Migration, Local Fiscal Variables and Local Economic Conditions

The paper examines the effects of local fiscal variables and local economic conditions on exit decisions of Norwegian households. The study takes advantage of a unique survey data set in which respondents evaluate a range of local amenities and report whether they intend to relocate. We find that municipal services are important to exit decisions. Norwegian municipalities can increase the population share of young, educated households by improving living conditions for children and the quality of schools and cultural services. The estimated effects of personal unemployment, local unemployment and local wages on migration plans become weaker when amenity variables are included, indicating that capitalization of amenities cannot explain weak effects of local economic conditions on migration in Europe.Migration, local fiscal variables, local economic conditions

Do local authorities set local fiscal variables to influence population flows?

The paper presents an empirical test of local fiscal competition in Norway based on the observation that interregional migration during the business cycle creates very different incentives for rural and urban municipalities to influence population movements. Panel-data evidence is presented suggesting that municipalities indeed attempt to control population flows. The sensitivity of municipal spending and revenue decisions to population movements varies between municipalities in a way that is consistent with the municipalities' incentives to influence location decisions of households.Fiscal competition; Local government

Norwegian priority guidelines: Estimating the distributional implications across age, gender and SES

Objective: Targeting hospital treatment at patients with high priority would seem to be a natural policy response to the growing gap between what can be done and what can be financed in the specialist health care sector. The paper examines the distributionalconsequences of this policy. Method: 450 000 elective patients are allocated to priority groups on the basis of medical guidelines developed by one of the regional health authorities in Norway. Probit models are estimated explaining priority status as a function of age, gender and socioeconomic status. Results: Women and older people are overrepresented among patients with low priority. Conditional on age, women with low priority have lower income and less education than women with high priority. Among men below 50 years, patients with low priority have less education than patients with high priority. Conclusion: Targeting hospital treatment at patients with high priority, though sensible from a pure medical perspective, may have undesirable distributional consequences.Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health

Survey-based Indicators of Regional Labour Markets and Interregional Migration in Norway

A rich set of regional labour market variables is utilised to explain interregional migration in Norway. In particular, regional indicators of labour market pressure are computed from survey data in which respondents are asked to evaluate local job prospects in their resident municipality and the surroundings. Mean satisfaction with local job prospects reported by respondents in a region and related survey-based indicators have a positive and significant impact on net in-migration to the region, also when controlling for traditional measures of regional labour market conditions, such as regional unemployment and wage differentials. Our results suggest that surveys may provide useful information about regional labour markets.Interregional migration; regional labour markets; survey data

Wages and Subjective Assessments of Regional Labour Market Pressure

We utilise a rich set of regional labour market variables to explain regional variation in Norwegian manufacturing wages. In particular, regional indicators of labour market pressure are computed from survey data in which respondents are asked to evaluate local job prospects. We find that average reported satisfaction with local job prospects and other survey-based indicators perform better in regional wage equations than traditional labour market variables, including the regional unemployment rate. Our results suggest that surveys may provide useful information about regional labour markets.Regional wages; Labour market pressure; Survey data

Waiting times and socioeconomic status. Evidence from Norway

We investigate whether socioeconomic status, measured by income and education, affects waiting time when controls for severity and hospital specific conditions are included. We also examine which aspects of the hospital supply (attachment to local hospital, traveling time, or choice of hospital) that matter most for unequal treatment of different socioeconomic groups, and how different behavior responses can create discrimination. The study uses administrative data from all somatic elective inpatient and outpatient hospital stays in Norway. The main results are that we find very little indication of discrimination with regard to income. This result holds both for males and females. We find some indication of discrimination of men with low education as these men have a lower probability of zero waiting time. We also find a pro educational bias for women; as women with only primary education wait about 9 % (13 %) longer than women with upper secondary (tertiary) education.Health Care Markets; Regulations: Public Health

Service Production and Patient Satisfaction in Primary Care

Context: The institutional setting for the study was the primary physician service in Norway, where there is a regular general practitioner scheme. Each inhabitant has a statutory right to be registered with a regular general practitioner. There are large differences between physicians in service production. Objective: We studied whether difference in services production between physicians has an effect on how satisfied patients are with the services that are provided. Methodology: Data about patient satisfaction were obtained from a survey of a representative sample of the population. We obtained data about how satisfied the respondents were with waiting time to get an appointment and with two aspects of the quality of care they actually received: the amount of time the physician spent with them, and to what extent they perceived that the physician took their medical problems seriously. The survey data were merged with data on service production for the primary physician that the respondent was registered with. Service production was measured as the number of consultations per person on the list, and as the number of laboratory tests per consultation. Results: There was a positive and relatively strong association between the level of service production of the general practitioners and patient satisfaction with waiting time for a consultation. The association was weaker for satisfaction with the quality of care the respondents actually received. Conclusion: A high level of service production can be justified, since it increases patient satisfaction, particularly satisfaction with access to services.primary physician services; patient satisfaction; service production; access

Wage Formation, Regional Migration and Local Labour Market Tightness

Economic theory predicts that local labour market tightness affects local wage setting as well as individuals’ migration decisions. But how should we measure local labour market tightness? In this paper we show that the common practice of using the local rate of unemployment as the tightness indicator may be misplaced. Instead, we propose a human capital adjusted outflow rate from unemployment that can be computed on the basis of micro register data. This outflow rate performs better than traditional measures of regional labour market conditions in panel data analyses of regional wages and interregional migration.Regional wages; interregional migration; labour market tightness

Personalized Search

As the volume of electronically available information grows, relevant items become harder to find. This work presents an approach to personalizing search results in scientific publication databases. This work focuses on re-ranking search results from existing search engines like Solr or ElasticSearch. This work also includes the development of Obelix, a new recommendation system used to re-rank search results. The project was proposed and performed at CERN, using the scientific publications available on the CERN Document Server (CDS). This work experiments with re-ranking using offline and online evaluation of users and documents in CDS. The experiments conclude that the personalized search result outperform both latest first and word similarity in terms of click position in the search result for global search in CDS

For whom are cities good places to live?

In this paper we use survey data to examine heterogeneity in the urban gradient of life satisfaction. Are some sociodemographic groups more satisfied in cities than others? We find that young persons with tertiary education generally report higher levels of life satisfaction in Norway’s largest city, Oslo, whereas the elderly and the less educated are more satisfied elsewhere. These results may shed light on the ‘urban paradox’: the tendency of large cities in developed countries to have low levels of average subjective well-being and also why the received literature has produced mixed results, as the sociodemographic composition of cities varies.acceptedVersio