Publications

1) Market Participation and Moral Decision-making: Experimental Evidence from Greenland (with Gustav Agneman), The Economic Journal. Vol. 133, Issue 650. Pages 537-581. February 2023. [Replication Package]


Working Papers

2) Value-based Leadership (with Morten Bennedsen). [Link] New version! 

The strength of personal values and how these penetrate firm organization is measured through a survey of 1500 Danish CEOs. We construct a measure of value-based leadership and investigate the impact on firm outcomes and firm policies. First, value-based leadership is more common in family firms and with female leadership, but not correlated to leaders' IQ nor to management practices. Second, value-based leadership is positively correlated to firm performance. Causal evidence is provided through the analysis of CEO changes and CEO hospitalizations. Third, value-based leaders build more resilient organizations in a pandemic crisis and generate less conflicts, lower employee turnover and have a flatter organizational structure in normal times. Taken together, leaders' personal values and how they spread through organizations are important factors in explaining the value they bring to their firms. 


3) Visible and Valued: Impact of Family Connections in Women's Board Appointment following Danish Board Quota Reform (with Daphné Baldassari). [Link][SSRN]

Networks play a crucial role in board promotions, yet women often are underrepresented in traditional business networks. Using matched firm-director datasets covering the population of Danish firms from 2000 to 2010, I show that family connections are an important determinant of women's access to the boardroom. First, 42% of female directors -- but only 11% of male directors -- had a relative who was a CEO or board director before they started their career. Second, using variation from a soft board gender quota implemented in 2012 and comparing highly qualified female candidates with and without family connections, I find that candidates with family connections are three times more likely to be appointed after the reform. In other words, board opportunities created by the reform benefit connected candidates much more. Third, additional tests suggest that visibility to other directors -- rather than skill differences -- explains the family connection premium.


Ongoing Research

4) Conflict and Stability of Couples under Economic Distress (with Guido Friebel and Daniela Grunow)

5) The Costs and Benefits of Codetermination (with Casper Berg Lavmand Larsen)