Have immigrants improved the balance between labour supply and demand in Norway – what may a simple indicator say?

Publisert på Idunn: 2017-09-05. Tidsskriftets publiserte versjon er fritt tilgjengelig i elektronisk format fra publiseringsdato.Årene 2003–2013 var en periode med sterk vekst, men også store konjunktursvingninger i norsk økonomi. En nedgang i arbeidsledighetsraten og vakanseraten over perioden kan skyldes at arbeidsmarkedet i økende grad koblet arbeidsledige personer til ledige jobber (vakanser), og med det ble mer effektivt. Inkludering av nye østeuropeiske land i EU i 2004 og 2007 bidro til økt arbeidsinnvandring. Jeg måler mistilpasning mellom antall ledige stillinger og antall arbeidsledige personer med en enkelt indikator, men langs to dimensjoner: region (fylke) og yrke. Jeg skiller i tillegg mellom innfødte og innvandrere. Indikatoren viser ingen redusert mistilpasning fra 2003 til 2013. Likevel synes mobile arbeidsinnvandrere i en viss forstand å ha tilpasset seg bedre enn bofaste innfødte til etterspørselen etter arbeidskraft i et fylkesoppdelt arbeidsmarked. I et yrkesoppdelt arbeidsmarked var innvandrere, som innfødte, mindre fleksible, og har med sin mer eller mindre gitte kompetanse ikke bidratt til bedre balanse mellom tilbud og etterspørsel etter kvalifisert arbeidskraft.publishedVersio

Noisy signals in target zone regimes theory and Monte Carlo experiments

Previous empirical evidence indicates that uncovered interest rate parity (UIP) does not hold for target zone exchange rates, like those in the European Monetary System and in the Nordic countries. We explore a target zone model where the market inferes the probability of a realignment of the band on the basis of a noisy signal. We show theoretically and through Monte Carlo simulations that if the market overrates the information content in the signal, then this may explain the empirical results obtained from testing UIP for target zone exchange rates. Keywords: Monte Carlo, target zones, uncovered interest parit

Energy demand, carbon emissions and acid rain : consequences of a changing Western Europe

Employing a multisector energy demand model of thirteen Western European countries (SEEM) together with the RAINS model developed by IIASA, we in this report address the question of how much the European economic and political integration process matter for future development in energy demand, emissions to air of key pollutants and transboundary transport of sulphur and nitrogen. We do this by comparing two simulation scenarios; one scenario based on the assumption of further European integration versus another scenario where fragmentation is assumed to prevail. Both scenarios cover the period from 1991 to 2020. The focus of the report is on consequences for future demand for fossil fuels, emissions of CO2, SO2 and NO., and transport and deposition of sulphur and nitrogen. Average annual growth in GDP in the integration scenario is 2.3 per cent, while demand for energy, emissions of CO2, SO2 and NO., and nitrogen deposition all show average annual growth rates from 1.7 to 1.9 per cent. Deposition of sulphur grows at the slightly lower rate of 1.4 per cent per year in this scenario. In the fragmentation scenario all growth rates are reduced by 0.5-0.7 percentage points, except the rate of annual average growth in SO2 emissions which is reduced by 0.8 percentage point. The results vary considerably, however, over countries, sectors and fuel types.This paper is an outcome of the project "Energy scenarios for a changing Europe" carried out at Statistics Norway in cooperation with ECN, The Netherlands. Financial support from Statoil, The Dutch Ministry of Planning and The Norwegian Ministry of Environment is acknowledged

Fiscal policy, macroeconomic performance and industry structure in a small open economy

We analyse how fiscal policy affects both the macroeconomy and the industry structure, using a multi-sector macroeconomic model of the Norwegian economy with an inflation targeting monetary policy. Our simulations show that the government spending multiplier in the case of a permanent expansionary fiscal policy coupled with a Taylor-type interest rate rule is around 1 over a ten-year horizon. The corresponding labour tax multiplier is about 0.5. These multipliers are somewhat larger in the case of a transitory fiscal stimulus. The government spending multiplier, in the case of either a permanent or a transitory fiscal stimulus, is considerably larger than 1 when monetary policy is made accommodative by keeping the interest rate fixed. Our simulations also show that the industry structure is substantially affected by an expansionary fiscal policy, as value added in the non-traded goods sector increases at the expense of value added in the traded goods sector. The contraction of activity in the traded goods sector increases when monetary tightening accompanies the fiscal stimulus. Hence, we find that such a policy mix is likely to produce significant de-industrialisation in a small open economy with inflation targeting

