Tapio Palokangas is Professor Emeritus at the University of Helsinki since 2019. He was Professor of International Economics at the University of Helsinki from 1993 to 2019. He holds D.Phil. from the University of Oxford (U.K.).

Tapio Palokangas' current research interests include the following topics: (i) the rowth, (ii) the implications of globalization in the labor markets, (iii) the political economy of labor market policy and (iv) population economics. Cambridge University Press published his book "Labor Unions, Public Policy, and Economic Growth" in 2000. His other publications include articles e.g. in Applied Mathematics and Computation, Economica, European Journal of Political Economy, German Economic Review, Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Journal of Economics (JEZN), Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics, LABOUR, Labour Economics, Oxford Economic Papers, Portuguese Economic Journal and Scandinavian Journal of Economics.

In Journal of Population Economics, Tapio Palokangas (co-authoring with Ulla Lehmijoki) has published three articles: "Political Instability, Gender Discrimination, and Population Growth in Developing Countries" 19(2006), "Population Growth Overshooting and Trade in Developing Countries" 22(2009) and "Trade, Population Growth, and the Environment in Developing Countries" 23(2010).

Tapio Palokangas was Associate Editor of European Economic Review for 2003-2013.

Tapio Palokangas joined IZA as a Research fellow in November 2002.