically to disentangled (positive and negative) oil price jumps. We also report disentangled exchange rate jumps significant impact on conditional oil price volatility. These results, however, are asymmetric based on the nature of jumps and alternative oil price series. Finally, we do not find evidence of co-jump between the oil and foreign exchange markets. These results have important implications for investors and policymakers. (C) 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Using quasi-experimental data, this paper examines the relationship between religiosity and prosocial behavior. In contrast to previous studies which identify religious people by how often they attend religious services or by their self-reported religiosity, this study compares the behavior of highly devout students who are preparing to enter the clergy, to the behavior of other students in a public-goods game and in the dictator game. The results show that religious students were significantly more cooperative in the public-goods game and significantly more generous in the dictator game than other students.

This paper investigates whether people are conditional reciprocators in an investment game experiment, in the sense that the more they are trusted, the more they reciprocate. The results show that the majority of participants are conditional reciprocators but that they can be classified into three types: (1) exploitative reciprocators who do not reciprocate and exploit trust; (2) egoistic reciprocators who neither exploit nor reward trust; and (3) generous reciprocators who reward trusting behavior.

Diskriminering är ett avsevärt hinder på arbetsmarknaden, bostadsmarknaden och andra marknader för personer med utländsk bakgrund. I Sverige finns lagstiftning som förbjuder diskriminering och en myndighet som har tillsyn över problematiken. Men vad säger forskningen om etnisk diskriminering i Sverige? Denna översikt redogör för nationalekonomiska undersökningar som entydigt har funnit belägg för etnisk diskriminering. I ljuset av denna översikt förs en diskussion kring det vi känner till och det vi behöver känna till. Slutligen framförs förslag om hur arbetet mot etnisk diskriminering kan förbättras.

Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, there has been considerable concern about whether Muslims living in Western countries are targets of prejudice. A considerable amount of survey-based evidence suggests that Muslims are victims of discrimination. This paper tested this hypothesis. Two lost-letter experiments were conducted to test whether the difference in returned letters would be attributable to whether the addressee was Muslim or Swedish. The results show that Muslims receive far fewer letters than do Swedes. However, this discrimination only appears when the lost letters contain money; in which case, the finder gains by not posting the letter.

This article reports results from two experiments that investigate possible incidence of discrimination against people with foreign backgrounds in Sweden. In the first experiment, participants played the trust game and the dictator game with co-players of different ethnic affiliation. The family name of the players was exposed to their co-players. Results for the trust game showed no significant discrimination against co-players with foreign backgrounds. On the other hand, the results for the dictator game showed a statistically significant discriminatory behaviour by men against co-players with non-European backgrounds. The discriminatory behaviour was solely a male phenomenon. In the second experiment, the dictator game was replicated to check the stability of the results in the first experiment. The second experiment also examined whether people with foreign backgrounds discriminate against other people with foreign backgrounds; that is, the purpose was to discover whether discrimination is systematic. The observations in the second experiment underlined the results found in the first experiment: foreign co-players are discriminated against by Swedish players. However, we did not find that people with foreign backgrounds discriminated against other people with foreign backgrounds.

Are women less competitive than men? Many experimental and nonexperimental studies have documented gender differences in competitiveness. This article presents the results from a study that examines gender differences in competitiveness in the television show Come Dine with Me. It is a cooking show in which amateur chefs compete against each other for a cash prize. The show provides an unusual opportunity to study gender differences in a high-stakes game environment. The results demonstrate that there are no gender differences in competitiveness.

This article presents the first field experiment on sexual orientation discrimination in the hiring process in the Swedish labor market. Job applications were sent to about 4000 employers in 10 different occupations in Sweden. Gender and sexual orientation were randomly assigned to applications. The results show that sexual orientation discrimination exists in the Swedish labor market. The discrimination against the gay male applicant and the lesbian applicant varied across different occupations and appears to be concentrated in the private sector. The results also show that the gay male applicant was discriminated against in typical male-dominated occupations, whereas the lesbian applicant was discriminated against in typical female-dominated occupations. Theoretical implications are discussed.