Fiscal policy, macroeconomic performance and industry structure in a small open economy

We analyse how fiscal policy affects both the macroeconomy and the industry structure, using a multi-sector macroeconomic model of the Norwegian economy with an inflation targeting monetary policy. Our simulations show that the magnitude of the government spending and labour tax cut multipliers, whether monetary policy is active or passive, is comparable to what is found in the literature. A novel finding from our simulations is that the industry structure is substantially affected by an expansionary fiscal policy, as value added in the non-traded goods sector increases at the expense of value added in the traded goods sector. Moreover, expansionary fiscal policy reduces the mark-ups in the traded goods sector, while the mark-ups are roughly unchanged in the non-traded goods sector. The contraction of activity in the traded goods sector increases when monetary tightening accompanies the fiscal stimulus. Hence, we find that such a policy mix is likely to produce significant de-industrialization in a small open economy with inflation targeting.publishedVersio

Methane inhibition by Asparagopsis taxiformis with rumen fluid collected from ventral and central location – a pilot study

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Simulating Forward-Looking Models

The solutions of a macroeconometricmodel with expectations of future-dated variables has to be approximated by numerical simulations. A brief review of deterministic and stochastic dynamic simulations of a backward-looking model is followed by a conceptual presentation of methods for dynamic simulations of a forward-looking (rational expectations) model. Detailed numerical methods for solving the models are beyond the scope of this note.publishedVersio

Stochastic simulation of KVARTS91

This report documents stochastic simulations of the quarterly macroeconometric model KVARTS91, implemented in the TROLL software system. By means of stochastic simulation we want to see whether the standard deterministic model solution approximates the expectation of a stochastic model solution, and to quantify (some of) the econometric uncertainty in that stochastic solution. A built-in Stochastic Simulator is used to simulate the model with stochastic residuals and stochastic parameter estimates, assuming normal distributions for the stochastic input. The model is simulated ex ante through 1993 and 1994. The results show less than 1 percent deterministic bias in the endogenous variables. On the other hand do the widths of the simulated (95 percent) prediction intervals vary a lot. But, for most variables the interval widths stay below 10 percent of the level of the variable. The uncertainty in the model solutions imply that an analysis based on stochastic rather than deterministic model simulations may lead to more subtle conclusions. To make stochastic simulation a feasible and realistic alternative to standard deterministic simulation, commands that prepare and govern the stochastic simulation by TROLL's Stochastic Simulator have been collected into macros. Some effort has also been put into the writing of small programs that make the documentation of a stochastic simulation experiment a swift semi-automatic procedure

Have immigrants improved the balance between labour supply and demand in Norway – what may a simple indicator say?

Publisert på Idunn: 2017-09-05. Tidsskriftets publiserte versjon er fritt tilgjengelig i elektronisk format fra publiseringsdato.Årene 2003–2013 var en periode med sterk vekst, men også store konjunktursvingninger i norsk økonomi. En nedgang i arbeidsledighetsraten og vakanseraten over perioden kan skyldes at arbeidsmarkedet i økende grad koblet arbeidsledige personer til ledige jobber (vakanser), og med det ble mer effektivt. Inkludering av nye østeuropeiske land i EU i 2004 og 2007 bidro til økt arbeidsinnvandring. Jeg måler mistilpasning mellom antall ledige stillinger og antall arbeidsledige personer med en enkelt indikator, men langs to dimensjoner: region (fylke) og yrke. Jeg skiller i tillegg mellom innfødte og innvandrere. Indikatoren viser ingen redusert mistilpasning fra 2003 til 2013. Likevel synes mobile arbeidsinnvandrere i en viss forstand å ha tilpasset seg bedre enn bofaste innfødte til etterspørselen etter arbeidskraft i et fylkesoppdelt arbeidsmarked. I et yrkesoppdelt arbeidsmarked var innvandrere, som innfødte, mindre fleksible, og har med sin mer eller mindre gitte kompetanse ikke bidratt til bedre balanse mellom tilbud og etterspørsel etter kvalifisert arbeidskraft.publishedVersio