Income Effects of Divorce in Families with Dependent Children

Marital splits may affect the economic well-being of families with children significantly. We study the economic effects of divorce in such families in Norway, using administrative information on more than 60,000 individuals. In the typical case, where the mother has custody, the mother (and child) lacks behind before maintenance payments, but after adding these, the outcomes at the median are very similar. However, the median pre-post divorce income reduction is larger for custodial women than for non-custodial men, they have larger risks of an income drop, and larger probabilities of an aggravated position in the income distribution. We also supplement the measures of realized net incomes with an estimate of earnings capabilities. Though not affecting the ranking of the different groups, these calculations indicate that measures based on realized incomes may underrate the well-being of individuals who do not work full-time. The analysis also includes a sensitivity analysis of important parameters in the equivalence scales. An important feature of the Norwegian ”post-divorce package” is that the Government guarantees a minimum level for, and enforces, maintenance payments from the non-custodian to the custodian parent. The system emerges from our analysis as having an equalizing effect on the economic costs of divorce.Marital dissolution; income distribution; income changes; child custody; equivalence scales.

Does paternity leave affect mothers’ sickness absence

Female labour force participation is high in Norway but sickness absence rates are higher for women than for men. This may be partly a result of unequal sharing of childcare in the family. In this paper, we consider the effect of paternity leave on sickness absence among women who have recently given birth. We draw on a six-year panel taken from full population data from administrative sources. We find that in the 6% of families where fathers take out leave more than the standard quota (gender-neutral leave), the incidence of absence among mothers is reduced by about 5–10% from an average level of 20%.Parental leave; paternity quota; gender neutral leave; sickness absence

Dynamic Rearrangements and Packing Regimes in Randomly Deposited Two-Dimensional Granular Beds

We study the structural properties of two-dimensional granular packings prepared by random deposition from a source line. We consider a class of random ballistic deposition models based on single-particle relaxation rules controlled by a critical angle, and we show that these local rules can be formulated as rolling friction in the framework of dynamic methods for the simulation of granular materials. We find that a packing prepared by random deposition models is generically unstable, and undergoes dynamic rearrangements. As a result, the dynamic method leads systematically to a higher solid fraction than the geometrical model for the same critical angle. We characterize the structure of the packings generated by both methods in terms of solid fraction, contact connectivity and anisotropy. Our analysis provides evidence for four packing regimes as a function of solid fraction, the mechanisms of packing growth being different in each regime.Comment: 36 pages, 17 figures to be published in Phys.Rev E. September 200

Do voluntary international environmental agreements work?

We consider the effects of international environmental agreements, using the Sofia Protocol on the reduction of nitrogen oxides. Our analysis utilizes panel data from 25 European countries for the period 1980–96. We divide these countries into “participants” and “non-participants”—that is, those that did and those that did not ratify the Sofia Protocol, respectively. Using a difference in difference estimator, we find that signing the treaty has a significant positive impact on emission reduction. The yearly reduction is approximately 2.4 percent greater than it would have been without the Sofia Protocol.international environmental agreements; public goods; evaluation

Has Job Stability Decreased in Norway?

A widespread belief in the popular press is that job stability has declined across Western economies over the last 15 years. However, little support for this is found in the empirical literature. We use an extensive employer–employee data set for Norway to analyse changes in job stability in Norway by first presenting descriptive measures of job stability for manufacturing, the public sector and private services. Both descriptive analyses of tenure, hire and separation rates as well as regression-adjusted measures controlling for changes in demographics and the business cycle, indicate a slight decrease in job stability in Norway driven by increased job separation rates. These changes are not equally distributed across sectors or sub-groups of workers. However, we do not find that this tendency towards less stable jobs led to an increase in job-to-unemployment/out of the labour force; rather it was characterized by more job-to-job changes.Job stability; employer-employee data.

Intergenerational Mobility: Trends Across the Earnings Distribution

The analysis, based on register data for Norwegian cohorts born 1950, 1955, and 1960, shows that the intergenerational earnings mobility is high. Using quantile regression, mobility is found to be lower at the lower end of the earnings distribution than at the upper end. The findings also indicate that mobility increases over time and that the increase seems to be somewhat higher for lower earnings. Finally, we find that the increase in earnings mobility over time has been larger for women than for men.Intergenerational mobility; time trends; quantile regression

Assessing Changes in Intergenerational Earnings Mobility

Previous research on changes in intergenerational mobility suggests that the mobility is decreasing over time. One explanation for this pattern is increased cross-sectional income inequality. In contrast to most other OECD countries, the income inequality in Norway has been remarkably stable through large parts of the 1980s and the 1990s, not the least due to a compression of the earnings distribution during the same period. Using longitudinal data for Norwegian children born 1950, - 55, -60, and -65, we find a relatively high degree of earnings mobility. Furthermore, there is no tendency to increasing inequality along this dimension. This finding supports the hypothesis that intergenerational mobility is positively correlated with a compressed income distribution. Quartile father-child earnings transition matrices, together with nonparametric regressions, indicate quite high mobility in the middle of the distribution and somewhat more persistence at the top and bottom. This approach also reveals increased mobility over time for sons, but a less clear picture for daughters.Job; Occupational; and Intergenerational Mobility; Models with Panel Data; Longitudinal Data; Spatial Time Series.

Unemployment, labour force composition and sickness absence. A panel data study

Sickness absence tends to be negatively correlated with unemployment. This may suggest disciplining effects of unemployment but may also reflect changes in the composition of the labour force. A panel of Norwegian register data for the years 1990-1995 is used to analyse sickness absences lasting more than two weeks. We estimate fixed effects models of the probability of absence and the number of days on sick leave conditional on absence. The county unemployment rate is found to affect the probability of absence negatively. When restricting the sample to workers who are present in the whole sample period, the negative relationship between absence and unemployment remains. The evidence on duration goes in the same direction. This indicates that the revealed procyclical variation in sickness absence is not driven by changes in the composition of the labour force.Sickness absence; unemployment; panel data.

A Panel Data Study of Physicians’ Labor Supply: The Case of Norway

Physicians are key personnel in a sector which is important due to its size as well as the quality of service it provides. We estimate the labor supply of physicians employed at hospitals in Norway, using personnel register data merged with other public records. A dynamic labor supply equation is estimated using a sample of 1303 physicians observed over the period 1993-97. The methods of estimation are GMM and system GMM. We reject the static model in favor of a dynamic model and obtain a long-run wage elasticity of about 0.55. This is considerably higher than previously estimated for physicians, in particular for those who are not self-employed.physicians, labor supply, dynamic panel data

A panel data study of physicians’ labor supply: The case of Norway

Physicians are key personnel in a sector which is important due to its size as well as the quality of service it provides. We estimate the labor supply of physicians employed at hospitals in Norway, using personnel register data merged with other public records. A dynamic labor supply equation is estimated using a sample of 1303 physicians observed over the period 1993-97. The methods of estimation are GMM and system GMM. We reject the static model in favor of a dynamic model and obtain a long-run wage elasticity of about 0.55. This is considerably higher than previously estimated for physicians, in particular for those who are not self-employed.Physicians; labor supply; dynamic panel data.