Alexander Ljungqvist is a Swedish economist and professor of finance at the Stockholm School of Economics, where he holds the Stefan Persson Family Chair in Entrepreneurial Finance. His research focuses on corporate finance and entrepreneurial finance, including topics such as initial public offerings, investment banking, and private equity.
Ljungqvist received an MSc in economics and business from Lund University in Sweden and MA, MPhil, and DPhil degrees in economics from Nuffield College, University of Oxford. He subsequently taught at the Saïd Business School and Merton College, Oxford, where he held the Bankers Trust Fellowship, before joining the New York University Stern School of Business in 2000. At NYU he later held the Ira Rennert Chair in Finance and Entrepreneurship and directed the Salomon Center and the Berkley Center for Entrepreneurial Studies. In 2018 he joined the Stockholm School of Economics as professor of finance.
Ljungqvist holds or has held visiting appointments at Dartmouth College, Harvard Business School, Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, London Business School, the University of Sydney, Tokyo University, National University of Singapore, and Cambridge University, where he was Sir Evelyn de Rothschild Fellow.
From 2008 to 2014 he served as editor of the Review of Financial Studies. He is a research fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research in London, a founder and senior academic fellow of the Asian Bureau of Financial and Economic Research in Singapore, a member of the European Corporate Governance Institute in Brussels, and a coâÂÂfounder of the Nordic Initiative for Corporate Economics (NICE). He was previously a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Ljungqvist serves on the Board of Agenta Investment Management, a Stockholm-based fund manager. In 2018-2025, Ljungqvist served on the board of directors of the Sixth Swedish National Pension Fund (AP6), which invested in private equity, venture capital funds, and unlisted companies on behalf of the Swedish public pension system. He has previously served as a securities market regulator via the Nasdaq Listing Council and has taken part in expert groups for the World Economic Forum and the UK Department for Business, including the review of the UK equity markets in 2014. He has also served on the supervisory board of mAbxience SA and on the board of the Stockholm School of Economics.
In the 2000s Ljungqvist designed alternative investment strategies for Deutsche Bank Securities and Deutsche Bank Asset Management. Earlier in his career he was a senior consultant with OXERA Ltd, advising clients on regulatory economics and corporate strategy, and has since consulted on private equity, corporate finance, and related topics for a range of public institutions and private organizations.
In 2011, Ljungqvist received the Ewing Marion Kauffman Prize Medal for Distinguished Research in Entrepreneurship. In 2019 and again in 2024, he was appointed a Wallenberg Scholar by the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation. In 2024, he was awarded an Advanced Grant by the European Research Council.
His research has been supported by grants and awards from organizations such as the Wallander Foundation and the Thule Foundation, and he has held named chairs and visiting professorships at institutions including the Stockholm School of Economics, New York University, the University of Michigan, and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He has also received several teaching awards from Oxford University, New York University, and the Stockholm School of Economics.