As a professor at the Department of Economics, I head the research group Political Economy.

Broadly speaking, my research interests cover the following fields

• Development economics
• International economics
• Political economy

Of course, I'm happy to combine these topics. The bulk of my actual research has been on foreign aid and other financial flows to developing countries. I'd label myself an applied theorist. This implies that I'm interested in analysing how the world actually works given what we currently know, which hopefully contributes to a better understanding of the mechanisms underlying the empirical observations that constituted the starting point. However, I've also done empirical work on e.g. aid dispersion and in my main current project on assisted return programmes both theoretical and empirical methods are applied.

I now teach international macroeconomics (ECON230) at the bachelor level and development economics (ECON315) at the master level.

Outside the University of Bergen, I'm one of the editors of Samfunnsøkonomen, the journal of the Norwegian Economic Association. My editorials are

• Produktivt om produktivitet? Samfunnsøkonomen 1-2026.
• Politisert økonomi. Samfunnsøkonomen 4-2025.
• TNT (Trumps Nonsens om Toll). Samfunnsøkonomen 2-2025.
• Ute av kurs? Samfunnsøkonomen 5-2024.
• Den gordiske knuten. Samfunnsøkonomen. 2-2024
• Hvor lenge var Adam i paradis? Samfunnsøkonomen 6-2023.
• En prosent her og en prosent der. Samfunnsøkonomen 3-2023.
• Bistand og støtte. Samfunnsøkonomen 6-2022.
• Vil sanksjonene mot Russland være effektive? Samfunnsøkonomen 2-2022.
• Grønn bistand til svarte land? Samfunnsøkonomen 5-2021.
• Krisens muligheter. Samfunnsøkonomen 2-2021.
• I grenseland. Samfunnsøkonomen 6-2020.
• KRISE. Samfunnsøkonomen 2-2020.
• Norsk bistand: reformert og revitalisert? Samfunnsøkonomen 6-2019.

I'm also a lecturer in the Erasmus Mundus Joint Master in Economics of Globalisation and European Integration, administered by the University of Bari, where I teach a module on development finance. I help organise the annual conference on the Economics of Global Interactions: New Perspectives on Trade, Factor Mobility, and Development, an event that is hosted by Bari.

I like to contribute to the public debate in both traditional and social media. Feel free to follow me on X, @rjhagen.

Recent op-eds:

• Fiksjon og fakta – Svar til Iunker. Klassekampen, June 15, 2024.
• Journalistikk uten kildekritikk. Aftenposten, May 21, 2024. https://www.aftenposten.no/meninger/debatt/i/wgPwlo/journalistikk-uten-kildekritikk
• Norsk bistand har trolig bidratt til krigen på Gaza (originaltittel: UD, Hamas og UNRWA). Dagens Næringsliv, February 3, 2024 (with Hans K. Hvide). https://www.dn.no/innlegg/bistand/gaza/krig/norsk-bistand-har-trolig-bidratt-til-krigen-pa-gaza/2-1-1591998
• Norge bør spille en rolle i gjenoppbyggingen av Gaza, Verdens Gang, January 12, 2024 (with Hans K. Hvide). https://www.vg.no/nyheter/meninger/i/JQ0AO7/norge-boer-spille-en-rolle-i-gjenoppbyggingen-av-gaza
• Om syke mødre, sårbare brødre og bamhjertige samaritanere. Bistandsaktuelt, November 29, 2021.
• Organisasjonenes (årlige) klagesang. Bistandsaktuelt, November 17, 2021.
• Svarte penger som skitner til Norge? (Original tittel: Svarte penger?), Stavanger Aftenblad/E24, September 22, 2020 (with Ivar Kolstad and Arne Wiig)
• Faller magidepartementet? Dagens Næringsliv, May 17, 2019.
• 1-prosentmålet er et virkemiddel som er blitt et mål, Bistandsaktuelt, February 8, 2019.
• 1-prosentmålet er en del av problemet, Bistandsaktuelt, January 29, 2019.

Recent contributions to newspaper/journal articles

• Professor: Stortinget burde sendt klimamålene tilbake til regjeringen, Magnus Blaker, Nettavisen, August 23, 2025.
• Sløserinasjonen Norge: De mest kontroversielle “sløseprosjektene”, Anders Park Framstad og Tilja Fyksen, Kapital, June 11, 2025.
• Demokratibistand – virker det? Tor Aksel Bolle, Panorama, November 11, 2024.
• Fungerer bistand? Tre forskere svarer, Sunniva K. Steen, Panorama, September 2, 2024.
• Ikke denne typen risiko man skal ta med norske bistandsmidler, Tor Aksel Bolle, Panorama, March 2, 2023.
• Gir barnehelse i Malawi prisstigning i Norge? Gunnar Zachrisen, Bistandsaktuelt, October 5, 2022.
• Strid om evalueringsarbeidets plass i Norad, Jan Speed, Bistandsaktuelt, March 26, 2021.

