Published
2011-04-05Bertil Holmlund has mainly studied issues related to employment and unemployment, which is one of the most important areas in economics. His main contributions concern various aspects of unemployment insurance.
In empirical studies, Holmlund has analyzed the relationship between the generosity of unemployment insurance and the length of unemployment spells. Among other things, he has used the "natural experiments" that have arisen when unemployment benefits have been changed in different ways for unemployed people with different levels of previous earnings.
Holmlund has also analyzed what an appropriate unemployment insurance should look like. The conclusions show that an unemployment benefit that decreases with the length of the unemployment period provides an optimal balance between the motive of providing the employed with good insurance and the risk that generous insurance will lead to longer unemployment. It is also desirable to use sanctions in unemployment insurance against the unemployed who do not meet certain requirements for search activity.
A number of studies have analyzed various aspects of wage formation, such as how it depends on the labor market situation, labor market policy and taxes, and the influence of "insiders" (those with the best anchoring in the labor market). Holmlund has also shown how wage formation can be affected by different ways of financing unemployment insurance.
Bertil Holmlund's research is characterized by high social relevance. It sheds light on central issues in the social debate and his contributions are both theoretical and empirical. In addition, Holmlund has been a frequent participant in the economic policy discussion with a large number of popular science articles and contributions to government inquiries. His major supervisory efforts in doctoral education at Uppsala University have contributed to Sweden being unusually well supplied with skilled labor economists who can work with applied empirical research and evaluation.
The prize was awarded on June 9, 2011 at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Academy of Sciences.

Bertil Holmlund
Professor Bertil Holmlund was born in 1947. After completing his PhD at Umeå University in 1976, he has worked in the USA, UK, Australia, Denmark and Canada. He has been chairman of the Economic Council and EALE (European Association of Labor Economists). Since 2009, Holmlund has been Head of the Department of Economics at Uppsala University.
Bertil Holmlund, UU