Publications

1. Jokela, Markus, Jaakko Meriläinen, Janne Tukiainen, and Åsa von Schoultz. 2025. "Personality Traits and Cognitive Ability in Political Selection." Forthcoming in Journal of the European Economic Association.

2. De Magalhães, Leandro, Dominik Hangartner, Salomo Hirvonen, Jaakko Meriläinen, Nelson Ruiz Guarín, and Janne Tukiainen. 2025. "How Much Should We Trust Regression Discontinuity Design Estimates? Evidence from Experimental Benchmarks of the Incumbency Advantage." Forthcoming in Political Analysis.

3. Kuosmanen, Isa and Jaakko Meriläinen. 2025. "Labor Market Effects of Open Borders: Evidence from the Finnish Construction Sector after EU Enlargement." Journal of Human Resources 60(2), 434-468.

4. Emilio Gutiérrez, Jaakko Meriläinen, and Antonio M. Ponce de León. 2024. "Worth a Shot? The Political Economy of Government Responsiveness in Times of Crisis." World Development 184, 106762.

5. Araico Cordero, Armando, Antonella Bandiera, Jaakko Meriläinen, and Esteban González Luna. 2024. "When Fortune Favors Women: Do Marginal Increases in Female Representation Persist?" Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 226, 106680.

6. Hortala-Vallve, Rafael, Jaakko Meriläinen, and Janne Tukiainen. 2024. "Pre-Electoral Coalitions and the Distribution of Political Power." Public Choice 198(1-2), 47-67.

7. Meriläinen, Jaakko and Matti Mitrunen. 2023. "The Loser’s Long Curse: How Exposure to Class Conflict Shapes Election Outcomes." Forthcoming in Comparative Political Studies.

8. Johansson, Christian, Anders Kärnä, and Jaakko Meriläinen. 2023. "Vox Populi, Vox Dei? Tacit Collusion in Politics."  Economics & Politics 35(3), 752-772.

9. Meriläinen, Jaakko, Matti Mitrunen, and Tuomo Virkola. 2023. "Famine, Inequality, and Conflict." Journal of the European Economic Association 21(4), 1478-1509.

10. Meriläinen, Jaakko and Janne Tukiainen. 2022. "The Advantage of Incumbents in Coalitional Bargaining." Legislative Studies Quarterly 47(4), 921-957.

11. Meriläinen, Jaakko. 2022. "Political Selection and Economic Policy." Economic Journal 132(648), 3020-3046.

12. Gutiérrez, Emilio, Jaakko Meriläinen, and Adrián Rubli. 2022. "Electoral Repercussions of a Pandemic: Evidence from the 2009 H1N1 Outbreak." Journal of Politics 84(4), 1899-1912.

13. Dehdari, Sirus, Konstantinos Matakos, Jaakko Meriläinen, and Janne Tukiainen. 2022. "A Pink Slip for the Blue Reform: Is Selection, Experience, or Ideology the Elixir of Populists' Survival?" Journal of Political Institutions and Political Economy 3(1), 1-21.

14. Dehdari, Sirus, Jaakko Meriläinen, and Sven Oskarsson. 2021. "Selective Abstention in Simultaneous Elections: Understanding the Turnout Gap." Electoral Studies 71, 102302.

15. Dewan, Torun, Jaakko Meriläinen, and Janne Tukiainen. 2020. "Victorian Voting: The Origins of Party Orientation and Class Alignment." American Journal of Political Science 64(4), 869-886.

16. Meriläinen, Jaakko. 2019. "Single‐Party Rule, Public Spending, and Political Rents: Evidence from Finnish Municipalities." Scandinavian Journal of Economics 121(2), 736-762.

17. Meriläinen Jaakko, and Janne Tukiainen. 2019. "Public Procurement versus Laissez-Faire: Evidence from Household Waste Collection." CESifo Economic Studies 65(4), 446-463.

18. Hyytinen, Ari, Jaakko Meriläinen, Tuukka Saarimaa, Otto Toivanen, and Janne Tukiainen. 2018. "Public Employees as Politicians: Evidence from Close Elections." American Political Science Review  112(1), 68-81.

19. Hyytinen, Ari, Jaakko Meriläinen, Tuukka Saarimaa, Otto Toivanen, and Janne Tukiainen. 2018. "When does regression discontinuity design work? Evidence from random election outcomes." Quantitative Economics 9(2), 1019-1051.

20. Meriläinen, Jaakko, and Janne Tukiainen. 2018. "Rank effects in political promotions." Public Choice 177(1), 87-109.

Working papers and selected work in progress

• Communism in the Classroom: Long-Run Effects of an Experiment (with Matti Mitrunen)

• The Price of Exclusion: Coalition Formation in the Shadow of Rising Radical Right (with Anders Kärnä and John Norell)

• Class, Social Mobility, and Voting: Evidence from Historical Voting Records (with Torun Dewan, Christopher Kam, and Janne Tukiainen - new version coming eventually...)

• Candidate Exit and Voter Loyalty During Early Democratization (with Torun Dewan, Christopher Kam, and Janne Tukiainen)

• Elite Incentives and Nation-Building: Evidence from the Fennoman Movement (with Teppo Lindfors and Matti Mitrunen)

• Engines of Empowerment: Cattle Tending, the Milking Machine, and Women in Politics (with Eva Forslund and Céline Zipfel)

• Volcanic Protests (with Matti Mitrunen, Alessandro Pizzigolotto, and Jósef Sigurdsson)

• Electoral Performance Is Associated with Politicians' Cognitive Ability and Personality: Registry Data from Finnish Municipality Elections 1996-2017  (with Markus Jokela, Janne Tukiainen, and Åsa von Schoultz)

• Becoming an Elected Official Shapes Reproductive Choices (with Tuukka Saarimaa, Dawn L. Teele, and Janne Tukiainen)

• Proportionality without Parity: Why Fairer Electoral Systems Fail to Elect More Women (with Salomo Hirvonen, Konstantinos Matakos, and Janne Tukiainen)

Monographs, book chapters, and other publications

• Meriläinen, Jaakko, Matti Mitrunen, and Tuomo Virkola. 2025. "Conflict and Inequality: A Survey and Empirical Applications to Finland." In the Routledge Handbook on Economic History of War.

• Lindfors, Teppo, Jaakko Meriläinen, and Matti Mitrunen. 2024. "Kriisit ja yhteiskunnallinen muutos – luotiinko sisällissodan vuosina tasa-arvoisemman yhteiskunnan edellytykset?" In Ankarat ajat: Suomalaisten talouskriisien pitkä historia. [In Finnish.]

• Johansson, Christian, Anders Kärnä, and Jaakko Meriläinen. 2022. "Politisk kartellbildning som förklaring till Sverigedemokraternas framgång." In Folkviljans förverkligare, eds. Patrik Öhberg, Henrik Oscarsson, and Jakob Ahlbolm, 117-133. Gothenburg: Department of Political Science, University of Gothenburg. [In Swedish.]

• Jaeger, David A., Jaime Arellano-Bover, Krzysztof Karbownik, Marta Martínez-Matute, John Nunley, R. Alan Seals, and others. 2021. "The Global COVID-19 Student Survey: First Wave Results." Covid Economics 79, 152-217.

• Meriläinen, Jaakko. 2019. Essays in Political Economics. PhD thesis.