Marianne Simonsen

Marianne Simonsen is Professor of Economics at Aarhus University's Department of Economics and Business, with additional affiliations as Research Fellow at IZA, member of Tryg Fonden’s Center for Child Research, and Chair of Denmark's Independent Research Fund Social Sciences council. Her international profile includes visiting positions at Stanford, Maryland, and Michigan.

Her research bridges family, health, and labor economics through rigorous register-based analyses. Key investigations examine how preschool staff gender composition affects child outcomes, welfare policy impacts on child wellbeing, and environmental determinants of cognition. She employs quasi-experimental methods to evaluate interventions ranging from air pollution regulations to workplace wellness programs.

Professor Simonsen maintains an active publication pipeline with 2024 CESifo working papers on air pollution/cognition links and firm-based wellness evaluations. Her editorial leadership includes the Scandinavian Journal of Economics and special Labour Economics issues on child development. As council chair, she influences national research funding while maintaining strong international collaborations evident in multinational co-authorships.

Students would engage with population-level Danish register data, policy evaluation techniques, and interdisciplinary projects addressing child development challenges. Her work directly informs Scandinavian welfare policy through empirical evidence on early intervention effectiveness and environmental health impacts.