Magnus Wikström | Umeå University (original) (raw)
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Papers by Magnus Wikström
Umea Economic Studies, 1999
This paper analyzes how the distribution of gross income among residents in a locality affects th... more This paper analyzes how the distribution of gross income among residents in a locality affects the local provision of public goods. The analysis is based on a two-type model, where the local residents can be either high income earners or low income earners. Local provision is assumed to reflect the actions of a benthamite planner giving equal weight to the utilities of all inhabitants. In this framework, three factors turn out to be particularly important for how the distribution of private income across local residents effects the local provision of public goods: (i) the local means of redistribution and taxation, (ii) the particular form of the local residents' utility functions and (iii) migration across localities.
The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, 2022
The purpose of this paper is to study whether Swedish admission policies successful in selecting ... more The purpose of this paper is to study whether Swedish admission policies successful in selecting the best-performing students. The Swedish universities select students based on two different instruments, which each form a separate admission group. A regression model is recommended to estimate the achievement differences for the marginally accepted students between the admission groups and is applied to a sample of 9024 Swedish university entrants in four different fields of education. Marginally accepted students in the group selected by school grades on average perform better than students accepted by an admission test, suggesting that a small reallocation of study positions towards the grade admission group may increase overall academic achievement. However, the achievement difference appears to vary concerning university programme selectivity. We found that increasing selection by grades in less competitive programmes would improve overall achievement, while we do not find any ef...
In Sweden, there are two separate instruments for ranking applicants in the admission to higher e... more In Sweden, there are two separate instruments for ranking applicants in the admission to higher education; the GPA from upper secondary school and the Swedish Scholastic Assessment Test (the SweSAT). A problem in the selection is that different groups of students perform differently on the instruments. Also, while the GPA is regarded more valid but with reliability problems, the test is seen as reliable but with lower predictive validity. Hence, in 2011, the test was revised, with the purpose to increase its relevance for university studies. New item types and new subtests were introduced, and the weights of the verbal and quantitative parts of the test were made more balanced. This study compares how students are ranked on the basis of the new test compared to their GPA, to find out if previous group differences still remain. The data consists of test participants in the autumn of 2011 and spring of 2012 at the ages 17 to 25. The results show that the correlation between test scores and GPA is approximately the same as before the revision. It is also found that there are still group differences in terms of boys performing better on the test and girls on the GPA. However, when studying separate sub-tests and grades and national course tests from isolated subjects, the students seem to be ranked more similarly than in the overall SweSAT-GPA comparison. Although students with a non-Swedish background are performing lower than other students on both instruments, boys in this group seem to be graded more leniently than the girls with a similar background in mathematics, and the opposite is the case in verbal subjects.
Statsvetenskaplig Tidskrift, 2008
Det offentliga som konkurrent pa kommersiella marknader - En samhallsekonomisk analys med exemple... more Det offentliga som konkurrent pa kommersiella marknader - En samhallsekonomisk analys med exemplet konferensmarknaden
The purpose of this study is to find out if the income premium from university entrance differs w... more The purpose of this study is to find out if the income premium from university entrance differs with respect to prior achievement as measured by previous grades. Using income at the age of 28 to 30, we analyze if high-achievers have larger income premiums from entering university than low-achievers in a sample of Swedish upper secondary school students. We find that income differences generally are positive, albeit larger for females than for males. It is also found that the income premium is larger for high-achievers than for low-achievers. However, especially for males, the income premium rises only marginally with prior achievement for a large part of the grade distribution, indicating that there are only small differences in the returns to university entrance for a majority of upper secondary school graduates.
I rapporten ges en oversikt av forskning om hur ekonomisk politik i vid bemarkelse paverkar utbud... more I rapporten ges en oversikt av forskning om hur ekonomisk politik i vid bemarkelse paverkar utbudet av arbetskraft med tonvikt mot den svenska forskningen under de senaste tva decennierna. Forskningen om arbetsutbud anknyter till flera olika politikomraden och beror saval den offentliga sektorns intakter som utgifter. Foljande omraden behandlas i rapporten; effekter av inkomstbeskattning och inkomstrelaterade bidrag, arbetsloshetsforsakring, arbetsmarknadspolitik och arbetsratt, sjuk- och foraldraforsakring, pensionssystem, utbildningssystemet, samt atgarder for att oka arbetskraftsinvandringen. I rapportens avslutande del diskuteras nagra politikomraden dar de empiriska resultaten tyder pa att ekonomiska incitament kan ha sarskilt stor betydelse for utbudet av arbetskraft, samt nagra omraden inom vilka framtida forskning kan anses sarskilt relevant. En allman slutsats fran forskningen ar att grupper som ar nara in- och uttrade pa arbetsmarknaden, samt grupper som under sitt arbetsl...
In a number of countries, both high school GPA and admission tests are used in the selection to h... more In a number of countries, both high school GPA and admission tests are used in the selection to higher education. The validity research on such instruments has mainly focused on their predictive va ...
