Bio

Joacim is Program Director and Research Fellow at the Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN) and Associate Professor (Docent) at Lund University. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Hanken School of Economics in Helsinki and has been a Fulbright Scholar at New York University.

He currently works on bringing Swedish registry data to the research frontier in labor, finance, and entrepreneurship. A central theme is the allocation of executives and workers across firms or into entrepreneurship. He also studies how ownership changes in firms affect workers, and he has previously done work on optimal regulation of IT, telecom, and media companies. His research is detailed in over 30 publications and working papers and has been featured in major national and international newspapers. It has over 1000 cites in Google Scholar and ranks top decile by all-time downloads worldwide in SSRN. You can follow him on Twitter.

Selected Recent Research

Keloharju, M., S. Knüpfer, and J. Tåg. 2020. “CEO Health and Corporate Governance”

• Using comprehensive medical data we analyze the role of a CEO health in corporate governance. CEOs are significantly healthier than the population and other high- skill professionals, in particular in mental health. Health at appointment predicts turnover, suggesting boards respond to health problems and correct mismatches that occurred at the time of appointment. Health-related corporate governance appears to work imperfectly, however, as we find CEO health also associates with firm policies requiring an active CEO role.

• Presentations: Aalto, BI, HU-Berlin, IFN, KI, LU, TSE, Bologna, Hannover, FEIBS, and the LFG Workshop at Booth.

Keloharju, M., S. Knüpfer, and J. Tåg. 2019. “What Prevents Women from Reaching the Top?” Revise and Resubmit at Management Science.

• We show that women are about one-half as likely to be large-company CEOs and about one-third less likely to be high earners than men. A wide range of observables do not explain the lack of women in top executive positions. Instead, slow career progression in the five years after the first childbirth explains most of the female disadvantage.
• Media coverage: Dagens Nyheter, Dagens Samhälle, Expressen, HBS Working Knowledge, Helsingin Sanomat, Huvudstadsbladet, Iltalehti, Nordic Business Report, Svenska Dagbladet, Talouselämä, Yle.
• Presentations: BI, BC, BU, City, CSEF, HBS, HKBU, HKU, IFN, LNU, NU, NHH, SBS, SHOF, SU, MoF, UoB, Exeter, UMass, HSG, UU, ORU, AFA, NCSE, and SOLE.

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.

News and Events

• 2020-03-25 New working paper: CEO Health and Corporate Governance joint with Matti Keloharju and Samuli Knüpfer
• 2020-06-10 Discussion at the 3rd Nordic Initiative in Corporate Economics Conference in Copenhagen
• 2020-06-12 Member of the Scientific Committee of the 2020 CSEF and RCFS Conference on Labor, Finance, and Inequality in Capri
• 2020-08-17 Organizing the first European workshop of the Labor and Finance Group at IFN. More information here.
• 2020-09-02 Seminar at NHH in Bergen