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

Interdisciplinary operational decisions in the subsurface domain: An exploratory discussion of information requirements and support from integrated technologies

-Denne rapporten utforsker mulighetene innen IO når det gjelder potensialet for å støtte operasjonelle beslutningsprosesser i reservoardomenet. Utgangspunktet er at modellerings og simuleringsteknologi i dag først og fremst brukes for beslutninger med lengre horisonter f.eks. reservoar og geomodell. Reservoar-, og geoinformasjon inngår ofte i operasjonelle beslutninger f.eks. under boring men real time data tilbakeføres i liten grad til modeller og simuleringer. Denne rapporten gir et glimt av den ”informasjonsøkologien” evt nye verktøy i retning av ”closed loop reservoir management” må forholde seg til om de skal bevege seg inn i det tverrfaglige operasjonelle domenet. Rapporten er dels en teoretisk diskusjon og dels basert på uformelle intervjuer og besøk i undergrunnsmiljøer i StatoilHydro

Financial Instability and Banking Crises in a small open economy

The present paper seeks to investigate the importance of financial instability during four banking crises, with focus on the small open economy of Norway. The crises elaborated on are the Post First world war crisis of the early 1920s, the mid 1920s Monetary crisis, the Great Depression of the 1930s and the Scandinavian banking crisis of 1987-1993. The paper firstly offers a brief description of the financial instability hypothesis as applied by Minsky, Kindleberger, and in a new explicit dynamic financial crisis model. Financial instability creation basically happens in times of overheating, overspending and over lending, i.e., during significant booms, and have devastating effects after markets have turned into a state of crises. Thereafter, the paper tests the validity of the financial instability hypothesis by using a quantitative structural time series model. The test reveals upheaval of financial and macroeconomic indicators prior to the crises, making the economy overheat and create asset bubbles due to huge growth in debt. These conditions caused the following banking crises. Finally, the four crises are discussed qualitatively. The conclusion is that significant increase in money supply and debt caused overheating, asset bubbles and finally financial and banking crises which spread to the real economy

En analyse av strukturerte produkter i det svenske markedet

Strukturerte produkter består av en kombinasjon av flere finansielle instrumenter som kan skape unike investeringsobjekter. Produktene kan ha egenskaper som du ikke får ved direkte kjøp av aksjer, obligasjoner eller andre enkeltinvesteringer. Kompleksiteten er varierende og det kan være krevende for investorer både å forstå og verdsette produktene selv. I denne masterutredningen har vi vist hvordan vi verdsetter elleve ulike strukturerte produkter i det svenske markedet. Vi har videre analysert sannsynlighetsfordelingene til avkastningen og beregnet forventet avkastning for produktene. Verdsettelsen vår viser at de fleste produkter har en nåverdi mellom 90-100% av totalt investert beløp, hvor noen av produktene gir kunden høyere verdi enn 100%. Produktene gir en forventet avkastning mellom 4-9%, som er høyere enn risikofrirente i denne perioden. Sannsynligheten for å få høyere avkastning enn risikofri rente varierer mellom 50-90%

Do prices reflect short-term output fluctuations? : empirical evidence from a small open raw material based economy

Within the framework of Keynesian economic theory it is widely taken for granted that short term output fluctuations are mirrored in corresponding fluctuations in prices. By examining data on prices and output for a small open raw material based economy, in this case Norway, 1830-2006, this paper concludes that there isn't a clear positive correlation between prices and output. Contrary, there is more evidence of a counter-cyclical relationship, indicating that business cycles are more frequently caused by supply-side shocks than demand side shocks. However, negative demand shocks normally seem to cause lagged negative price responses

Offshore Industries as Growth Sector: The Norwegian Case

Writers on Norwegian economic history often claim that marine and maritime industries, i.e., the offshore sector, played a major role for value creation in the Norwegian economy for centuries. However, little has been done to quantify the sector’s contribution to the economy. The present paper seeks to quantify the size of the key offshore industries compared to GDP and exports. To do so it has been necessary to draw on new historical national account calculations in addition to compute several new series. Based on these calculations we find that the offshore sector made up a significant and important part of Norwegian GDP, and a dominant part of exports, 1816-2021. The key offshore industries were first fishing, thereafter ocean transport, and finally petroleum extraction. The sector’s overall size of the Norwegian economy has been quite stable in a long-term perspective, but with an increasing GDP share after the takeoff of oil and gas extraction from the continental shelf in the 1970s

Prisdannelse i lufttransportmarkedet i Norge : en undersøkelse av prisutviklingen på konkurranseutsatte ruter

