Aapo Stenhammar

Visiting Assistant Professor · MIT Economics · aaposte [at] mit.edu

I am a Yrjö Jahnsson Foundation visiting assistant professor at MIT Economics.

I will join the Hanken School of Economics and the Helsinki GSE as an assistant professor in January 2027.

I am also a research fellow at Labour Institute for Economic Research LABORE.

I received my PhD in Economics at the Aalto University and Helsinki GSE. During my PhD, I also visited UC Berkeley and the IIES at the Stockholm University.

My research focuses on the interaction of labor markets, public policy, and political responses. In my work, I also use machine learning methods to digitize archived documents and to use text and images in econometric analysis.

Fields: Labor Economics, Economic History, Political Economy

Curriculum Vitae Google Scholar

Research

Working Papers

Tensions of Structural Change

Paper Abstract

While structural transformation is vital for economic development, it often counters resistance. To shed light on the tension between the political and economic effects of structural change, I study a policy that paid farmers to stop farming in 1970s Finland. Using over 290,000 newly digitized Agricultural Census forms linked to rich register data, I find that this Field Reservation Policy led to farm closures but did not affect farmers' income or geographical mobility. However, it had an important intergenerational effect. Children of the most affected farmers had 2.7% higher earnings and were more likely to work in office and managerial positions. Surprisingly, the positive effects on income are predominantly driven by children with lower cognitive skills. Despite the economic benefits, the policy faced a political backlash, contributing to the rise of a populist rural party. I provide evidence for two separate explanations for this political reaction: identity-based backlash by offended farmers and negative externalities arising from field reservation.

What Do Technology Grants Do?

with Joonas Tuhkuri (Stockholm U) and Johannes Hirvonen (Northwestern).

conditionally accepted for the Quarterly Journal of Economics.

Paper Abstract

We present new evidence on the impact of EU technology grants on employment and skill mix in Finnish small and medium-sized manufacturing firms, 1994–2018. The subsidies funded new machinery, including robots. Comparing close grant winners and losers, we find that subsidized investments raised employment by 23 percent with no detectable change in the skill mix. We use machine learning on the text of application evaluations to match firms, and we analyze firms' stated plans and later outcomes. Our evidence suggests that these grants more often supported expansion—new products and markets—than directly automating work. By contrast, outside the program, IT investment is more strongly associated with skill upgrading than machinery investment. In this context, the technology grants raised employment while leaving the skill mix unchanged. The jobs created were primarily held by non-college workers.

Work in Progress

Opening Borders: Self-Selection and Economic Outcomes of Migration During the EU Enlargement

with Matti Sarvimäki and Jaan Masso

Publications in Finnish

Yksilöllistettyä opetusta ennustavat tekijät ja suhteellisen iän vaikutus erityisopetuksessa

with Markku Jahnukainen and Mika Kortelainen

Paper

Teaching

Topics in Text Data

PhD Course, Winter 2024/25, Winter 25/26

Applied Data Analytics

Undergraduate Course, Winter 2024/25, Winter 25/26

Applied Microeconometrics

Undergraduate Course, Summer 2025