My research examines how institutional design enables accountability for both businesses and public authorities under real-world constraints on information, capacity, and due process. Drawing on law and economics, I study regulatory agencies, enforcement choices, corporate liability, and the interaction between administrative and criminal enforcement in deterring misconduct and sustaining trust in markets, including in the context of corruption. Informed by experience from academia, government service, and international organizations, I analyse how legal and enforcement models diffuse across borders and how political economy shapes regulatory performance. My work combines theory and targeted empirical analysis to inform reforms that strengthen integrity in markets and public governance, and I engage selectively in expert advice, lectures, and research collaboration.

How should regulatory agencies be mandated, governed, and equipped so that enforcement works under real constraints on evidence, resources, and due process? Drawing on law and economics, this research examines the allocation of enforcement powers, the use of discretion, and the interaction between administrative and criminal tracks. It also considers how agencies balance deterrence, legal certainty, proportionality, and capacity limits—and how these choices shape incentives for both firms and public authorities.

The work is informed by comparative research and experience from competition enforcement and international policy cooperation, including service as Director General of the Norwegian Competition Authority and participation in OECD and EU networks. It further develops insights from U.S.–European contrasts in regulatory enforcement, including work conducted at Yale Law School, with particular attention to when enforcement models travel well across legal systems and when they do not.

Corporate accountability depends not only on rules, but on how liability and enforcement mechanisms shape incentives inside firms. Using law and economics, this research analyzes how companies respond to administrative, civil, and criminal liability, and how sanctions, settlement mechanisms, and procedural choices influence prevention and compliance investments. When do enforcement frameworks strengthen compliance, and when do they create perverse incentives or legal uncertainty?

A particular focus is on negotiated outcomes, corporate settlements, and debarment regimes, and the conditions under which these tools promote deterrence without undermining due process. The work is comparative, with attention to contrasts between U.S. and European approaches to corporate liability and enforcement, and it is linked to PhD-level teaching and research collaboration in corporate compliance and enforcement.

Corruption can be studied as an outcome of incentives, institutional design, and uneven enforcement capacity—rather than as a stand-alone problem. Building on political economy and law and economics, this work examines how corruption risks arise where discretion is high, oversight is weak, or accountability is fragmented, and how these conditions affect trust in institutions and long-term development outcomes. What kinds of reforms change incentives in practice, rather than mainly producing formal compliance?

The research spans low- and high-income contexts, with emphasis on public procurement, natural resource management, and periods of crisis or emergency where governance systems are under strain. It also examines how international organizations and transnational standards shape domestic reform, including the limits of legal transplants and rule adoption without credible enforcement.

Sector studies allow me to engage directly with how governance and regulation function within particular industries, and to develop analysis that is useful for the sector itself. Through in-depth work on natural resources, construction, forestry, and utilities, I examine how sector characteristics interact with institutional arrangements, market structure, and political incentives. Why do similar regulatory tools perform differently across sectors—and what does that imply for credible, workable reform?

Methodologically, these projects often combine applied political economy analysis with detailed fact-finding and interviews to map decision processes, identify bottlenecks, and assess integrity risks in context. The aim is to produce sector-grounded insights that inform both academic work and policy design, and that can be translated into practical improvements within the sectors studied.