Recent roundtables

• Global order and democratic values in a time of power shifts and great power rivalry. Response-conference arranged by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and UiB at UiB, February 13, 2024.
• Er offentlig pengebruk blitt et mål i seg selv? Panel debate arranged by DFØ at Kåkånomics, Stavanger, October 28, 2023.
• Hvordan kombinere høye mål og begrensede ressurser i gjennomføringen av utviklingspolitikken? Webinar arranged by Norad, June 18, 2020.

Recent podcasts

• Utviklingspoddensialet, episode 25: Flom og fond (May 2, 2019), https://open.spotify.com/episode/5CifZfLckBb7eRqthcgIyZ?si=7E576IPTTw-su5TkoxtWwg&fbclid=IwAR3NFxShQtA1JMsH7pp94mvtB9HL-o2oFrf10OaktcYoHx53g5W7EQ_49M0

Spring 2025: ECON315 Development economics

Autumn 2025: ECON230 Internasjonal makroøkonomi

Selected international publications:

• Optimal Assisted Return Policies Are Dynamically Inconsistent (with Nicola D. Coniglio). Accepted for publication in Public Choice.
• Can We Define Global Collective Action Problems Away? Journal of International Development, 37(1), 107-128 (2025).
• Strategic Interaction in the Market for Charitable Donations: the Role of Public Funding (with Jørn Rattsø), Journal of Public Economic Theory, 26(1), e12681 (2024).
• Losing Concentration? Lessons from a Swedish Aid Policy Reform, Development Policy Review, 36, O984-O1003 (2018).
• Help not needed? Optimal Quotas for Expatriate NGO Workers (with Ami Glazer and Jørn Rattsø), Review of International Economics 26, 302–321 (2018).
• Aid Dispersion: Measurement in Principle and Practice (with Cathrin Fløgstad), World Development, 97, 232-250 (2017).
• Rents and the Political Economy of Development Aid, chapter 15 in R.D. Congleton and A.L. Hillman (eds), Companion to Political Economy of Rent Seeking, Edward Elgar, 2015.
• Dancing to the Donors’ Tune? Policy-Choice in Aid-Dependent Countries. Scandinavian Journal of Economics 117(1), 126-163 (2015).
• Do Non-Enforceable Contracts matter? Evidence from an International Lab Experiment. Review of Income and Wealth 60(1), 100-113 (2014) (with Alexander Cappelen, Erik Ø. Sørensen, and Bertil Tungodden).
• Certified or Branded? A Game-Theoretic Analysis of the IMF's Policy Support Instrument. Review of International Organizations 7, 203-230 (2012).
• Basic Analytics of Multilateral Lending and Surveillance. Journal of International Economics 79, 126-136 (2009).
• Buying Influence. Aid Fungibility in a Strategic Perspective. Review of Development Economics 10(2), 267-284 (2006).
• Samaritan Agents? On the Strategic Delegation of Aid Policy. Journal of Development Economics 79(1), 249-263 (2006).

Recent publications in Norwegian:

• En annotert anmeldelse av Asylparadokset: Hvordan dagens asylsystem skaper kaos og svikter dem som trenger det mest av Frode Forfang, J.M. Stenersens forlag, 2025. Samfunnsøkonomen 139 (4): 22-26.
• Mellom politikk og statistikk: Globale fellesgoder i utviklingspolitikken, Internasjonal Politikk, 80(3), 323-349 (2022) (with Hilde Selbervik).
• Utviklingspolitikken: En revolusjon er en illusjon? Internasjonal Politikk, 79 (4), 367-376 (2021).

Recent projects:

• Mellom politikk og statistikk: Globale fellesgoder i utviklingspolitikken (CMI-project financed by Norad where I was one of the authors of the final report).
• Aid Fragmentation, Donor Coordination, and Selectivity, project for the Expert Group for Evaluation and Analysis of Swedish International Aid (output: Concentration Difficulties? An Analysis of Swedish Aid Proliferation, EBA-report 2015:03)

Work in progress:

• Cross-Boundary Asylum Policy spillovers: evidence from Sweden (with Nicola Coniglio). Paper presented at Economics of Global Interactions, University of Bari, September 2024). Revise and resubmit.
• Theory and Evidence on the Boomerang Effect of Assisted Return Schemes (with Nicola Coniglio). Paper presented at Economics of Global Interactions, University of Bari, September 2023.