German Bender

I am an affiliated researcher at Stockholm School of Economics (GaPP), and a senior research associate at Harvard Law School (CLJE).

In addition to my research activities, I work as chief analyst at the think tank Arena Idé in Stockholm.

I am also a columnist for the industrial relations magazine Lag & Avtal and the news site Dagens Arena, and a member of the non-fiction expert group at the Swedish Arts Council.

My academic and professional focus is on power relations in the labor market. More specifically, I am interested in the institutional and organizational factors that shape and are shaped by labor market actors. 

My research is mostly qualitative, and is situated in the cross-disciplinary fields of political economy and industrial relations. I draw on political science, sociology, economics, and organization studies.

My PhD thesis was titled Organizing the Labor Market: power, ideas, and institutions in wage formation, digital automation, and migration. It consists of four papers and and extensive summary chapter, exploring how and why labor unions, employer associations and the state collectively address issues like wage bargaining, inflation, inequality, competitiveness, labor unrest, migration, and digital automation.

Related interest include lobbying/advocacy, think tanks, and labor market effects of artificial intelligence and algorithmic management.

I have presented my research on numerous academic conferences, such as EGOS, AOM, SASE, ILERA, WINIR, and ESPAnet.

I attended Stanford University's week-long SCANCOR PhD Workshop at Aalto University in 2022, and spent spring term 2023 as a visiting research fellow at Harvard University's Center for Labor and a Just Economy (CLJE).

More information on Google Scholar.