I am an Assistant Professor at the Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen, and a member of EduQuant. My research is in education and labor economics. My ongoing work studies how education policy and labor market structures affect people’s opportunities and outcomes.

I have advised the Danish Ministry of Education as a member of EduQuant, been an invited presenter at the OECD/Cedefop as a national expert on vocational education, and worked as a short-term consultant for the World Bank. I have also been a visiting researcher including at the Centre for Economic Performance, Harvard Kennedy School, UMass Amherst, and the LSE.

News: I have been awarded 5 mio. DKK by the Rockwool Foundation for my research project on “Disability Aid for University Students.” You can read more about the project here.

Contact: jesper.eriksen@econ.ku.dk

Working papers

• The Grandparent Effect Reexamined: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from a Large-Scale Educational Reform.
  • With Mads Meier Jæger and Kristian Bernt Karlson
  • Abstract: Does the influence of family background extend beyond two generations? Most theories of social mobility assume that parents affect children but that grandparents have no direct effect on grandchildren. Yet the evidence is correlational: we do not know whether grandparents causally influence grandchildren at all, nor, if they do, whether that influence is direct or runs through parents. We combine Danish registry data on three generations (over 500,000 individuals) with a quasi-experimental design exploiting a 1958 reform that expanded rural access to secondary schooling, raising the education of some future grandparents but not others. This yields credibly causal estimates of grandparents’ influence on grandchildren and of how much of it runs through parents. Grandparents’ education is robustly associated with all 17 educational outcomes we examine, yet its causal effect is close to zero for nearly all of them, and where positive, the parental path accounts for it. The influence of family background, we conclude, does not extend beyond two generations in the way the grandparent effect supposes.
  • Revise and Resubmit at American Journal of Sociology.
• Peer Effects in Vocational Education and Training.
  • With Shaun Dougherty
  • Abstract: Vocational Education and Training (VET) programs are prevalent in a European context, but often struggle with drop-out rates that exceed those of general upper-secondary education. Using Danish administrative data, we study the effects of reform-induced reductions in shares of VET students who did not pass their lower secondary final exams on passing GPA VET students. We find that passing students have a higher probability of remaining enrolled in VET after the first year of studies when entering a VET school with a higher share of below-passing peers. Studying outside options, we find that students become less likely to drop out of education entirely. The results are consistent with models of peer effects in which particularly unmotivated students become points of comparison for their peers, increasing their motivation and likelihood of remaining enrolled.
  • Revising. [Annenberg Institute WP]
• The Long-Run Effects of Refugee Inflows on Native Children’s Economic Mobility.
  • Abstract: I examine how refugee inflows affect the intergenerational economic mobility of native children. The analysis exploits the quasi-random allocation of refugees across Danish municipalities between 1986 and 1998 and comprehensive Danish administrative data that link the full population of parents and children. I find that children from lower-income families who grew up in municipalities with above-median refugee inflows have, on average, 1.8 percentage-point lower expected income rank in adulthood, equivalent to about USD 2,100 (2015 values), than comparable children in municipalities with below-median inflows. Children from higher-income families are unaffected. The effects do not differ by gender but are stronger for low-income children from less-affluent municipalities than for those from more-affluent municipalities.
  • Submitted. [WP]
• Switching Strategies? Peer Impacts of Moving Disabled Students to General Education Classrooms
  • With L. Robin Caron and Jeppe Johansen
  • Abstract: Prior work has argued that a student’s peers affect the student’s own academic outcomes, but has more rarely considered how student mobility shapes peer effects. We study this, focusing on the placement of disabled students into general education classrooms, a practice known as ``mainstreaming’’. Using Danish administrative data and a difference-in-difference design, we show that the arrival of a mainstreamed student makes peers 11\% more likely to switch schools in a given year. We isolate the direct impacts of the arrival of a mainstreamed student from the indirect impacts of school switching by studying a sizeable — although potentially selected — subgroup of students who never change schools. For this subgroup, we find little evidence that the arrival of a mainstreamed student causes negative effects on attendance, test scores, or social tensions in the class. In contrast, students who do change schools experience negative impacts, which may be due to direct effects from the arrival of a mainstreamed student or the indirect disruption caused by switching schools. Both reduced form and structural approaches suggest that the disruption of school switching is a plausible explanation. Research and policy on peer effects and the inclusion of disabled students in classrooms must account for the role of student mobility in shaping outcomes.
  • Submitted. [WP]
• Making Firms Train: Evidence from a Danish reform.
  • With Mette Ejrnæs
  • Abstract: This paper examines whether economic incentives can increase firms’ supply of apprenticeships. We study a Danish reform that introduced a levy on firms failing to meet an apprenticeship target. Using administrative data and a Difference-in-Differences design, we estimate firms’ responses to the policy. Firms subject to the levy increased their number of apprentices relative to firms above the target, with effects concentrated among firms close to the threshold. The estimated increase is approximately 6 percent. However, the reform did not raise the total number of apprentices in the private sector, as firms above the target reduced their apprentice intake.
  • Submitted.

(Selected) ongoing research

• Discrimination in Informal Markets: Evidence from Danish Apprenticeships
• Perceptions of returns to learning-on-the-job.
  • With Franziska Valder
• Vaccinating effects of mental health treatment.
  • With August Juul Petersen
• School Peers and Education Choice.
  • With Saandra Nandakumar and Andreas Bjerre-Nielsen
• Heterogeneous Returns to Fields of Study.
  • With Kristian Bernt Karlson and Mikkel Høst Gandil

Publications

1. Firm Innovation and Continuing Education. Eriksen J. & J. R. Holm (2021). In Globalization, New and Emerging Technologies, and Sustainable Development – The Danish Innovation System in Transition, Routledge. [Preprint]
2. The Geography of Intergenerational Mobility - Danish Evidence. Eriksen, J. & M. D. Munk (2020). Economics Letters, Vol. 189, 109024. [Preprint] [Supplementary data (Dataverse)]
3. Time-Series Cross-Section Analyser i Komparativ Politisk Økonomi. Eriksen J. & S. Etzerodt (2018). Metode og Forskningsdesign, Vol. 3. [Paper] [Supplementary files (Github)]

Reports

1. Udsyn I Udskolingen – Kvantitativ Evaluering af Læringsorienteret Uddannelses-vejledning. Eriksen, J., Thomsen, R. & D. Reimer (2021). DPU, Aarhus Universitet. [Report]
2. The Importance of GPA Requirements for VET and Low-Income Students. Eriksen, J, & S. Dougherty (2021), p. 132-143. In The Next Steps for Apprenticeship, edited by Cedefop/OECD. Cedefop Reference Series; No 118. Luxembourg: Publications Office. [Report]
3. Educated Cities and Regional Centralization: Spatial Trends in Students’ Location in Denmark, 1982-2013. Eriksen, J. (2017). Center for Research on Regional Dynamics and Inequality, Aalborg University. [Report]

Disability Aid for University Students (Rockwool Foundation grant)

I have been awarded 5 mio. DKK from the Rockwool Foundation for my research project on Disability Aid for University students. Growing numbers of youth receive diagnoses for disabilities across the OECD countries, particularly for mental health problems. These diagnoses often give the right to expensive disability aid, including aid that aims to help students through their tertiary education. But it is unclear how the aid helps the recipients. We will investigate how disability aid in the tertiary education system helps the recipients’ educational attainment and achievement, labor market attachment, and health. I will conduct the project with postdocs Pernille Plato and Asbjørn Juul Petersen. The project runs from October, 2026 to September, 2029.