معرفی
Lars Behrenz serves as both an Associate Professor of Economics and Vice-Chancellor with special responsibility for challenge-driven knowledge formation and analysis at Linnaeus University from January 1, 2024 through September 30, 2026. His dual role combines academic leadership with administrative responsibilities, where he supports and represents university management while focusing on development areas requiring cross-disciplinary and challenge-driven approaches. He holds a 60% position as Vice-Chancellor while maintaining his academic duties.
Behrenz's research centers on labor market economics with particular emphasis on long-term effects of labor market restructuring, transitional labor markets, self-sufficiency policies, and empirical analyses of labor market policy. His extensive work examines employer recruitment behavior, second-generation immigrant integration, employment office effectiveness, Rehn-Meidner model relevance, unemployment costs to society, and socio-economic value assessments of both social economy and elite sports. He has developed various evaluation methodologies for labor market policies including personnel reinforcements and startup grants.
His recent publication trend reveals a consistent focus on practical labor market policy evaluation with increasing attention to methodological rigor. The articles demonstrate a progression from foundational studies on employment office efficiency toward more complex evaluations of wage subsidy programs and immigrant integration processes. His work bridges academic research with practical policy implementation, often conducted in collaboration with Swedish government agencies and international partners. The research consistently applies empirical methods to address real-world labor market challenges in Sweden.
Behrenz serves as a member of the Swedish government's labor market policy council and sits on the board of Kalmar Science Park AB. He currently teaches Labor Market Economics at the bachelor's level and Advanced Economic Methods at the master's program in economics while supervising bachelor's theses. Additionally, he works with 16 other international experts as an external advisor to Finland's Research Council for the distribution of major research environment funds (1-5 million Euro).
His current research projects include 'Looking back on the way forward' (an ESO report on the establishment process in the Swedish labor market), studying the long-term effects of the employment service (running through 2026), and developing new evaluation methods for labor market policies (also through 2026). These projects reflect his ongoing commitment to rigorous policy evaluation and methodological development in labor economics.
