Bio

Joacim is Professor of Economics at Hanken School of Economics and Program Director of the Firm Competitiveness program at the Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN). He holds a Ph.D. from Hanken School of Economics and has been a Fulbright Scholar at New York University.

His research is focused on technological change, startups, corporate ownership and human capital. A central research question is how we can improve the competitiveness of firms and the economy at large through getting the right people to create, own, control, and work in the right firms. He also works on how to regulate new tech and how to support entrepreneurial ecosystems. His research is detailed in over 30 publications and working papers and it has been featured in major national and international newspapers. It has over 1500 cites in Google Scholar and ranks top decile by all-time downloads worldwide in SSRN. You can follow him on Twitter, e-mail him at joacim.tag@ifn.se, or call him at +46 73 033 7977.

Selected Research

Coraggio, L, M. Pagano, A. Scognamiglio and J. Tåg. 2022.”JAQ of All Trades: Job Mismatch, Firm Productivity and Managerial Quality”

• Does the matching between workers and jobs help explain productivity differentials across firms? To address this question we develop a job-worker allocation quality measure (JAQ) by combining employer-employee administrative data with machine learning techniques. The proposed measure is positively and significantly associated with labor earnings over workers’ careers. At firm level, it features a robust positive correlation with firm productivity, and with managerial turnover leading to an improvement in the quality and experience of management. JAQ can be constructed for any employer-employee data including workers’ occupations, and used to explore the effect of corporate restructuring on workers’ allocation and careers.
• Presentations: AFA (scheduled), Bristol-Exeter-Lancaster, Brucchi Luchino, Ca’ Foscari University, CSEF, EFA, EIEF, ESWM, IFN, Helsinki GSE (scheduled), Ratio, Swedish Conference in Economics, UNC Kenan-Flagler, WFC and Örebro University (scheduled).

Keloharju, M., S.Knüpfer, D. Müller, and J.Tåg. 2022. “PhD studies hurt mental health, but less than you think”

• We study the mental health of PhD students in Sweden using comprehensive administrative data on prescriptions, specialist care visits, hospitalizations, and causes of death. We find about 7% (5%) of PhD students receive medication or diagnosis for depression (anxiety) in a given year. These prevalence rates are less than one-third of the corresponding survey-based prevalence rates reported in the literature, and even after adjusting for difference in methodology, 44% (72%) of the prevalence rates reported in the literature. We also document PhD students’ mental health significantly worsens relative to their peers after they have entered the program. This deterioration is consistent with doctoral studies having a negative causal effect on mental health.

Norbäck, PJ, L. Persson, and J. 2022. “Risky Business: Venture Capital, Pivoting and Scaling”. Revise and resubmit at Journal of Business Venturing.

• The creation and scaling of startups is associated with risk-taking and different types of owners treat these risks differently. We construct a model where an independent founder may create and scale a startup herself or may seek support from a venture capital (VC) fund. We show that VC-backed startups will choose more high-risk, high-reward scaling strategies than solo founders. The reason is that VC-backed firms costs are so high that only big (risky) exits pay off. We also show that an active VC market induces founder-run startups to develop more risky business strategies since VC support may give them a chance to pivot their startup in case of failure.

Olsson, M, and J. Tåg. 2021.”What Is the Cost of Privatization for Workers?” Revise and resubmit at The Journal of Finance.

• The privatization of state-owned enterprises is on the agenda of policymakers across the globe. Using rich administrative data on firms and workers covering two decades, we study how privatization affects the careers and welfare of workers. Consistent with the effects of an initial reorganization of the workforce, wage income declines and unemployment increases. These effects are stronger for workers protected by state ownership. We do not find negative spillovers on family and health outcomes. We also demonstrate that privatization encourages workers to enter entrepreneurship. The firm-level productivity gains from privatization are approximately five times larger than the incumbent worker-level costs due to lost wage income.
• Presentations: AASLE, AFA, ANU, AEA, EALE, EFA, EEA, IFN, IFN Stockholm Conference and the Southwestern University of Finance and Economics.

Keloharju, M., S. Knüpfer, and J. Tåg. 2021. “CEO Health” Conditionally accepted at The Leadership Quarterly.

• We document that CEOs are in much better health than the population and on par with other high-skill professionals. We explore three channels which could account for CEOs’ robust health. First, we find health predicts appointment to a CEO position. Second, the CEO position has no discernible impact on the health of its holder. Third, poor health is associated with greater CEO turnover. These results are consistent with boards appointing CEOs with health robust enough to withstand the pressures of the job, correcting mismatches occurring at the time of appointment, and responding expediently to health shocks. Poor CEO mental health also affects corporate performance, suggesting that board oversight has enough friction for CEO health to affect performance.
• Media coverage: Arbetarskydd, fPlus, VD Tidningen, Tidningen Chef, Vaasa Insider.
• Presentations: Aalto, AFA, Bologna, BI, EFA, FEIBS, Hannover, HU-Berlin, IFN, JIBS, KI, LFG Workshop at Booth, LU, Memphis, SSE House of Innovation, Southampton, and TSE.

Colonnelli, E., J. Tåg, M. Webb, and S. Wolter. 2018. “A Cross-Country Comparison of Dynamics in the Large Firm Wage Premium.” AEA Papers and Proceedings 108 (May): 323–27.

• We provide stylized facts on the existence and dynamics over time of the large firm wage premium for Brazil, Germany, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. The large firm premium exists in all these countries. However, we uncover substantial differences among them in the evolution of the wage premium over time and no evidence of common cross-country industry trends.
• Presentations: ASSA, IFN.

Olsson, M. and J. Tåg. 2017. “Private Equity, Layoffs, and Job Polarization.” Journal of Labor Economics 35: 697–754.

• We argue that ownership change is one driver of job polarization by showing that private equity buyouts of low productive firms are coupled with productivity enhancing investments in automation and offshoring. As a result, workers performing routine or offshorable job tasks in these firms tend to get laid off.
• Media coverage: Affärsvärlden, Dagens Industri, Dagens Nyheter, Sveriges Radio, Svenska Dagbladet.
• Presentations: EEA, EFA, EIEF, IFN, KTH, NHH, LU, Ratio, SHOF, KU, GU, and Illinois.

Baziki, S., PJ Norbäck, L.Persson, and J. Tåg. 2017. “Cross-Border Acquisitions and Restructuring: Multinational Enterprises and Private Equity-Firms.” European Economic Review 94 (May): 166–84.

• A large share of cross-border acquisitions are undertaken by private equity firms. We propose a model with endogenous financial frictions in which multinational firms and foreign private equity firms bid for domestic assets. Stronger firm-specific synergies, lower restructuring costs, higher exit costs, better access to internal capital markets, a higher risk premium on lending, higher moral hazard problems, and higher trade costs favor multinational firms. Cross-country acquisition patterns are consistent with these predictions.
• Presentations: EEA, IFN, Lund, Uppsala.

Tåg, J, T. Åstebro, and P. Thompson. 2016. “Hierarchies and Entrepreneurship.” European Economic Review 89 (October): 129–47.

• We show that firms with flatter hierarchical structures spawn more entrepreneurs. We investigate two potential explanations for this distinctive hierarchy effect. Part of the effect could be to be due to preference sorting by employees, and part due to employees in firms with fewer layers having a broader range of skills (ability sorting). We show that entrepreneurhip entry increases with a worker’s prior rank in an organization, which is consistent with ability sorting and inconsistent with preference sorting.
• Presentations: Amsterdam, Carlos III (Madrid), Bergen, Cambridge, CBS, Census Center, CEPR, IFN, Leuven, Lund, Milano, REER, Uppsala.