Bio

Joacim Tåg is Program Director and Professor at the Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN) in Stockholm and Distinguished Visiting Professor at Hanken School of Economics in Helsinki. His research examines who starts, owns, and runs firms and how these choices affect productivity and workers’ careers. Working at the intersection of corporate finance and labor economics, he uses Swedish administrative data to study ownership, entrepreneurship, corporate governance, and technological change. His work has appeared in The Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, Journal of Labor Economics, and Review of Finance. He also contributes to public debate on entrepreneurship, private equity, and the effects of artificial intelligence on the labor market. Contact him by email at joacim.tag@ifn.se, by phone at +46 73 033 7977, or on LinkedIn.

Now

My current research focuses on how firms, ownership, finance, and technology shape worker careers, firm performance, and startups. I recently co-organized the IFN Stockholm Conference on Firms and Human Capital in Sigtuna. My upcoming presentations are at Nationella Konferensen i Jönköping (20 November 2026), Católica-Lisbon (30 November 2026), Stockholm Business School (22 February 2027), and Örebro University (18 March 2027). I am also teaching a PhD course on Corporate Finance and Labor Markets at Hanken in November 2026, and I am on the Steering Group for the Nordic Microdata Database and the IFN FAME Database. You can find PDFs of all my recent articles here, working papers here, lectures here, and presentations here.

Selected Research

Hellmann, Thomas, Alexander Montag, and Joacim Tåg. Forthcoming. ”Financing J-Curves in Venture Capital”. Review of Finance. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4937026.

• Using detailed Swedish startup data, we show that startups backed by US venture capitalists run deeper J-curves: they sustain larger short-term losses, raise more follow-on funding, and achieve higher long-run sales than comparable startups backed by non-US investors. The evidence points to financing capacity as a key determinant of startups’ ability to pursue growth.

Olsson, Martin, and Joacim Tåg. 2025. ”What Is the Cost of Privatization for Workers?” The Journal of Finance 80(4): 2107–2151. https://doi.org/10.1111/jofi.13462.

• Privatization of state-owned enterprises is on the agenda across the globe. Using Swedish data covering two decades, we show that productivity gains and headcount reductions are associated with economic costs for incumbent workers. Workers experience income losses and higher unemployment, but half of the losses are covered by the social safety net. We also find small positive effects on entrepreneurship and cash holdings but no meaningful effects on other labor market, family, health, or household finance outcomes. Productivity improves when the CEO is replaced, and the gains outweigh workers' income declines by a factor of between two and six.

Coraggio, Luca, Marco Pagano, Annalisa Scognamiglio, and Joacim Tåg. 2025. ”JAQ of All Trades: Job Mismatch, Firm Productivity and Managerial Quality” Journal of Financial Economics 164: 103992. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfineco.2024.103992.

• We develop a novel measure of job-worker allocation quality (JAQ) by exploiting employer-employee data with machine learning techniques. Based on our measure, the quality of job-worker matching correlates positively with individual labor earnings and firm productivity, as well as with market competition, non-family firm status and employees’ human capital. Management turns out to play a key role in job-worker matching: when existing managers are replaced by better ones, the quality of rank-and-file workers' job matches improves. JAQ can be constructed for any employer-employee data including workers' occupations, and used to explore research questions in corporate finance and organization economics.

Keloharju, Matti, Samuli Knüpfer, Dagmar Müller, and Joacim Tåg. 2024. “PhD Studies Hurt Mental Health, but Less Than Previously Feared.” Research Policy 53(8): 105078. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2024.105078.

• 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 that 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 earlier reported survey-based estimates, and even after adjusting for difference in methodology, 43 % (72 %) of the rates in the literature. Nevertheless, PhD students still fare worse than their peers not pursuing graduate studies. Our difference-in-differences research design attributes all of this health disadvantage to the time in the PhD program. This deterioration suggests doctoral studies causally affect mental health.

Keloharju, Matti, Samuli Knüpfer, and Joacim Tåg. 2023. “CEO Health.” The Leadership Quarterly 34(3): 101672. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2022.101672.

• Using comprehensive data on 28 cohorts in Sweden, we analyze CEO health and its determinants and outcomes. We find CEOs are in much better health than the population and on par with other high-skill professionals. These results apply in particular to mental health and to CEOs of larger companies. We explore three mechanisms that can 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. Poor CEO health also predicts poor firm outcomes: we find a statistically significant association between mental health and corporate performance for smaller-firm CEOs.

Olsson, Martin, and Joacim Tåg. 2017. “Private Equity, Layoffs, and Job Polarization.” Journal of Labor Economics 35 (3): 697–754. https://doi.org/10.1086/690712.

• Private equity firms are often criticized for laying off workers, but the evidence on who loses their jobs and why is scarce. 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.

Selected Policy

1. Gardberg, Malin, Fredrik Heyman, Martin Olsson, and Joacim Tåg. “AI kommer slå hårdast mot kvinnor – och deras löner.” Dagens Nyheter, September 25, 2025.
2. Tåg, Joacim. “Så får vi nästa Klarna att välja Sverige.” Dagens Industri, September 5, 2025.
3. Martin Olsson and Joacim Tåg. 2025. "Hur påverkas företag och anställda vid privatisering?", Ekonomisk Debatt 4:21-31.
4. Hyytinen, Ari, and Joacim Tåg. “Suomalaisyritykset hyötyisivät yhteiseurooppalaisesta yhtiömuodosta.” Kauppalehti, December 16, 2024.
5. Gardberg, Malin, Fredrik Heyman, Martin Olsson and Joacim Tåg. 2024. Exponering mot generativ AI i Sverige – en kartläggning, Ekonomisk Debatt 6: 17-32.
6. Tåg, Joacim. “Förbättra villkoren för snabbväxande bolag i EU” Dagens Industri, October 28, 2024.
7. Gardberg, Malin, Fredrik Heyman, Martin Olsson, and Joacim Tåg. “Så riskerar AI att öka klyftorna i samhället” Dagens Industri, September 6, 2024.
8. Söderberg, Bengt, and Joacim Tåg. “Regeringen måste säkra linjer till Arlanda.” Svenska Dagbladet, July 10, 2023.
9. Miettinen, Topi, and Joacim Tåg. “Perintövero ei ole välttämättä perheyritykselle pahasta.” Helsingin Sanomat, August 31, 2023.
10. Tåg, Joacim. “Sverige behöver en blockkedjestrategi.” Svenska Dagbladet, January 17, 2022.
11. Keloharju, Matti, Samuli Knüpfer, and Joacim Tåg. “Så når fler kvinnor toppen.” Dagens Industri, October 19, 2018.
12. Olsson, Martin, and Joacim Tåg. 2017. “Påverkar riskkapitalinvesteringar anställda och samhällsekonomin?” Ekonomisk Debatt 8: 26–36.
13. Koptyug, Nikita, Lars Persson, Roger Svensson, and Joacim Tåg. 2017. “Aktiemarknadens betydelse för näringslivet och samhällsekonomin.” Ekonomisk Debatt 7: 6–17.
14. Lerner, Josh, and Joacim Tåg. “Mer måste göras nu för framtida tillväxt.” Svenska Dagbladet, July 13, 2012.
15. Jordahl, Henrik, and Joacim Tåg. “Riskkapitalbolag är bra ägare.” Svenska Dagbladet, November 2011.