We investigate how increasing the information about applicants affects discrimination in the rental housing market. We let four fictitious applicants, two with typical Arab/Muslim names and two with typical Swedish names, use application letters containing different amounts of information to apply for apartments over the Internet in Sweden. The Arab/Muslim applicants received fewer responses from the landlords than did the Swedish applicants. All of the applicants gained by providing more information about themselves, but the amount of discrimination against the Arab/Muslim applicants remained unchanged, indicating that increasing the amount of information about the applicants will not reduce discrimination.

This paper presents the first field experiment on sexual orientation discrimination in the hiring process in the Swedish labor market. Job applications were sent to about 4,000 employers in 10 different occupations in Sweden. Gender and sexual orientation were randomly assigned to applications. The results show that sexual orientation discrimination exists in the Swedish labor market. The discrimination against gays and lesbian varies across different occupations and appears only in the private sector. The results also seem to suggest a new dimension of traditional gender roles; the gay applicant was discriminated against in typical male-dominated occupations whereas the lesbian applicant was discriminated against in typical female-dominated occupations. Thus, the results suggest that gays to some extent face the same obstacles on the labor market as heterosexual women.

This article presents the findings of the first field experiment on age discrimination in the Swedish labour market. Pairs of matched applications, one from a fictitious 31-year-old male applicant and one from a fictitious 46-year-old male applicant, were sent to employers with job openings for restaurant workers and sales assistants. Employers' responses to the applicants were then recorded. The experimental data provide clear and strong evidence of significant ageism in the Swedish labour market. On average, the younger applicant received over 3 times more responses from employers looking to hire a restaurant worker and over 4 times more responses from employers looking to hire a sales assistant than the older applicant. Therefore, the older applicant received significantly fewer invitations for interviews and job offers than the younger applicant in both occupations examined.

This paper presents the first field experiment regarding ethnic discrimination in the market place of small business transfers. We let two fictitious prospective buyers, one with a typical Swedish name and one with a typical Arab/Muslim name, respond to advertisements of small business transfers on the Internet in Sweden. We then recorded the number contacts achieved by each fictitious buyer with sellers. We found that sellers discriminated against the buyer with an Arab/Muslim name in the sense that the buyer with an Arab/Muslim name obtained fewer contacts with sellers than did the buyer with a Swedish name.

We present earnings differentials between homosexuals and heterosexuals. In line with previous research, we find that gay males earn less than heterosexual males, and that lesbians earn more than heterosexual females. However, when combining the individuals into households, our results are strikingly different: very small earnings differentials between gay households and heterosexual households are found. Lesbian households earn considerably less. The largest earnings inequalities between spouses are found among gay males followed by heterosexuals. Studying sexual orientation and earnings is complex, and household earnings have to be taken into consideration when conclusions are drawn.

In this paper we explore annual earnings as well as full-time monthly earnings differentials resulting from sexual orientation. We observe that gay males are at an earnings disadvantage compared to male heterosexuals regardless of which earnings measure we use. This earnings disadvantage is found to be larger when we compare gay and heterosexual males who are working full-time. In addition, the disadvantage is larger in the private than in the public sector. Lesbians, however, earn more than heterosexual females. This earnings advantage is considerably smaller when we study full-time monthly rather than annual earnings but an earnings advantage for lesbians at the top of the earnings distribution is documented regardless of which earnings measure we use. In addition, lesbians are doing better than female heterosexuals in the public sector. To sum up, the results indicate that gay males face obstacles on the labor market that hinder them from reaching top-level positions and high earnings. The earnings advantage observed for lesbians is likely to stem from the fact that lesbians devote more time to market work than heterosexual females do.

This paper presents a study of differences in occupational rank between gay and heterosexual males as well as between lesbian and heterosexual females. We estimate different specifications of an ordered probit model on register data from Sweden. Our data consist of married heterosexual men and women and homosexual men and women living in civil unions. We find that homosexual men have a lower probability of working in a profession demanding a longer university education or a management profession than heterosexual men. In contrast, we find that homosexual women are more likely than heterosexual women to work in such professions.

