Publications

This study provides a comprehensive analysis of the generational wealth transfer within Sweden’s public pay-as-you-go pension system introduced in 1960. Using extensive administrative registers, the p…

Our use of longitudinal register data combined with a unique survey allows us to offer a more comprehensive picture of rural self-employment than in previous studies. We find that self-employed in rur…

Academic freedom is a cornerstone of modern academic life. It is not only implied by basic liberal principles but also contributes to scientific progress and economic growth. It is therefore important…

We evaluate a non-targeted summer youth employment program (SYEP) for high school students aged 16–19 in Stockholm, Sweden, where public sector job offers were as good as randomly assigned. In contras…

The notion that society should be organized around large so-called missions has gained momentum in public debate, and the reemergence of active industrial policy across the world has been inspired by…

The net-zero agreement on carbon emission from Paris 2015 gives a key role to fossil-free energy technologies with an expected multifold growth rate over the coming decades, when successively replacin…

The New Keynesian model, augmented with the working capital channel, predicts that a rise in the policy rate causes firms that use more working capital to increase their prices more, and that the pass…

We study commercialization of personal data through personalized advertising by a content platform. Content consumption generates productive data about consumer preferences. The firm invests in artifi…

This study evaluated discrimination against children with Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus (T1DM) in Swedish sports clubs through a field experiment. Two fictitious fathers sent emails to 193 top-division clu…

A common claim holds that investment treaties reduce the willingness of host countries to regulate foreign-owned, environmentally-stranded, investments. A counter-argument is that the treaties can yie…

This paper integrates findings from several different case studies on Mission-Oriented Innovation Policies (MOIPs) and makes use of existing literature to briefly describe three other missions: The Wa…

Many countries’ insolvency systems focus on restructuring financial liabilities, and ignore operational liabilities such as leases and long-term supplier contracts. We model insolvency procedures with…

We investigate the impact of attending a free school in England – that is, a new start-up school that enjoys considerable autonomy while remaining in the state sector. We analyse the effects of two se…

Private equity buyouts have sparked debates among labor unions and worker representatives on how they affect workers. This chapter provides an overview of academic evidence on how private equity buyou…

Mission-oriented innovation policies are becoming increasingly popular among policymakers and scholars. We maintain that these policies are based on an overly mechanistic view of innovation and econom…

The association between freedom of expression – freedom of speech and the freedom of the media – and social conflict is theoretically ambiguous and politically highly contested. On one side of the deb…

This paper analyses the effects of independent-school competition on Sweden’s performance in TIMSS, an international low-stakes test in mathematics and science among students in year 8. Exploiting var…

There is widespread concern, especially in certain feminist circles, that a market-oriented economic system, or capitalism, disfavors women. This could take many forms, such as lower wages for the sam…

This study estimates the impact of carbon pricing on international trade in equipment used in the combustion of fossil fuels during the period 1995–2021. Using detailed data on bilateral trade combine…

This paper examines the European Union's changing perspective on globalization, reflecting a shift from its traditionally open, rules-based trade policy. The rise of internal protectionist measures, c…

Can competition and the existence of profit-seeking actors in the school market improve educational quality? To see cost-efficient, long-term improvements, we identify the school system’s capacity for…

Local resistance towards wind power is a central challenge for the energy transition, implying that legally imposed compensation schemes for nearby residents may become more prevalent in the near futu…

The European Union (EU) is becoming more inward looking and more hesitant towards globalization. This paper examines recent transformations in EU's economic policies, with a focus on international tra…

The paper acknowledges the changed geopolitical map and the new adjacent political mindset and examines the current state of the relationship between MNEs and governments/central banks. The focus is o…

Green parties are commonly seen as strong proponents of wind power. This paper presents an alternative view, examining data from the highly decentralized institutional setup in Sweden where approval o…

This paper investigates the impact of financial constraints on firms’ inventory holdings, an area of significant interest given that inventories are volatile over the business cycle. I use detailed da…

This paper examines the identity and origins of Swedish inventors prior to World War I drawing on the universe of patent records linked to census data. We document that the rise of innovation during S…

We study the heterogeneity of family firms using registry data on all private firms in Sweden. We restrict our sample to firms with at least one employee, and we define a family firm as a firm where t…

We study multi-unit auctions where bidders have single-unit demand and asymmetric information. For symmetric equilibria, we identify circumstances where uniform-pricing is better for the auctioneer th…

We investigate the returns to cognitive ability in the labor and capital markets. Using population-wide Swedish military enlistment data and administrative tax records, we find that cognitive ability…

In this study, we examine the relationship between within-firm pay inequality and employee productivity. We use hand-collected data on a sample of S&P 1500 companies from 2018-2022 and find a conc…

Is technology or trade driving increases in wage inequality? We propose that technology interacts with trade in the form of foreign direct investments to widen domestic wage inequality. We show that f…

I study how firms adapt to exogenous changes in labor costs induced by collective bargaining agreements. I use data on collective bargaining agreements in Sweden and study the impact of the nationwide…

