Nima Sanandaji

Dr. Sanandaji's work has been instrumental in policy formation in Sweden, as well as internationally. His work on the Nordic welfare state inspireda chapter in the 2019 Economic Report of the President, published by the US White House.

By December 2017, Debunking Utopia had received over 400 press clips from around the world and even a paper in North Korea had cited the book.

The Nordic Gender Equality Paradox is a book by Sanandaji which argues that the Nordic nations, which are often ranked as being the most gender-equal in the world, have policies that hinder women from reaching the top. In February 2016, the book was published by Swedish thinktank Timbro. The foreword is written by Timbro's president, Karin Svanborg-Sjövall, and it has been cited widely by international media.

In the summer of 2016, WND Books, an American conservative publisher and news outlet, published Debunking Utopia – Exposing the Myth of Nordic Socialism. In this book, Sanandaji expands on the same themes as Scandinavian Unexceptionalism. Parts of the two books are highly similar or even identical. Debunking Utopia is longer, written in an easier to read language compared to the more academically oriented Scandinavian Unexceptionalism and links the topic to the Bernie Sanders campaign for the Democratic nomination which at the time was ongoing. A key argument made in the book is that already in 1960—before the shift towards high taxes and a large welfare state—Nordic countries were well ahead of the United States and other modern countries in terms of welfare measures such as long lifespan and low child mortality. Debunking Utopia states that in 1960 Danes on average lived 2.4 years longer than Americans, at a time when Denmark had a lower tax rate than the United States. The latest data for 2013, when Denmark had the highest tax rate in the world, instead show that the difference had shrunk to 1.5 years. This trend is also true for Sweden and Norway.

Sanandaji has received criticism by the left-wing online Jacobin magazine for his claim that Scandinavian culture and high trust accounts for Nordic prosperity rather than welfare spending and high taxes, which Sanandaji substantiates by comparing the GDP per capita of Nordic citizens with American citizens of Nordic heritage. The Jacobin magazine argued in an article in 2016 that Sanandaji did not adequately explain why using race and ethnicity is a more accurate measure to compare relative social mobility than social class.

In his book Scandinavian Unexceptionalism, Sanandaji promotes the idea that unique norms and free markets can explain the economic and social success of Scandinavia rather than large welfare states. In June 2015, the book was published by the British think tank Institute of Economic Affairs and was also released in Stockholm in co-operation with the think tank Timbro. The foreword is written by American libertarian author Tom Palmer.

Sanandaji's first English book is Renaissance for Reforms, which was written with Professor Stefan Fölster. The book was published in 2014 in co-operation with the Swedish think tank Timbro and the United Kingdom-based think tank Institute of Economic Affairs. By analyzing modern democracies since the mid 1990s, the authors question the idea that reformist governments seldom are re-elected. Rather, they show that the governments that introduce market reforms are actually more likely to be re-elected. The book has gained the attention of media and thinktanks in a number of countries, including Sweden, Austria, Norway, the United Kingdom and Bulgaria.

In 2014, Sanandaji published the book SuperEntrepreneurs co-authored with his brother Tino Sanandaji, an economist. The book looks into the background of the more than a thousand individuals around the world who have amassed more than $1 billion through entrepreneurship and examines the conditions that foster entrepreneurship. On its release, SuperEntrepreneurs gained massive international attention. It was the front page story of The Daily Telegraph and independently also reported by The Times, and NBC News. A range of international media followed up on these initial reports.

NBC quoted SuperEntrepreneurs by stating: "The results indicate the American Dream – the notion that it is possible for individuals to rise to the top through effort, luck, and genius – is not yet dead. Self-made billionaire entrepreneurs have created millions of jobs, billions of dollars in private wealth and probably trillions of dollars of value for society".

Sanandaji is the president of the think tank European Centre for Entrepreneurship and Policy Reform. He has been a research fellow at the Centre for Policy Studies and the Centre for the Study of Market Reform of Education, both in London. He is a co-founder of the Stockholm-based think tank Captus, which he headed as CEO for several years until 2011. He has conducted research in biochemistry, physical chemistry and polymer technology at Chalmers University of Technology, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) and Cambridge University and holds two PhD:s from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.

Sanandaji was born to middle-class ethnic Kurdish parents in Tehran. His parents came to Sweden from Iran in 1989. Tracing their roots to the village of Kilaneh, the Sanandaji family, which since the Islamic Revolution in 1979 have moved to Europe and the United States, were the dominant land and farm owners in the state of Kurdistan throughout its modern history. Until the White Revolution during the Shah's reign, the Sanandaji family heavily influenced the economy and society of the region. It is for this reason that they bear the title of Khan and the name Sanandaji. The Sanandaji family had its wealth confiscated during the Iranian Revolution, prior to Nima Sanandaji's birth; and he was therefore raised in Stockholm under precarious migrant circumstances. Sanandaji has conducted research in structural biochemistry at Cambridge University and has a degree in biotechnology from Chalmers University of Technology. He has a Ph.D. from the Royal Institute of Technology in polymer engineering. Sanandaji has previously been chairman of the Free Moderate Student League and the Swedish-American Association, both based in Gothenburg.

Nima Sanandaji (born June 30, 1981) is an Iranian-Swedish author of Kurdish descent. He has a background in natural sciences research and has published more than 25 books on innovation, entrepreneurship, women’s career opportunities, the history of enterprise and the future of the Nordic welfare states.

The leading Norwegian daily paper Dagbladet invited both Sanandaji and his critics to give their perspective. Einar Lier, professor of economic history; and Thori Lind, a researcher in social economics, criticized the book by writing that most researchers already know that Nordic prosperity preceded the welfare state. The two authors also criticize the comparison that Sanandaji does, showing that the lifespan difference between Norway and the United States was larger in 1960 before the shift towards a large welfare state in Norway than after this transformation had occurred. According to Lier and Lind, this comparison is not relevant since the rising life expectancy in the United States is explained by a catching-up of African Americans.