Under senare år har fältexperiment använts för att studera etnisk diskriminering på den svenska arbets- och bostadsmarknaden. I nedanstående framställning ges en presentation av fältexperiment som metod och en översikt över den forskning som genomförts med hjälp av fältexperiment i Sverige. Dessutom görs en framåtblickande diskussion.

I denna artikel presenteras resultaten av en experimentell studie om etnisk diskriminering.Undersökningen visar att det främst är infödda män som tenderar att ha ett diskriminerande beteende. I Sverige fi nns lagstiftning som förbjuder etnisk diskriminering. Vi har också en särskild myndighet – diskrimineringsombudsmannen – som skall motverka etnisk diskriminering. Den presenterade undersökningen kan ge en ny infallsvinkel. Ett sätt att motverka diskriminering av invandrare kan vara att se till att andelen kvinnor som är personalchefer i företag och myndigheter ökar. Frågan om etnisk diskriminering är kanske också en jämställdhetsfråga.

Employment is vital for the quality of life and societal integration of disabled people, who often encounter barriers. Programs like Sweden's state-owned company Samhall are designed to level the playing field. Yet, whether discrimination persists after program participation and ample work experience remains an intriguing question. We investigated whether signaling disability through work experience at Samhall affects employability in Sweden for cleaning roles. A field experiment was conducted in which 768 fictitious job applications were sent to employers with vacant cleaner positions in Sweden. Implied disability, indicated by work experience at Samhall, and gender were randomly varied in the applications. The primary outcome metric was positive employer responses. Disabled applicants received fewer positive responses (28%) than non-disabled applicants (34%). Discrimination was more pronounced for disabled male applicants. The study reveals nuanced discrimination against job applicants with disabilities in Sweden, particularly disabled males, despite their extensive training and experience.

This article encapsulates the findings of a randomized correspondence test field experiment investigating whether job candidates home status influences their employability. More than 2000 employers with vacancies in the Swedish labour market received a job application from a fictitious candidate. A job candidates home status (his or her own place to live or temporary housing with a friend) was randomized across employers. Results show that home status indeed affected the number of positive employer responses received by job candidates, mainly in low-skilled occupations. Not having a place to live at the time of the application proved a disadvantage when applying for positions within but an advantage when applying for positions outside the city of residence at the time of the application.

This paper presents the first field experiment studying discrimination against homosexuals on the housing market. The study is conducted on the rental housing market in Sweden using the internet as a research platform. Two fictitious couples, one heterosexual and one male homosexual, apply for vacant rental apartments advertised by landlords on the internet. Our findings show that homosexual males are discriminated against on the Swedish housing market, since the homosexual couple gets far fewer call-backs and fewer invitations to further contacts and to showings of apartments than the heterosexual couple.

Diskriminering av homosexuella är förbjudet i Sverige. Trots detta är den ekonomiska forskning som finns på området begränsad. I artikeln presenteras resultat från forskningsprojekt rörande homosexuellas situation på arbets- och bostadsmarknaden i Sverige. Resultaten är i linje med resultat från internationell forskning. Homosexuella män har lägre arbetsinkomster än heterosexuella män. Diskriminering och skillnader i fördelningen av marknadsarbete och hushållarbete mellan homo- och heterosexuella hushåll framförs som förklaringar till detta. Vidare diskrimineras homosexuella män på bostadsmarknaden. Beträffande kvinnor finner vi inga statistiskt signifikanta skillnader mellan homo- och heterosexuella. Avslutningsvis presenteras några tänkbara förklaringar till varför homosexuella män diskrimineras medan detta inte är fallet för homosexuella kvinnor.