Social trust is typically measured using surveys that ask people if they agree that most people can be trusted. A potential problem is that falling response rates plague these surveys. If non-response…

The application of machine learning (ML) to big data has become increasingly important. We propose a model where firms have access to the same ML, but incumbents have access to historical data. We sho…

This paper examines how experience from working in a foreign owned firm affects worker mobility. International experience can provide a worker with knowledge about foreign operations, thereby making t…

We study the impact of financing constraints on corporate risk management. Using data on credit scores matched with unique information on firm level commercial insurance purchases, we find that financ…

This paper examines whether advancements in automation and robotics have affected intergenerational income mobility. Using detailed data on all individuals and firms in Sweden from 1985 to 2017, we an…

State-to-state investment protection treaties, and the Energy Charter Treaty in particular, are alleged to dissuade host countries from regulating foreign-owned investment with adverse climate impact.…

This paper explores whether coups cause increased crisis risk, and if some types of coups are associated with stronger risk. I use a worldwide sample with data on more than 1200 onsets of economic cri…

Motivated by a recent setback in the fight against child malnutrition, this study explores whether aid projects help to reduce stunting, or impaired growth, among children in the local area. Focusing…

We highlight a new factor behind integration: tolerance in the immigrants’ background culture. We hypothesize that it is easier to partake of economic, civic-political, and social life in a new countr…

The Houtman-Maks index is a measure of the size of a violation of utility maximizing (i.e., rational) behavior. This note introduces the Stata command hmindex, which calculates the Houtman-Maks index…

In a representative democracy politicians should either implement policies that voters want or policies that politicians believe are in voters long-term interest, even if voters currently oppose them.…

The creation and scaling of startups are inherently linked to risk-taking, with various types of owners handling these risks differently. This paper investigates the influence of an active venture cap…

Many governments introduced temporary adjustments to counter the economic and health consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. We study the importance of already existing government transfers and pandemi…

An increasing number of researchers, whether in Sweden, Slovakia, Italy, Japan, Brazil, or many other places, are using English in their discourse, written or oral, despite working in a place where th…

Based on a review of 700+ peer-reviewed articles since 1990, identified using text mining methodology and supervised machine learning, we analyze how neo-Schumpeterian growth theorists relate to the e…

We present estimates of the number of refugees expected to flee Ukraine and to which countries they are expected to migrate based on migration preferences data from the Gallup World Poll. This is impo…

Chinese investment abroad has grown significantly in connection with the Belt and Road Initiative. This article tries to answer two questions: first, what considerations gave birth to the BRI? And sec…

The European Commission’s Directive on minimum wages aims to ensure an adequate minimum wage for all workers in the Union and thereby counteract poverty among the low paid. This article examines the u…

In this paper, we study the link between globalization of firms and gender inequality. Specifically, we examine how the need for interpersonal contacts in trade and gender-specific differences in nego…

Much political conflict in the world revolves around the issue of how much freedom to accord people. Liberal democracies are characterized by, e.g., the rule of law and a strong protection of civil ri…

We study the mental health of PhD students in Sweden using comprehensive administrative data on prescriptions, specialist care visits, hospitalizations, and causes of death. We find about 7% (5%) of P…

This study presents an improvement of the King-Fullerton framework for calculating the marginal effective tax rate (METR) for active owners of closely held corporations in a dual income tax system wit…

In this paper, we study foreign ownership as a vehicle for transferring gender norms across international borders. Specifically, we analyze how the wage differential between men and women in Swedish f…

This essay argues that the most crucial institution of any school system is the embraced view of knowledge—from which virtually all other aspects of a school are derived: the content of its curricula,…

We investigate the effect of technology adoption on competition by leveraging aunique dataset on production, costs, and asset characteristics for North Sea upstream oil & gas companies. Relying on…

The mixed-demand model allows for very flexible specification of what should be considered endogenous and exogenous in demand system estimation. This paper introduces a revealed preference framework t…

The institutional literature suggests that long-term tax incentives are crucial for entrepreneurs, but studies on this topic are hampered by theoretical and empirical problems related to how to define…

We analyze changes in the willingness to substitute from prescribed pharmaceuticals to more affordable generic equivalents in response to the first experience with a substitution. Using Swedish indivi…

We present a novel measure of job-worker allocation quality (JAQ) by exploiting employer-employee data with machine learning techniques and validate it in various ways. Our measure correlates positive…

Formal institutions, e.g., regulations, are considered crucial determinants of entrepreneurship, but what enables regulatory change when there is a regulatory void, meaning entrepreneurship clashes wi…

We study shareholder support for corporate board nominees before and after the 2018 California gender quota. Pre-quota, new female nominees received greater support than new male nominees, consistent…

In this paper, we study the role of risk-sharing in entrepreneurship-driven innovation. Studying entrepreneurship and innovation entails modeling an occupational choice and an effort choice. Risk-shar…