Denne masteroppgaven omhandler prisdannelse i lufttransportmarkedet i Norge. Nordmenn er de som reiser mest i Norden og hvordan prisen settes er relevant skal man forsøke å forstå når man bør bestille sin flyreise for å få den billigst mulig. Noen har høyere betalingsvillighet enn andre og disse er gjerne mer tidssensitive enn prissensitive. Vi har i oppgaven fokusert hovedsakelig på Norwegians og SAS’ billigste serviceklasser, henholdsvis LowFare og Economy da det er på disse vi forventet flest endringer i prisen. For å svare på vår problemstilling har vi benyttet en kvantitativ forskningsmetode. Vi begynte datainnsamlingen med å velge oss ut to avreisedatoer og 30 ruter hos SAS og Norwegian som vi ville observere. Den første avreisedatoen var 1. mars og den neste var 27. mars. To ganger om dagen fra den 25. januar sjekket vi prisene på de utvalgte rutene. Dette ga oss over 10 000 prisobservasjoner på LowFare og Economy alene. I tillegg registrerte vi også prisene på de øvrige serviceklassene Flex, Economy Flex og Economy Full Flex. Begrunnelsen bak avreisedatoene er grunnet i at vi ville ha prisobservasjoner der avreise var en normal hverdag samt en avreisedag som var påvirket av en ekstern faktor: påskeferien. Vi så at det var tilbudt færre avganger i snitt den 27. mars og vi antok derfor at dette ville gjøre billettene dyrere. Rutene vi har valgt ut er blant de 30 største rutene i Norge, og på bortimot alle konkurrerer SAS og Norwegian jevnbyrdig. Med andre ord tilbøy de avganger som går relativt nært hverandre. Vi følte denne konkurransefaktoreren var viktig da vi ville se hvordan prisutviklingen til de respektive selskapene var i en konkurransesituasjon. For å teste opp mot dette registrerte vi også priser på monopolruten til både SAS og Norwegian, henholdsvis Oslo - Kristiansund og Oslo - Bardufoss

Ethics, resource rent, environment and petroleum policy: the case of a small open economy

This paper contributes to the understanding of how the environment, ethics, values, and historical contingencies shape public policy. It explains the accomplishment of petroleum resource management in the small open economy of Norway. The study is conducted by mapping policy decisions and the arguments behind them regarding environmental and ethical issues. This is done by studying available governmental and parliamentary papers along with statements from politicians and central governmental officials. The paper also seeks to illuminate some of the decisions by quantitative measures. The paper firstly describes a model of Ricardian resource rent. Secondly, it investigates the set of values that were in place before the petroleum production started in the 1970s, as described in public documents. An important argument was to build a “qualitatively better society” for the benefit of the people. Thirdly, it traces the historical roots of these values by examining historical sources. The main findings are that success lies in understanding the ethics behind the environmental resource rent harvesting of this non-renewable natural resource. The paper concludes that the focus on the natural environment and resource rent management can be attributed to popular values built on historical traditions. According to them, the state and the trust between the state and its citizens played key roles in shaping the policy. The careful policy can be illustrated by the fact that Norway has managed to build one of the largest sovereign funds in the world worth USD 1,200 billion for use by future generations. Only 3% of its value, significantly less than its historical net profit, should be used annually.publishedVersio

Norske børshandlede produkter: en analyse av ETN og ETF

Masteroppgave i bedriftsøkonomi - Nord universitet, 201

Situated with Infrastructures: Interactivity and Entanglement in Sensor Data Interpretation

This paper elaborates on situatedness as an empirical phenomenon in computer-mediated settings. It is based on studies of petroleum engineers and how they work with digital sensor data. We show how their work practices are born out of a history of constitutive entanglement with specific types of sensors, the data they produce, and the information systems that process them. This entanglement arises from interaction between humans, technology, and the oil reservoir and is a fundamental aspect of the situations in which interpretative work occurs. We empirically show how different sensors in the petroleum production systems produce data in interaction with their surroundings, and that these data are creatively “stretched” to represent subsurface phenomena. When groups of engineers collaborate remotely with colleagues to make sense of problematic data, entanglement with specific II’s is an important aspect of situatedness. The situationally particular in these settings is not as much a matter of locations as of histories of interaction with specific technologies. The notion of situatedness has been pivotal in stressing the importance of the particular circumstances in which work is performed. It has throughout its history been a counterweight to rationalistic accounts of work and the focus on design of standardized work processes. Here we show that patterns of interaction with specific information infrastructures make up a crucial part of situated work and that these may have non-local dimensions