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 works on bringing Swedish registry data to the research frontier in labor and finance. A central research question is how to 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 has also 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 1100 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”

• Boards hire and fire CEOs based on imperfect information. Using comprehensive data on 28 cohorts in Sweden, we analyze the role of CEO health in corporate governance. Boards hire CEOs who are healthier than other high-skill professionals, in particular in mental health. After hiring, CEOs’ health develops similarly to a control group of executives. Health predicts turnover, measured at appointment and during tenure. 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.

• Presentations: Aalto, AFA (scheduled), BI, EFA (scheduled), 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

• 2020-06-24 IFN Podcast out covering CEO Health and Corporate Governance (in Swedish).
• 2020-07-29 Expressen covers What Prevents Women from Reaching the Top? (in Swedish).
• 2020-08-17 Organizing the first European workshop of the Labor and Finance Group at IFN. More information here.
• 2020-08-20 Presenting CEO Health and Corporate Governance at EFA 2020.
• 2021-01-03 CEO Health and Corporate Governance scheduled to be presented at AFA 2021.