Research profile
I am a professor of Economics at SOFI, Stockholm University. My research interests include labor economics (with a special focus on discrimination), health economics and economics of education.
Newly published or accepted studies
1. Long-Term Effects of Childhood Nutrition: Evidence from a School Lunch Reform (co-authored with Petter Lundborg and Jesper Alex-Petersen). Review of Economic Studies (2022), 89(2): 876-908. See also Microeconomic Insights, CESifo Forum and voxEU for summaries.
2. Does integration change gender attitudes? The effect of randomly assigning women to traditionally male teams. (co-authored with Gordon Dahl and Andreas Kotsadam). Quarterly Journal of Economics (2021), 136(2): 987-1030. See also Microeconomic Insights, The World Financial Review and voxEU for summaries.
3. High School Majors and Future Earnings (co-authored with Gordon Dahl and Anders Stenberg). American Economic Journal: Applied Economics (2023), 15(1): 351-382. See voxEU for a summary.
4. Family Spillovers in Field of Study in High School (co-authored with Gordon Dahl and Anders Stenberg). forthcoming in American Economic Journal: Economic Policy. See NBER WP#27618.
5. Backlash in attitudes after the election of extreme political parties (co-authored with Magnus Carlsson and Gordon Dahl). Journal of Public Economics (2021), 204: xxx. See also NBER WP#21062.
6. Weight, Attractiveness and Gender when hiring: A Field Experiment in Spain (co-authored with Catarina Goulão, Juan Antonio Lacomba and Francisco Lagos). Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization (2024), 218: 132-145.
Work in progress
7. Language Proficiency and Hiring of Immigrants: Evidence from a New Field Experimental Approach (co-authored with Magnus Carlsson and Stefan Eriksson). r&r at Journal of Human Resources. See IZA Discussion Papers.
8. Disability, Gender and Hiring Discrimination - A Field Experiment (co-authored with Vegar Björnshagen and Elisabeth Ugreninov). r&r at European Societies.
9. Work from Home and Disability Employment (co-authored with Nick Bloom and Gordon Dahl).
Selected publications by topic
a. Labor market economics (including immigrant integration)
”Employer Attitudes, the Marginal Employer and the Ethnic Wage Gap”, Industrial Labor Relations Review, 2016: 69: 227-252.
”Do Employers Use Unemployment as a Sorting Criterion When Hiring? Evidence from a Field Experiment”, American Economic Review. 2014: 104(3): 1014-1039.
“The Ethnic Employment and Income Gap in Sweden: Is Skill or Labor Market Discrimination the Explanation?”, Scandinavian Journal of Economics. 2009: 111(3): 487-510.
”Do When and Where Matter? Initial Labor Market Conditions and Immigrant Earnings”, Economic Journal 2007: 117(3): 422-448.
”Selection in migration and return-migration: evidence from micro data”, Economic Letters 2007: 94(1): 90-95.
”Unemployment and Earnings for Second Generation Immigrants in Sweden – Ethnic Background and Parent Composition”, Journal of Population Economics 2004: 16 (4): 787-814.
”Adopted Children in the Labour Market -Discrimination or Unobserved Characteristics?”, International Migration, 2002: 40 (1): 71-98.
b. Discrimination
"Weight, Attractiveness and Gender when hiring: A Field Experiment in Spain", Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 2024: 218: 132-145.
“Ethnic discrimination in hiring, labour market tightness and the business cycle – evidence from field experiments”, Applied Economics, 2018: 50(24): 2652–2663.
“Neighborhood Signaling Effects, Commuting Time, and Employment – Evidence from a Field Experiment”, International Journal of Manpower, 2018: 39(4):534-549.
“Does the Design of Correspondence Studies Influence the Measurement of Discrimination?”, IZA Journal of Migration 2014: 3:11.
“The Power of Media and Changes in Discriminatory Behavior among Employers”, Journal of Media Economics. 2012: 25: 98-108.
“The role of automatic obesity stereotypes in real hiring discrimination”, Journal of Applied Psychology. 2011: 96(4):790-805.
“Automatic associations and discrimination in hiring: Real world evidence”, Labour Economics. 2010: 17: 523–534.
“Using Situation Testing to Document Employment Discrimination Against Persons with Psychiatric Disabilities”, Employee Relations Law Journal. 2009: 35(3): 82-102.
“Obesity, attractiveness and differential treatment in hiring - a field experiment”, Journal of Human Resources. 2009: 44(3): 710-735.
”Evidence of Ethnic Discrimination in the Swedish Labor Market Using Experimental Data”, Labour Economics. 2007: 14: 716-729.
” Shifts in attitudes and labor market discrimination: Swedish experiences after 9-11”, Journal of Population Economics 2004: 18 (4): 602-629.
c. Health economics
"Birth Weight and Vulnerability to a Macroeconomic Crisis", Journal of Health Economics, 2019: 66: 136-144.
"Birthweight in the Long Run", Journal of Human Resources. 2018: 53(1): 189-231.
"The health-schooling relationship: evidence from Swedish twins", Journal of Population Economics, 2016: 29:1191-1215.
”Body Size, Skills, and Income: Evidence From 150,000 Teenage Siblings”, Demography, 2014: 51: 1573–1596.
”Adolescent Health and Adult Labor Market Outcomes”, Journal of Health Economics. 2014: 37: 25-40.
”Critical Periods During Childhood and Adolescence: A Study of Adult Height Among Immigrant Siblings”, Journal of the European Economic Association 2014: 12(6): 1521-1557.
”Height and Earnings: The Role of Cognitive and Non-Cognitive Skills”, Journal of Human Resources. 2014: 49(1): 141-166.
d. Economics of education
”The Intergenerational Transmission of Human Capital: Exploring the Role of Skills and Health Using Data on Adoptees and Twins”, Journal of Population Economics, 2018: 31(4):1035–1065.
”The intergenerational transmission of schooling: Are mothers really less important than fathers?”, Economics of Education Review, 2015: 47: 100–117.
“The Effect of Schooling on Cognitive Skills”, Review of Economics and Statistics. 2015: 97(3): 533–547.
”Parental Education and Offspring Outcomes: Evidence from the Swedish Compulsory Schooling Reform”, American Economic Journal: Applied. 2014: 6(1): 253-278.
“Increasing Returns to Schooling by Ability? A Comparison Between the USA and Sweden”, The Manchester School, 2014: 82(2): 1-20.
“Education–occupation mismatch: Is there an income penalty?”, Economics of Education Review. 2010: 29(6): 1047-1059.