To Örebro University

All organizations need to allocate labor to production and administration. In many cases—particularly within the public sector—the optimal allocation is far from obvious. Indeed, vocal concerns have been raised about the administrative burden in several public services, not least in education. We investigate this issue using detailed registry data on all employees at Swedish universities and colleges from 2005 to 2019 and document three stylized facts. First, the group of highly educated administrators has grown rapidly, almost by a factor of seven compared with teachers and researchers. Second, the number of less-educated administrators has stayed flat. Third, the time that teachers and researchers spend on administrative tasks has been roughly constant over time. This indicates that resources have been diverted from teaching and research and raises fears of excessive administrative growth in Swedish higher education.

The beauty of political candidates can serve as a heuristic for voters who lack detailed information about competing candidates. Attractive candidates may be perceived as more competent and are often favored, even by those who do not consciously value beauty. Research suggests beauty may influence electoral success through various mechanisms, including enhanced media coverage and greater confidence. While earlier studies primarily relied on observational data, more recent studies have used experimental designs to establish the causal effects of appearance on voting behavior. This chapter reviews the existing literature and explores the implications of candidate appearance for electoral outcomes.

Research indicates that education quality – measured by test scores in international student surveys – predicts economic growth. In this paper, we extend previous findings up to 2016 and analyse test scores of upper-secondary school students only. We find that the positive relationship between growth and test scores holds in both cases. The share of top-performing students exhibits a stronger correlation with economic growth than does the share of students who meet basic requirements.

Digitala tidmätningssystem används i svensk hemtjänst för att mäta och följa upp hemtjänstbesökens längd och innehåll. Systemen samlar in data i realtid och om alla besök. I detta avseende är digital tidmätning ett kraftfullt verktyg som kan förväntas ge bättre förutsättningar för mål-och resultatstyrning än analoga metoder. Samtidigt innebär tidmätningen risker för arbetsmiljön då den kan uppfattas som detaljstyrande och stressande. I denna rapport presenterar vi resultaten från en enkät som skickades ut till alla kommuner om deras användande av tidmätningssystem i hemtjänsten. 123 kommuner besvarade enkäten och 94 av dessa angav att de mäter tidsanvändningen med hjälp av digitala system. I denna rapport presenterar och diskuterar vi resultaten från denna enkät.

We examine the implementation of digital time tracking in home care services in Swedish municipalities. Our study combines original survey data with external measures of quality and costs, allowing us to examine both the perceived and estimated effects of time tracking. According to the responding managers, time tracking has led to improvements in quality and reductions in costs. However, the estimated effects suggest that these managerial perceptions may need to be revised. We found that quality is unaffected or reduced while costs have increased due to the implementation of time tracking. 

Using the World Management Survey method, the authors mapped and analysed management quality in Swedish primary care centres. On average, private sector providers were better managed than public providers. Centres with a high overall social deprivation among enrolled patients also tended to have higher management quality. Management quality was positively associated with accessibility (length of waiting times), but not with patient-reported experience.

IMPACT: The authors explored the use of management practices at the operational (care centre) level in Swedish primary care. The paper relates management quality to provider characteristics (public or private) and to the quality of care. An expansion of private care centres seems to have increased the average level of management quality in Swedish primary care. The findings suggest that suitable applications of management practices, especially in the area of people management, can produce a higher quality of care.

In 2009, Sweden launched a freedom-of-choice reform that gave municipalities the option to introduce standardized quasi-markets in social services. The reform was initially popular to adopt in home care until the share of adopting municipalities leveled out just above 50 percent. In recent years, the trend has reversed, and several municipalities have abolished their choice system. Compared with municipalities with choice systems, the abolishing municipalities are more rural with fewer inhabitants. A fixed-effects regression suggests that decreases in the market share of private providers, political shifts towards the left, and increasing costs may have contributed to the abolition of choice systems.