Language of Instruction, Integration, and Identity: Evidence from Sweden’s Tornedalians (JMP)
Abstract: How does language of instruction shape social integration and national identity? I study the introduction of primary schools with Swedish, rather than Finnish, as the language of instruction in late nineteenth-century Tornedalen, a predominantly Finnish-speaking region of Sweden bordering Finland. Using linked censuses and variation across villages and cohorts, I estimate the effects of exposure to Swedish-only schooling. Exposure increased integration, as reflected in marriage patterns and reduced ethnic residential segregation, while shifting identity away from Swedish and toward Finnish, as measured by naming choices and military employment. I find no effects on income, further education, or language use at home. The evidence is consistent with intergroup contact in schools promoting integration and with Swedish-only instruction making linguistic differences more salient, thereby generating unintended social identity responses. However, at the village level, school openings increased Swedish naming and decreased Finnish language use at home, illustrating how the effects of nation-building through education can differ between direct exposure to schooling and the broader effects of school openings. The findings highlight the importance of considering not only learning when designing language-of-instruction policies but also the opportunities they create for intergroup contact.
The State Made War, and War Made the Rebels: WWI mortality and Irish Independence (with F. Carozzi and L. Repetto )
Abstract: Can the human costs of fighting for a state spur later participation in rebellion against it? We study this question in Ireland, where communities sent men to fight for Britain in World War I and soon after supplied rebels in the War of Independence. We instrument local WWI death rates using a shift-share instrument based on regiment-level mortality shocks and find that a one-standard-deviation increase in the WWI death rate raises the rebel rate by about 1.4 additional rebels per 100 inhabitants, relative to a sample mean of 1.5. The increase in rebel participation is stronger in what became the Irish Free State than in Northern Ireland, suggesting that pre-existing political divisions influenced responses to wartime losses. We find little evidence that the effect is driven by returning servicemen joining the rebellion. An event-study analysis of children's given names reveals WWI mortality led to a shift towards Irish and away from British cultural identity.
First Language Training and Integration (with S. Strömberg)
Nationalist Organizations, Cultural Revival, and Political Mobilization: The Gaelic League in Ireland (with F. Carozzi and L. Repetto)
The Rule of Law Predicts Trust in Journalists (with N. Berggren and C. Bjørnskov), Journal of Law and Economics, 69(2): 361–385, 2026.
Electoral Cycles in Macroprudential Regulation - A Replication of Müller (2023) (with A. Gáspár, T. Watson, and T. Wochner) [2025], I4R Discussion Paper Series 204, The Institute for Replication (I4R).