Director of CERUM. My research include regional growth and migration, local public expenditures-, investments and taxes, local labor markets, consumer behavior, and public procurement.
My research is primarily empirical and spans several fields of regional science and microeconomics: regional growth (why are some regions richer than others?), migration (why are some regions more attractive than others?), municipal expenditures and taxes (why do municipal expenditures and income taxes vary between municipalities?), vertical interaction between municipalities and regions, horizontal interaction between municipalities (do municipalities and regions influence each other in terms of expenditures and taxes?), consumption theory and behavior, public procurement, and tracking cartel collusion in bidding processes (developing statistical methods to trace collusion in public procurement). Lately, I have also become increasingly interested in the functioning of local labor markets and the local industrial structure. For example, how does a large industrial investment impact the local labor market (wages, labor competition, skills supply, migration/influx, social aspects of influx, real estate market, etc.)? All of these issues are relevant to the prospected large industrial investments in northern Sweden and their opportunities and challenges.
A central part of my research revolves around questions of how one actor's behavior or decision, such as a municipality's expenditure decision or a company's bid on a public contract, influences the behavior of other actors