Jonatan Riberth successfully defends his thesis

On Thursday June 11, IIES graduate student Jonatan Riberth successfully defended his doctoral thesis, “Essays on Healthcare Demand and Long-run Inequality.”

In his research, Jonatan shows that direct personal health experiences have lasting effects on behavior. Studying individuals affected by narcolepsy after the 2009 swine flu vaccine, he finds that they—and those close to them—remain less likely to vaccinate more than a decade later. Importantly, he demonstrates that responses depend on the type of experience, with vaccine-related events having much stronger effects on future decisions.

He further shows that individuals may misinterpret coincidence as causation. During the COVID-19 pandemic, people who experienced unrelated health events, such as blood clots shortly after vaccination, were less likely to continue vaccination, highlighting how perceptions of risk can shape behavior even in the absence of causal links.

Jonatan’s work also examines long-run inequality. Studying a historical wealth redistribution in 17th century Sweden, he finds that its effects persisted across up to five generations, indicating strong intergenerational transmission of economic status. At the same time, he shows that differences between groups often reflect family background rather than broader group-level factors, emphasizing the importance of within-family persistence.

Overall, his thesis highlights how both individual experiences and family background shape long-term outcomes in health and inequality.

Jonatan will first spend one year as a PostDoc at the Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN), working on a project with Petra Persson and Maya Rossin-Slater at Stanford University. He will then continue as a PostDoc at the Stockholm School of Economics.

Martin Nybom, Uppsala University, kindly acted as opponent, providing a thorough and insightful discussion.

Read more about Jonatan's thesis