Through the Ranks Essays on Inequality, Status and School Choice

Through the Ranks Essays on Inequality, Status and School Choice

This doctoral thesis in Economics consists of four self-contained chapters. The first two chapters examine the impact of a Swedish reform that changed the admission criteria at public upper-secondary schools. The author investigates
how this reform affected student sorting and long-term human capital and labor market outcomes. The last two chapters build on the empirical observation that income inequality and household debt-to-income levels have
increased simultaneously in many countries over the last decades. The third chapter investigates if there is a causal relationship between income inequality at the local level, and nonrich households’ consumption levels. The last chapter explores if utility functions that incorporate positional concerns in consumption can generate a positive relationship between income inequality and nonrich households’ debt-to-income levels, under standard economic model assumption.