I denna artikel studeras diskriminering på svensk bostadsmarknad med hjälp av ett fältexperiment utfört på internet. I experimentet studeras såväl etnisk diskriminering som könsdiskriminering genom att tre fiktiva personer, en med ett typiskt svenskt manligt namn, en med ett typiskt svensk kvinnligt namn samt en med ett typiskt arabiskt/muslimskt manligt namn söker hyresrättslägenheter vilka utannonserats som lediga av såväl privatpersoner som företag på Blocket. se. Våra resultat visar att den arabiske/muslimske mannen möter diskriminering när han söker lägenheter. Den arabisk/muslimske mannen fick långt färre positiva svar och erbjudanden till visningar av lägenheter än den svenske mannen. Vi finner också en könsdiskriminering på bostadsmarknaden där den svenska kvinnan fick fler positiva svar och visningserbjudanden än den svenske mannen.

We present a field experiment conducted in order to explore the existence of ethnic discrimination in contact with public authorities. Two fictitious parents, one with a Swedish-sounding name and one with an Arabic-sounding name, sent email inquiries to all Swedish municipalities asking for information about preschool admission for their children. Results show that the parents were treated differently by the municipalities since the individual with the Swedish-sounding name received significantly more responses that answered the question in the inquiry than the individual with the Arabic-sounding name. Also, the individual with the Swedish-sounding name received more warm answers than the individual with the Arabic-sounding name in the sense that the answer from the municipality started with a personal salutation. We conclude that ethnic discrimination is prevalent in public sector contacts and that this discrimination has implications for the integration of immigrants and their children.

The development of methods for detecting labour market discrimination is characterized by a shift from observational data to different forms of experimental data. At the same time, there has been a shift from examining differences in treatment of groups of employees to differences in hiring.

Observational data are associated with omitted variable problems. Field experiments in the form of audit and correspondence studies give better control of what is observed by both employers and the researcher. A limitation is that they can typically be employed only for certain types of (low-skill, early career) jobs and the initial (call-back) stage of the hiring process. Another is that employers’ beliefs cannot be controlled for. Natural and lab experiments can address some of these concerns. Most studies are not able to distinguish theories of between taste-based and statistical discrimination.

This paper examines earnings differentials between homo- and heterosexual individuals by identifying sexual orientation with the help of information from register data. Register data enable us to avoid the misclassifications of sexual orientation often mentioned as a potential bias in survey-based studies. The results show that gay men are at an earnings disadvantage as compared to male heterosexuals while the earnings differential between lesbians and heterosexual women is very small. Our results are in line with results from previous research but are more reliable since we use a more reliable measure of sexual orientation than previous research.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate how subtle religious representations affect prosocial behavior. The authors study the impact of religious representations on prosocial behavior in terms of cooperation in a one-shot/three-person public goods game.

Design/methodology/approach – The authors used the scrambled sentence task to prime participants with religious words before they were asked to make a one-shot/three-person public goods game decision.

Findings – Both in the raw data and when controlling for factors such as age, gender and religious beliefs, the authors found that priming of religious representations increased cooperation in the experiment, that is, increased contributions to the public good. The authors found no significant interaction effects between priming and self-reported measures of religiosity, suggesting that the priming effect was present among both self-reported religious and nonreligious participants. Self-reported measures of religiosity were not correlated with cooperation in this study.

Originality/value – The paper adds to the growing body of experimental economics literature that has studied self-reported measures of religiosity alongside behavior in different economic games. This study contributes to the literature by examining the effect of subtle influences of religion on cooperation. Also, in contrast to previous economic literature, the paper examines the direct impact of religion as an independent variable on cooperation.

This article presents the results of a field experiment in which fictitious parents of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) sent inquiries to schools in Sweden about admission of their children to the mandatory preschool class. Results show that inquiries concerning a child with no medical condition were more likely to receive an invitation for a visit and more likely to receive a promising placement response than inquiries concerning a child with ADHD and T1DM. Discrimination was more prominent in the private sector and when the child was a boy or had ADHD.

In ‘Discrimination as a Determinant of Economic Inequality’, Ali Ahmed, Mats Lundahl, and Eskil Wadensjö examine how economic theory can be used to unearth the mechanisms to produce discrimination and inequality, to identify the winners and losers from it, and to construct recipes for the eradication of discrimination. They stress the fact that economics is far from a unified social science and hence the need to apply different theories as different situations call for it. Two notorious cases are examined: the South African apartheid system and the American discrimination of blacks by whites. The chapter ends with an examination of a number of contemporary cases of ethnic discrimination of minorities.

