Hlöðver Skúli Hákonarson

Legal Certainty and Early Integration: Causal Evidence from a Migration Shock in Iceland

Doctoral project — early stage (from October 2026)

Examines how the timing and certainty of legal status acquisition shape migrants’ labour market and socio-economic integration, exploiting a short-lived change in Icelandic asylum policy that created sharp differences in legal certainty across closely spaced arrival cohorts. Uses population-wide administrative data and quasi-experimental methods.

Compensation as Windfall: The Grindavík Buyout and Wealth Inequality

Being prepared for journal submission

Studies the 2023 evacuation of Grindavík and the subsequent state buyout of residential property. I compare displaced residents with similar individuals elsewhere in Iceland, and estimate the consequences of displacement and compensation for wealth and inequality. I find that although compensation was administered equally by design, displaced owners gained wealth relative to comparable families elsewhere while renters did not, widening the owner–renter wealth gap.

Does Intermarriage Pay, or Do the Advantaged Intermarry? Evidence from Iceland (with Kolbeinn H. Stefánsson)

Under review

The first systematic study of intermarriage in Iceland. We estimate whether having a native-born partner leads to an increase in earnings for migrants. We find that in Iceland it does not. For women in particular, earnings growth stops in the two years post-union — plausibly a labour market penalty of motherhood.

Do Social Networks or Economic Conditions Matter More in Immigrants’ Settlement Decisions? Evidence from Fourteen Origin Groups in Iceland (with Kolbeinn H. Stefánsson)

Being prepared for journal submission

We separate the two standard explanations of immigrants’ residential clustering — co-national networks and local economic conditions — by modelling new arrivals’ first address in Iceland as a choice among 205 neighbourhoods, for the fourteen largest origin groups. Networks dominate, accounting for 86–97 per cent of predicted co-national concentration for most groups.

Skills and Labour Market Integration of Immigrants and their Children in Iceland

Published — OECD Publishing, 2024

An OECD review of how immigrants and their children fare in Iceland’s labour market and education system, and of the policies that shape their skills and integration outcomes. Contributed to the government’s first White Paper for an integration policy.

An Integrated Approach to Service Delivery for People with Multiple and Complex Needs

Published — OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers, 2024

Examines how welfare services can be coordinated and delivered in an integrated way for people whose needs span employment, health, and social support systems.