Publications
Living in the Gender Spectrum: Evidence from Non-Cisgender Applications in the Rental Housing Market
(with Sofia Fritzson) (Journal of Housing Economics, 2025)
We present novel evidence from the first correspondence study investigating the effect of individual non-cisgender signals in the housing market. In a preregistered trial, 800 fictitious letters were sent to rental apartment landlords in Sweden. Cismale applicants received fewer positive responses compared to ciswomen, while non-cisgender applicants had response rates that fell between those of ciswomen and cismen. The effects were strongest for apartments located outside of major cities. Non-cisgender applicants were also more often asked to clarify their gender. Additionally, cismale applicants were more likely to be addressed by the wrong name and were less frequently asked if they would bring any cohabitants.
The Effect of an Anonymous Grading Reform for Male and Female University Students
(with Björn Tyrefors) (Economics Letters, 2025)
This paper leverages a university-wide anonymous grading reform and presents evidence that female university students benefit from anonymous grading. Female grades improve by around 0.035 standard deviations relative to males. The effect is driven by smaller classes and male-dominated departments.
Grading Bias and the Leaky Pipeline in Economics: Evidence from Stockholm University
(with Björn Tyrefors) (Labour Economics, 2022)
(WP)
We estimate a substantial female grade gain when being graded anonymously compared to male students in 101-macroeconomics courses. Females graded anonymously are more likely to continue with economics studies. This suggests that biased grading is a direct cause of the “leaky pipeline” phenomenon in economics. As male graders are the majority, we complement our analysis and evaluate the importance of same-sex bias using random assignment of graders. Although, we estimate a substantial same-sex bias before anonymous exams were introduced, it cannot explain the overall effect of grading bias. Thus, same-sex bias is not the mechanism explaining the overall effect of grading bias
Media coverage:
Dagens Næringsliv (in Norwegian)
Working papers
Misogyny and Xenophobia Online: A Matter of Anonymity (with Emma von Essen) (submitted)
Social media platforms rapidly disseminate political content, shaping democratic discourse while enabling anonymity that both protects expression and limits accountability. This study combines large-scale text analysis with a difference-in-differences event study design to examine how reduced anonymity influences xenophobia, misogyny, and false information in online political discussions. Using data from a major Swedish discussion forum, we apply fine-tuned BERT models to classify xenophobic and misogynistic content across two user groups---those affected by an anonymity-reducing event and those not. Reduced anonymity is associated with a significant decrease in xenophobia, while levels of misogyny remain unchanged or increase slightly. In line with theoretical expectations, informational quality improves in discussions on immigration---where xenophobia was prevalent---but not in feminist discussions dominated by misogyny. These findings highlight the asymmetric role of anonymity in shaping online hate and suggest that identity exposure may curb certain forms of harmful speech while leaving others unaffected.
Popular science coverage:
Ikaros (in Swedish)
Nyfiken (podcast, in English)
IFN-podden (podcast in Swedish)
Ekonomisk debatt (in Swedish)
Comparing Human-Only, AI-Assisted, and AI-Led Teams on Assessing Research Reproducibility in Quantitative Social Science (with Abel Brodeur, David Valenta, Alexandru Marcoci, Juan P. Aparicio, Derek Mikola, Bruno Barbarioli, Rohan Alexander, Lachlan Deer, Tom Stafford, Lars Vilhuber, Gunther Bensch et al.) (R&R at Nature)
This study evaluates the effectiveness of varying levels of human and artificial intelligence (AI) integration in reproducibility assessments of quantitative social science research. We computationally reproduced quantitative results from published articles in the social sciences with 288 researchers, randomly assigned to 103 teams across three groups — human-only teams, AI-assisted teams and teams whose task was to minimally guide an AI to conduct reproducibility checks (the “AI-led” approach). Findings reveal that when working independently, human teams matched the reproducibility success rates of teams using AI assistance, while both groups substantially outperformed AI-led approaches (with human teams achieving 57 percentage points higher success rates than AI-led teams, 𝒑 < 0.001). Human teams were particularly effective at identifying serious problems in the analysis: they found significantly more major errors compared to both AI-assisted teams (0.7 more errors per team, 𝒑 = 0.017) and AI-led teams (1.1 more errors per team, 𝒑 < 0.001). AI-assisted teams demonstrated an advantage over more automated approaches, detecting 0.4 more major errors per team than AI-led teams ( 𝒑 = 0.029), though still significantly fewer than human-only teams. Finally, both human and AI-assisted teams significantly outperformed AI-led approaches in both proposing (25 percentage points difference, 𝒑 = 0.017) and implementing (33 percentage points difference, 𝒑 = 0.005) comprehensive robustness checks. These results underscore both the strengths and limitations of AI assistance in research reproduction and suggest that despite impressive advancements in AI capability, key aspects of the research publication process still require human substantial human involvement.
Anticipation Effects of a Board Room Gender Quota Law: Evidence from a Credible Threat in Sweden (with Björn Tyrefors) (submitted)
Boardroom quota laws have received an increasing amount of attention. However, firms typically anticipate laws and can respond to them before their effective date. This paper provides novel results on female board participation and firm performance in Sweden due to a credible threat of the enactment of a quota law. The threat caused a substantial and rapid increase in the share of female board members among listed firms. We also observe increased board diversity in other dimensions. Moreover, we also find a lower turnover rate for female board directors and higher turnover for male CEOs consistent with mediocre male board members and CEOs being replaced. Interestingly firm performance improved, which was related to higher sales and lower labor costs. The results highlight that it is possible to increase the share of women on corporate boards without resorting to quotas and that anticipatory effects of a law could be detrimental to the analysis of the law.
Popular science coverage:
Ekonomisk debatt (in Swedish)
Ekonomistas (in Swedish)
Work in progress
Differences in prison sentencing between the genders and immigration background in Sweden: discrepancies and possible explanations (with Susan Niknami and Adam Birgersson)
We use data on punished drunk drivers to document differences in sentencing for the same crime between immigrants and native born and males and females respectively. Differences in past criminal activity or other individual observables can not explain the difference in sentencing. Instead, the difference between immigrants and native born seem to be due to statistical discrimination in the recidivism rate, while the differences in recidivism rates might explain the gender difference.
Long term effects of early sorting in schools (with Björn Tyrefors and Christian Møller Dahl)
Long term effects of child allowance (with Björn Tyrefors, Linnea Karlsson, Louise Lorentzon and Christian Møller Dahl)
Mild Sentencing and Crime Deterrence (with Mikael Priks, Per Pettersson-Lidbom and Björn Tyrefors)
Master Thesis
Local Human Capital and Immigrants: Complements, Substitutes and Externalities