IIES Professor Ingvild Almås welcoming everyone to the defense

Carolina Villegas-Sanchez at ESADE Business School acted as opponent.

About the thesis

The thesis "Essays on Economic Growth, Inflation and Inequality" consists of three separate chapters.

A recurring theme in the thesis is how heterogeneity across firms and households affects economic aggregates. In the three chapters Markus studies how heterogeneity across firms affects economic growth, how heterogeneity in measured producer prices matters for total inflation, and how heterogeneity in households' portfolio investment decisions drives wealth inequality.

To address these topics, he uses quantitative methods, in particular, heterogeneous firm and household models that, e.g., model the decisions of firms on how much to produce and innovate or the decisions of households on how much to invest in risky versus safe assets. He disciplines those models using Swedish administrative data containing information on the entire population of firms or households. This allows him to apply these models for quantitative statements about economic growth or total inflation. 

Markus at his defense

Read more about Markus' thesis

In the fall Markus will take up a position as Assistant Professor of Quantitative Economics at the University of St. Gallen.