Ideological spillovers refer to the modification of an individual’s core beliefs after learning about other people's beliefs.  We study one specific international ideological spillover, namely, the ef…

This study evaluates the impact of conventional cage bans for laying hens in the EU on exports of poultry-keeping equipment. Using detailed data on international trade in poultry-keeping equipment com…

We use population administrative data from Sweden to study adherence to 63 medication-related guidelines. We compare the adherence of patients without personal access to medical expertise to the adher…

We study whether the onset of the COVID-19 crisis affected the program choices of high school applicants in Sweden. Our analysis exploits the fact that the admission process consists of two stages: a…

Ceding ownership to outside investors provides a control dilemma for founders. In less developed capital markets with weaker formal institutions, we argue that retained founder director ownership can…

In this paper, we study a new channel to explain firms’ price-setting behavior. We propose that uncertainty about factor prices has a positive effect on markups. We show theoretically that firms with…

This paper investigates the explanatory power of social convention theory for explaining the persistence of female genital cutting (FGC) in a broad sample of African countries. While influential in po…

While there is almost unanimous consent among scientists that climate change is real and has detrimental consequences, there is a sizable number of people who are skeptical towards these propositions…

In this study, we derive a poverty-minimizing allocation rule, based on which we assess the poverty-efficiency of actual aid allocations, with a special focus on the comparative impact of new donors a…

This paper examines how changes in product market concentration, specifically firm exit, affect prices. I develop a model where firms have variable markups to show that the remaining firms increase th…

We analyze optimal redistribution in the presence of labor market signaling where innate productive ability is not only unobserved by the government, but also by prospective employers. Our model featu…

I evaluate the effect of the 2011 Swedish electricity market splitting reform on the allocation of wind power, exploiting a unique data set of all Swedish applications for wind power since 2003. By co…

This paper analyzes new evidence on long-run trends in aggregate wealth accumulation and wealth inequality in Western countries. The new findings suggest that wealth-income ratios were lower before Wo…

Amidst considerable debate on the relationship between entrepreneurship and economic inequality, scholarship only indirectly addresses how entrepreneurship informs individuals’ relative well-being. We…

Innovation often takes place in entrepreneurial ecosystems. We use the history of the Silicon Valley venture capital model and the Hollywood motion picture industry to illustrate how specialized insti…

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…

In this paper, we analyze the effect of transport infrastructure investments in railways. As a testing ground, we use data from a new historical database that includes annual panel data on approximate…

Among contemporary economists, Mariana Mazzucato stands out for her emphasis on the importance of innovation to solve pressing challenges and achieve a greater quality of life. However, the type of mi…

The issue of what explains differences in the wealth of nations is one of the most classic in economics. We propose de facto academic freedom as an explanatory variable. The main idea is that such fre…

Based on historical analogies, we emphasize a connection between financial crises and technological shifts where the shift calls for a structural economic transformation. We discuss how political pres…

William J. Baumol was one of the most prolific economists of his generation, analyzing a broad range of central economic issues addressing real problems of the world. In this essay, we present and cri…

Water is an increasingly scarce resource. It is often distributed such that consumers do not face any marginal cost of consumption, creating a common pool problem. For instance, tenants in multi-famil…

This paper aims to find country-level factors that explain the rise of populist parties in European democracies. While populism is often connected to inequality, we note that right-wing populist parti…

Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) can benefit host countries by facilitating access to sophisticated technologies, good management and global value chains. However, multinational firms have many alterna…

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 ha…

We study the causal effects of previous experience and language skills when newly arrived refugees in Sweden apply for job openings by means of a field experiment. Applications were sent from randomly…

We use tax-register data on all firms in Sweden to document the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on firm sales, tax payments, and sick pay. The pandemic impact is identified using within-year, between-…

We measure the distributional impact of the COVID-19 pandemic using newly released population register data in Sweden. Monthly earnings inequality increased during the pandemic, and the key driver is…

Differentiating various types of entrepreneurs provides clues to the puzzle of why top-down policies often fail to create Schumpeterian entrepreneurship and the ecosystems where it thrives. Schumpeter…

This paper develops a framework for analyzing the incentives of national transmission system operators (TSOs) to supply cross-border interconnection capacity in an international electricity market. Ou…

We study competition between political parties in repeated elections with probabilistic voting, allowing a multidimensional policy space and multiple political parties. This model entails multiple equ…

This paper presents a critical assessment of the public debate on income and wealth inequality in Sweden. We scrutinize ten often-heard claims in the debate by contrasting them against facts in availa…

Motivated by the lack of sub-national empirical evidence on the relationship between aid and institutional development, this study explores the local effects of World Bank aid on perceived institution…

We study mechanism design under endogenously incomplete commitment as it arises in contracting with escape clauses. An escape clause permits the agent to end a contractual relationship under specified…

This essay argues that mainstream Left and Right parties’ convergence around the liberal moral foundations of care, fairness, and liberty most likely explains the popular discontent with establishment…