Arna Olafsson

Arna Olafsson is an Associate Professor of Finance at the Department of Finance, Copenhagen Business School, with affiliations including the Danish Finance Institute, CEPR, The Center for Big Data in Finance (BIGFI), and the Pension Research Centre (PeRCent) at CBS. She is also a visiting fellow at the Department of Finance, University of Zürich, and a member of the Icelandic Fiscal Policy Council.

• PhD from Stockholm School of Economics (2014)
• Visiting student at UC Berkeley during PhD

Her research centers on household finance, financial intermediation, behavioral finance, sustainable finance, and labor-finance intersections. By leveraging collaborations with financial institutions and combining large-scale banking data with field experiments, she explores how individuals make financial decisions and utilize financial tools. A key focus is understanding sustainability-related behaviors through household financial choices, supported by her ERC Starting Grant for the project Gender in Finance.

Arna’s publications reflect trends in behavioral economics, financial decision-making under uncertainty, and the application of big data analytics to household finance. She has secured significant grants, including an ERC Starting Grant (2025), a Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF) Research Project Grant (950,000 CHF, 2023–2027), and funding from VINNOVA and the Danish Council of Independent Research.

• ERC Starting Grant (2025) for Gender in Finance
• SNF Research Project Grant (950,000 CHF, 2023–2027) for Green Household Finance
• VINNOVA Research Grant (1M SEK, 2021) for Expectations, Household Behavior, and Inequality
• Danish Council of Independent Research grant for Fintech and Financial Fitness
• Think Forward Initiative (TFI) Research Grant

Her advisory and collaborative work spans partnerships with financial institutions and co-authorships with scholars like Michaela Pagel, John Gathergood, Marieke Bos, Enrichetta Ravina, and Basit Zafar. She is actively involved in the Center for Big Data in Finance (BIGFI) at CBS and the Pension Research Centre (PeRCent), aiming to integrate empirical evidence into policy and financial innovation.