The Economic Impact of COVID-19 Border Restrictions on the Labor Market : A Comparative case study on the Border Municipalities in Sweden

Sammanfattning: This paper examines if the labor markets in border municipalities in Sweden were affected by the COVID-19 border restrictions implemented by the Swedish and Norwegian governments. To do so, this paper uses unemployment and population data gathered from different sources to estimate results derived from using the synthetic control method. The results imply that imposing border restriction had a larger negative effect on the unemployment levels in the border municipalities, compared to non-border municipalities. Results also shows that males were more affected by this compared to females in terms of unemployment and that there is a positive trend in unemployment associated with increasing these restrictions.