We use a unique dataset on domestic pension fund investments to estimate the relationship between pension fund investment and innovation within Danish unlisted firms. We find a significant positive association between pension fund investment and various measures of innovation, including those targeting green technologies. However, this association is attenuated in highly competitive industries, consistent with a governance channel through which pension funds exert discipline on managers. Overall, our study underscores the important role of pension funds in supporting firm innovation, particularly by reducing managerial slack and by supplying stable, long-term capital to unlisted firms.

This paper studies the relationship between immigration and offshoring by examining whether an influx of foreign workers reduces the need for firms to relocate jobs abroad. Using a Danish natural experiment and their employer-employee matched data set covering the universe of workers and firms (1995–2011), our findings show that an exogenous influx of immigrants into a municipality reduces firm-level offshoring at both the extensive and intensive margins. While the multilateral relationship is negative, a subsequent bilateral analysis shows that immigrants have connections in their country of origin that increase the likelihood that firms offshore to that particular foreign country.

Firms often impose constraints on working hours. While many believe that these constraints shape labor supply decisions, little evidence exists to support such views. We explore this relationship using linked employer-employee data on hours worked and the variation in tax rates derived from the 2010 Danish tax reform. We show that hours worked are unresponsive to individual tax changes in firms with strict constraints, whereas they respond to these changes, directly and through spillovers, in firms with looser constraints. Starting from these findings, we discuss the determinants of hours constraints, distinguishing between firms’ technologies and coordination of hours among coworkers.

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