Jaakko Meriläinen

My 4-year-old son Mateo clearly understands how academia works. Upon learning from my wife that I had a paper rejected, he came to me and asked, with the saddest face: "Papi, did your work break?" I guess… in a way, yes.

Our paper on political selection in Finland is now out in the October issue of @jeeanews.bsky.social! academic.oup.com/jeea/article...

Tenure Track, Assistant Professor Position at The Department of Economics Description and QualificationThe Department of Economics at the Stockholm School of Economics (SSE) seeks candidates for one tenure-track assistant professor po...

Come work with me!

Stockholm Sch of Econ (@handels_sse ) is hiring Assistant Professors this year, both in Economics (my dept) and in Finance.

By revealed preference, I think it’s a great place to work + a lovely city to live in.

Econ advert below:

jobs.hhs.se/en/job/stock...

New working paper: "Engines of Empowerment: Cattle Tending, the Milking Machine & Women in Politics" (with Eva Forslund & @jmerilainen.bsky.social).

📄 swopec.hhs.se/hamisu/paper...

#EconHistory #Gender #Development #SSE #Misum

...and now we're getting the milking machine --> increased female political representation in Finland by Forslund, @jmerilainen.bsky.social and @celinezipfel.bsky.social ! I have to say I'm a great fan of the agricultural history turn within economics.

sites.google.com/view/celinez...

we've already had the milking machine --> upgrading of womens' job structure in Norway with Ager et al. openaccess.nhh.no/nhh-xmlui/ha... ...

📄 Read the paper here: www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/foyln...

📄 Read the paper: www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/foyln...

💡 Our study provides rare causal evidence that early exposure to ideological content in schools can shape economic behavior and political preferences for life, even in a democratic society with a market economy.

Our small-scale survey suggests that individuals who were exposed to the experiment are less satisfied with their careers. There are also signs of effects on attitudes: redistributive preferences (positively affected), pro-market attitudes (negatively affected), and zero-sum thinking (positively affected). These attitudinal effects, although suggestive, are in line with the content taught in the school experiment.

📋 Original survey evidence: In a follow-up survey of treated and control individuals, we find suggestive evidence of lasting effects on beliefs and political views---consistent with the ideology embedded in the Pirkkala school experiment curriculum.

🧠 No systematic differences in education, cognitive ability, or achievement-related traits: The income effects are not driven by skill deficits or fewer educational opportunities. Instead, the evidence points to a shift in values and preferences.

Children who were exposed to the Pirkkala school experiment became more likely to enter civic-minded, lower-paying occupations (e.g., teaching, nursing), and less likely to hold managerial roles. We use an external survey to measure occupational appreciation by ideological stance and find that these are also occupations more valued by individuals on the left.

👷 Persistent changes in labor supply & occupational choice: They worked less months per year and were more likely to enter civic-minded, lower-paying occupations (e.g., teaching, nursing), and less likely to hold managerial roles.

Incomes of fifth graders in Pirkkala were negatively affected by the school experiment. There are no effects for other cohorts, which also supports the validity of our empirical design.

Our findings:

📉 Lower adult incomes: Exposed students earned about 10% less in adulthood; an effect comparable to the return to an additional year of schooling.

We use cohort and geographical variation generated by the experiment to causally estimate the effect of exposure to indoctrination on later-life outcomes.

The aim? To study the formation of a “functioning [socialist] worldview.”

What became of the children who were exposed?

We use full-population Finnish register data and a difference-in-differences design to study the long-run consequences of this episode of ideological education.

Words related to work and social classes were more prevalent in the teaching material used in Pirkkala than in the standard teaching material.

When using a topic model, we see that the Pirkkala handout overrepresents issues such as positive discussion of labor groups, anti-imperialism, equality, and Marxism---and it underrepresents issues such as national way of life or traditional morality.

The text in the Pirkkala handout is systematically more similar (in a semantic sense) to leftist texts---such as the Communist Manifesto or party programs from Finnish left-wing parties---than the standard textbook.

This figure shows examples from the Pirkkala handout. Panel A shows discussion on strikes which are described as the most powerful weapon of the working classes. Panel B discusses labor unions and their achievements. Panel C depicts an exercise in which the students were asked to fill in the stages of societal development. "Socialism" is already filled in as the highest form. Panel D shows an exercise equating capitalism with fascism. In the picture, Adolf Hitler receives money from someone. The task reads: "What did Hitler mean when he said: Millions stand behind me?"

In 1970s Finland, a group of educational psychologists launched an experiment: two cohorts of fifth graders in the town of Pirkkala were taught a history and social studies curriculum shaped by Marxist-Leninist ideology. Other children in the country followed the standard/non-ideological curriculum.

This paper investigates the individual-level economic impacts of Marxist-Leninist indoctrination. We examine the long-run effects of a rogue educational experiment that, between 1973 and 1975, exposed two cohorts of fifth graders in one Finnish municipality to a history and social studies curriculum influenced by Soviet ideas. The experiment aimed to study the formation of a ``functioning [socialist] worldview.'' Students in other cohorts and municipalities followed the standard curriculum. Using comprehensive register data and a difference-in-differences approach, we show that exposed students earned significantly less in adulthood than their non-exposed peers. This gap is partly explained by reduced labor supply and a shift toward more left-leaning, lower-paying occupations. We find no substantial effects on educational attainment, cognitive ability, or personality traits related to achievement striving. These findings highlight the long-lasting economic consequences of early exposure to ideological content in the classroom.

