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.

Educational Attainment and Family Background

This paper analyses the effect of aspects of family background, such as family income and parental education, on the educational attainment of persons born from 1967 to 1972. Family income is measured at different periods of a child’s life to separate longterm versus short-term effects of family income on educational choices. We find that permanent income matters to a certain degree, and that family income when the child is 0-6 years old is an important explanatory variable for educational attainment later in a child’s life. We find that short-term credit constraints have only a small effect on educational attainment. Long term factors, such as permanent family income and parental education are much more important for educational attainment than are shortterm credit constraints. Public interventions to alleviate the effects of family background should thus also be targeted at a child's early years, the shaping period for the cognitive and non-cognitive skills important later in life.credit constraints; education; Norway; family background

Education and Fertility: Evidence from a Natural Experiment

In many developed countries a decline in fertility has occurred. This development has been attributed to greater education of women. However, establishing a causal link is difficult as both fertility and education have changed secularly. The contribution of this paper is to study the connection between fertility and education over a woman’s fertile period focusing on whether the relationship is causal. We study fertility in Norway and use an educational reform as an instrument to correct for selection into education. Our results indicate that increasing education leads to postponement of first births away from teenage motherhood towards having the first birth in their twenties and, for a smaller group, up to the age of 35-40. We do not find, however, evidence that total fertility falls as a result of greater education.Analysis of Education; Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth; Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity

A Fish Is a Fish Is a Fish? Testing for Market Linkages on the Paris Fish Market

This paper applies both the Engle-Granger and Johansen cointegration test procedures to determine the existence of market linkage among high-valued {salmon and turbot) and low-valued (cod) fish species using monthly average wholesale price data recorded on the Paris fish market. We find that the price of salmon is determined exogenously to the system of prices examined and that the market for salmon is not linked to the markets for turbot or cod.Cointegration, market linkages, salmon price, Demand and Price Analysis, Environmental Economics and Policy,

A Flying Start? Long Term Consequences of Maternal Time Investments in Children During Their First Year of Life

We study the impact on children of increasing the time that the mother spends with her child in the first year by exploiting a reform that increased paid and unpaid maternity leave in Norway. The reform increased maternal leave on average by 4 months and family income was unaffected. The increased time with the child led to a 2.7 percentage points decline in high school dropout. For mothers with low education we find a 5.2 percentage points decline. The effect is especially large for children of mothers who prior to the reform, would take very low levels of unpaid leave.employment; income; family; education

Technological change and the tragedy of the commons: the Lofoten fishery over hundred and thirty years

Why did the Lofoten cod fishery in Norway – a fishery on one of the world’s richest spawning grounds - remain less productive than alternative industries until the mid-1960s, despite important modernization of the fleet and fishing gear, improvements in technology and institutional change? We analyze the effect of technological change on labor and total factor productivity as well as exit and entry patterns using detailed data for 130 years. Our findings support the important role of natural resources in productivity and improvements in welfare in natural resource-based industries. The total factor productivity has risen faster than labor productivity in the fishery, indicating that the considerable technological progress in this industry has to some extent been neutralized by the decline in the fish stock. Open access to the fish resource most probably led to this situation

Wage structure and labor mobility in Norway 1980-1997

To what extent do different firms follow different wage policies? How do such policies affect worker mobility between firms, and what are the effects of different wage bargaining regimes? The empirical branch of personnel economics has long been hampered by a lack of representative data sets. Norway is one of a handful of countries that has produced rich linked employer-employee data suitable for such analysis. This paper has three parts. First, we describe the wage setting and employment protection institutions in Norway. Next, we describe the Norwegian data sets. Finally, we document a large number of stylized facts regarding wage structure and labour mobility within and between Norwegian firms. Our main data set covers white-collar workers in the manufacturing and private sectors for the period 1980-1997. We also have blue-collar data for the 1986-1997 period covering the core of the manufacturing sector. Information about occupations, monthly wages, hours worked and bonuses is available, as well as various worker and firm characteristics

Insurance against Income Shocks, Parental Investments, and Child Development

Faced with income shocks, households may be unable to smooth their consumption, because of limited insurance possibilities. Likewise, it may also be difficult to smooth investments in children. This could have large consequences for their human capital if there are sensitive periods of learning, or if investments are not perfect substitutes over time. In this paper we estimate the impact of transitory and permanent shocks to household income in different periods of childhood on the human capital of their children, using administrative records from Norway. Across outcomes, the impacts of transitory and permanent shocks are largely similar regardless of the age at which they occur, with a few exceptions (small in magnitude). The impact of transitory shocks is larger for college enrolment and obesity if these shocks occur at earlier ages. The impacts of permanent shocks on high school graduation are larger the later in childhood they occur

Fertility, Partner Choice, and Human Capital

This paper generates new insights into the effect of education on fertility and partner choice across multiple generations. Using an intensity-of-treatment design, we leverage population-wide panel data for Norway in combination with a school reform in the 1930s, changing the instruction time during the school year in rural municipalities. The reform was binding for most of the rural population and allows us to estimate the effect of education on fertility behavior across the life-cycle, partner choice, and spillover effects on the next generation’s fertility. We present robust evidence of reduced total fertility and an increase in the age at first birth driven by increased years of education, better labor market outcomes, and mating with better-educated partners. In addition, the reform also affected the fertility behavior of the children and decreased fertility rates across multiple generations

A flying start? Maternity leave benefits and long-run outcomes of children

We study a change in maternity leave entitlements in Norway. Mothers giving birth before July 1, 1977, were eligible for 12 weeks of unpaid leave, while those giving birth after that date were entitled to 4 months of paid leave and 12 months of unpaid leave. The increased time spent with the child led to a 2 percentage point decline in high school dropout rates and a 5 percent increase in wages at age 30. These effects were larger for the children of mothers who, in the absence of the reform, would have taken very low levels of unpaid leave.publishedVersio