Ethnic discrimination is common in labor and housing markets. It leads to lower wages and higher unemployment for ethnic minorities, to segregation in the labor market, and to residential segregation. Several studies show that the Covid-19 pandemic increased the extent of ethnic discrimination. The prejudice against hiring migrants may have increased because people from countries where the epidemic started or from countries with a lower vaccination coverage were blamed for the spread. It may also have increased in the cases where the Covid-19 pandemic led to higher unemployment making it less costly for employers to discriminate.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine whether education and training affect pro-social behavior. Economics students are often accused of being less pro-social. The explanations given are that less pro-social people choose to study economics or that economics studies indoctrinate students to selfish behavior. The paper experimentally tests these postulations.

Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses the prisoner's dilemma game and stag hunt game to study cooperation across different groups of students.

Findings – The experiment supports neither of the postulations: economics students would be indoctrinated or less pro-social people choose to study economics. However, the study shows that police cadets, who go through an education where teamwork and cooperation is promoted, become more cooperative and pro-social after their completed education.

Originality/value – In contrast to earlier studies, this paper does not simply study economics students, but also examines if students in educational programs that promote loyalty and cooperation and encourage teamwork are more pro-social than other students.

An experimental test of the descriptive adequacy of the restated diversification principle is presented. The principle postulates that risk-averse utility maximizers will pool risks for their mutual benefit, even if information is missing about the probabilities of losses. It is enough for people to assume that they face equal risks when they pool risks. The results of the experiment support the principle.

The purpose of the study presented in this paper was to evaluate the first-mover disadvantage hypothesis. Data from a Swedish television cooking game show was used to test the hypothesis. Each week four contestants on the game show take turns hosting each other at a dinner. Contestants rate each other’s performance and compete for a considerable cash prize. The contestant receiving the highest rating wins the cash prize at the end of the week. The results show that being the first contestant to host the dinner during a week remarkably reduced the chances of winning the cash prize in the end of that week. The results imply that being the first does not always pay off in some circumstances.

This paper studies how groupidentity, socialdistance and intergroupbias may affect economic decision-making. Two types of experimental groupings are created, and subjects are then paired with either an in-group member or an out-group member in a number of two-person games. The result of this experiment shows that out-group members face a risk of being discriminated against. The cause of the discrimination is not hostility toward out-group members; the discrimination is triggered because of higher expectations or favoritism of in-group members. This type of behavior holds, regardless of the grouping procedure.

This paper presents a field experiment, conducted over the Internet, studying possible discrimination againstlesbians in the rentalhousing market in Sweden. We let two fictitious couples, one heterosexual and one lesbian, apply for vacant rental apartments advertised by landlords on the Internet. We then investigated whether there were differences between the couples in the number of received call-backs, invitations to further contact, and invitations to immediate showings. Our findings show no indication of differential treatment of lesbians by landlords. A discussion relating to earlier findings is provided

This paper reports the results of a study that investigates the causal interactions among the entities energy consumption, democracy, income, and CO₂ emissions in Bangladesh. Bootstrapping causality and time–frequency domain causality methods were adopted to examine the causal co-movements between the variables, using data series for a period of more than four decades. Results show that time-scale behavior plays an important role. Democracy is an important factor for emissions and national income. The nexus of democracy and CO₂ emission is bidirectional. The impact of democracy on CO₂ is stronger than vice versa. This study provides new insights for policymakers: democratic practices play an important role in implementing climate change policies, at least in the case of Bangladesh.

We estimated the degree of gender discrimination in Sweden across occupations using a correspondence study design. Our analysis of employer responses to more than 3,200 fictitious job applications across 15 occupations revealed that overall positive employer response rates were higher for women than men by almost 5 percentage points. We found that this gap was driven by employer responses in female-dominated occupations. Male applicants were about half as likely as female applicants to receive a positive employer response in female-dominated occupations. For male-dominated and mixed occupations we found no significant differences in positive employer responses between male and female applicants.