🎓 New working paper: "Communism in the Classroom: Long-Run Effects of an Experiment" (with Matti Mitrunen)

Currently in FirstView: "When Can We Trust Regression Discontinuity Design Estimates from Close Elections? Evidence from Experimental Benchmarks" by Leandro De Magalhães, Dominik Hangartner, Salomo Hirvonen, @jmerilainen.bsky.social, Nelson Ruiz, and @jannetukiainen.bsky.social.

Puolue-kuntatason aineisto näyttää, että lyhyillä listoilla tuomioita on enemmän ehdokkaita kohti - pitkillä listoilla on todennäköisemmin vähintään yksi tuomittu ehdokas.

Kuvioissa on lohkottu hajontakuvio, jossa aineisto on keskiarvotettu 20 lohkon sisällä, sekä lineaarinen sovite.

Kokonaisuudessaan näyttää siltä, että ehdokkaat ovat rötöstelleet muuta väestöä vähemmän (joskaan nuo koko väestöä koskevat numerot eivät ole ihan tarkkoja -- esimerkiksi viimeisimmiltä vuosilta tilastoja ei ole vielä saatavilla), mutta puolueiden välillä on selkeitä eroja.

Tässä pari kuvaa rikoksesta tuomittujen osuuksista puolueittain, sekä vastaavanlaiset kuvat kolmelle yleisimmälle kunnallisvaaliehdokkaiden tekemälle rikokselle (törkeä rattijuopumus, törkeä liikenneturvallisuuden vaarantaminen ja pahoinpitely).

IL-jättiselvitys: Heidät on tuomittu rikoksesta – Tarkista oman ehdokkaasi tilanne Alue- ja kuntavaaleissa on satoja rikoksesta tuomittuja ehdokkaita. Tällaisia ehdokkaita löytyy kaikista eduskuntapuolueista, mutta perussuomalaisten listoilla heitä on selvästi enemmän kuin muilla pu...

Iltalehti uutisoi ehdokkaiden rikoksista vuosina 2021-2025: iltalehti.fi/politiikka/a.... Plottasin vähän jakaumia rikoksista tuomittujen ehdokkaiden osuuksista puolueiden välillä ja vertailin muuhun väestöön Tilastokeskuksen aineistoilla rikostuomioista vuosina 2019-2023...

Julia Cagé & David Yanagizawa-Drott awarded the 2025 Yrjö Jahnsson Award in Economics for their important contributions on political economy & the media, based on deep historical research in France, the USA, and Africa.
Full info ℹ️https://eeassoc.org/awards/yrjo-jahnsson-award

And in Finland, exposure to an inflow of workers following EU expansion ⬇️ earnings of exposed workers by about 9% relative to non-exposed workers and regions (though, some evidnece of positive effects for workers with complementary skills) @jmerilainen @jmerilainen.bsky.social

www.bbc.com/news/article...

I’m just going to leave this here…

Interesting new paper: arxiv.org/pdf/2503.09907

improves on both rdrobust and rdhonest!

Quite compelling... 1/n

Sitä emme voi kuitenkaan sanoa, että onko tämä välttämättä huono asia. Kuntatyöntekijäpoliitikoilla voi olla esimerkiksi "informaatioetu" ja he saattavat paremmin tietää, missä rahaa tarvitaan.

Julkaisun pääsee lukemaan täällä: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Kuntatyöntekijäpoliitikkojen tuplaroolista puhutaan paljon ja heidän osallistumistaan on rajoitettu monessa kontekstissa. Kunnanvaltuustojen osalta tiedämme, että heidän valtuustoedustuksensa johtaa menojen kasvuun erityisesti heidän omalla sektorillaan.

Analysoimme kunnallisten työntekijöiden poliittisen edustuksen vaikutusta kunnallisvaltuustoissa paikalliseen julkiseen kulutukseen. Hyödynnämme puolueen sisäistä satunnaista vaihtelua tiukoissa vaaleissa Suomen avoimen listan suhteellisessa vaalijärjestelmässä vaikutuksen kvantifioimiseksi. Yksi valtuutettu lisää, joka on julkisen sektorin palveluksessa, kasvattaa menoja noin 1%. Vaikutus syntyy suurelta osin suurimman puolueen kautta ja on spesifi kunnallisen työntekijän työllisyyssektorille. Tulokset ovat linjassa sen kanssa, että julkisen sektorin työntekijöillä on muihin poliitikkoihin nähden informaatiovaltuuksia, minkä ansiosta he voivat vaikuttaa politiikkaan.

Kuntatyöntekijöiden ehdokkuus esillä mediassa, tällä kertaa johtavassa asemassa olevien työntekijöiden osalta: yle.fi/a/74-20149607.

Tarkastelimme vuonna 2018 American Political Science Review -lehdessä julkaistussa tutkimuksessa kuntatyöntekijöiden edustuksen vaikutuksia.

The Department of Economics is announcing two fulltime positions as a Research Assistant The two positions are of limited duration, starting on August 26, 2025, and lasting until next summer, with a maximum end date of July 31, 2026. The posts will be based at the SSE premises in the hear

The Department of Economics at the Stockholm School of Economics is looking to hire to RAs. Read more and apply here: hhs.varbi.com/what:job/job....

Professor in Economics Department of Economics For more information about us, please visit: Department of Economics Subject/subject description Economics, with no restrictions on field of research. Main responsibilities Res

Dear academic economists! Two weeks left to apply to a position as full professor at the Econ Dept @stockholm-uni.bsky.social. in Sweden, academic - and personal - freedoms are deeply respected. And the microdata is awesome! Deadline March 31! #econsky su.varbi.com/en/what:job/...