Niklas Bengtsson new Professor in Economics

Niklas Bengtsson has been promoted to Professor of Economics at Uppsala University.
His research focus is in development- and public economics.

Here below Niklas Bengtsson presents his research:

Like many others at the department, I have had the privilege of conducting research in a variety of areas throughout my career, ranging from children's health and education in Africa to the design of the tax system in Sweden. I have also devoted time to studying civil society, which lies at the intersection of the state and the market. This includes organizations such as aid agencies and religious communities. I am particularly fascinated by how strict economic incentives interact with intrinsic, idealistic values and how this influences decision-making among different actors.

A consistent theme in my research is its empirical focus. One method I frequently use is field experiments, where the goal is to create a situation that allows for determining causal relationships with certainty—similar to a traditional laboratory experiment—but without making the context too artificial. I have applied these methods in various contexts, from taxi drivers in Cape Town to consumers at the dairy aisle in Coop! Recently, I have used the field experiment method to study a rather inward-facing question: students' preferences for different types of university teachers. It is an ongoing project that I look forward to continuing!