Umea Economic Studies, 1999
This paper analyzes how the distribution of gross income among residents in a locality affects th... more This paper analyzes how the distribution of gross income among residents in a locality affects the local provision of public goods. The analysis is based on a two-type model, where the local residents can be either high income earners or low income earners. Local provision is assumed to reflect the actions of a benthamite planner giving equal weight to the utilities of all inhabitants. In this framework, three factors turn out to be particularly important for how the distribution of private income across local residents effects the local provision of public goods: (i) the local means of redistribution and taxation, (ii) the particular form of the local residents' utility functions and (iii) migration across localities.
The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, 2022
The purpose of this paper is to study whether Swedish admission policies successful in selecting ... more The purpose of this paper is to study whether Swedish admission policies successful in selecting the best-performing students. The Swedish universities select students based on two different instruments, which each form a separate admission group. A regression model is recommended to estimate the achievement differences for the marginally accepted students between the admission groups and is applied to a sample of 9024 Swedish university entrants in four different fields of education. Marginally accepted students in the group selected by school grades on average perform better than students accepted by an admission test, suggesting that a small reallocation of study positions towards the grade admission group may increase overall academic achievement. However, the achievement difference appears to vary concerning university programme selectivity. We found that increasing selection by grades in less competitive programmes would improve overall achievement, while we do not find any ef...
In Sweden, there are two separate instruments for ranking applicants in the admission to higher e... more In Sweden, there are two separate instruments for ranking applicants in the admission to higher education; the GPA from upper secondary school and the Swedish Scholastic Assessment Test (the SweSAT). A problem in the selection is that different groups of students perform differently on the instruments. Also, while the GPA is regarded more valid but with reliability problems, the test is seen as reliable but with lower predictive validity. Hence, in 2011, the test was revised, with the purpose to increase its relevance for university studies. New item types and new subtests were introduced, and the weights of the verbal and quantitative parts of the test were made more balanced. This study compares how students are ranked on the basis of the new test compared to their GPA, to find out if previous group differences still remain. The data consists of test participants in the autumn of 2011 and spring of 2012 at the ages 17 to 25. The results show that the correlation between test scores and GPA is approximately the same as before the revision. It is also found that there are still group differences in terms of boys performing better on the test and girls on the GPA. However, when studying separate sub-tests and grades and national course tests from isolated subjects, the students seem to be ranked more similarly than in the overall SweSAT-GPA comparison. Although students with a non-Swedish background are performing lower than other students on both instruments, boys in this group seem to be graded more leniently than the girls with a similar background in mathematics, and the opposite is the case in verbal subjects.
Statsvetenskaplig Tidskrift, 2008
Det offentliga som konkurrent pa kommersiella marknader - En samhallsekonomisk analys med exemple... more Det offentliga som konkurrent pa kommersiella marknader - En samhallsekonomisk analys med exemplet konferensmarknaden
The purpose of this study is to find out if the income premium from university entrance differs w... more The purpose of this study is to find out if the income premium from university entrance differs with respect to prior achievement as measured by previous grades. Using income at the age of 28 to 30, we analyze if high-achievers have larger income premiums from entering university than low-achievers in a sample of Swedish upper secondary school students. We find that income differences generally are positive, albeit larger for females than for males. It is also found that the income premium is larger for high-achievers than for low-achievers. However, especially for males, the income premium rises only marginally with prior achievement for a large part of the grade distribution, indicating that there are only small differences in the returns to university entrance for a majority of upper secondary school graduates.
I rapporten ges en oversikt av forskning om hur ekonomisk politik i vid bemarkelse paverkar utbud... more I rapporten ges en oversikt av forskning om hur ekonomisk politik i vid bemarkelse paverkar utbudet av arbetskraft med tonvikt mot den svenska forskningen under de senaste tva decennierna. Forskningen om arbetsutbud anknyter till flera olika politikomraden och beror saval den offentliga sektorns intakter som utgifter. Foljande omraden behandlas i rapporten; effekter av inkomstbeskattning och inkomstrelaterade bidrag, arbetsloshetsforsakring, arbetsmarknadspolitik och arbetsratt, sjuk- och foraldraforsakring, pensionssystem, utbildningssystemet, samt atgarder for att oka arbetskraftsinvandringen. I rapportens avslutande del diskuteras nagra politikomraden dar de empiriska resultaten tyder pa att ekonomiska incitament kan ha sarskilt stor betydelse for utbudet av arbetskraft, samt nagra omraden inom vilka framtida forskning kan anses sarskilt relevant. En allman slutsats fran forskningen ar att grupper som ar nara in- och uttrade pa arbetsmarknaden, samt grupper som under sitt arbetsl...
In a number of countries, both high school GPA and admission tests are used in the selection to h... more In a number of countries, both high school GPA and admission tests are used in the selection to higher education. The validity research on such instruments has mainly focused on their predictive va ...