Discussion papers (SAM): Recent submissions
Now showing items 401-420 of 658
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Education and fertility : evidence from a natural experiment
(Discussion paper, Working paper, 2008-04)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 ... -
The welfare economics of global public goods
(Discussion paper, Working paper, 2007-11)This paper studies the conditions for a welfare-maximizing allocation of resources to the production of global public goods, such as biodiversity, the global climate, the cultural heritage, knowledge, and world peace. A ... -
Competition and quality in regulated markets: a differential-game approach
(Discussion paper, Working paper, 2008-02)We investigate the effect of competition on quality in regulated markets (e.g., health care, higher education, public utilities) taking a differential game approach, in which quality is a stock variable. Using a Hotelling ... -
Habit formation, strategic extremism and debt policy
(Discussion paper, Working paper, 2007-12)We suggest a probabilistic voting model where voters’ preferences for alternative public goods display habit formation. Current policies determine habit levels and in turn the future preferences of the voters. This allows ... -
Beyond trade costs : firms' endogenous access to international markets
(Discussion paper, Working paper, 2007-10)In this paper we argue that the level of access to international markets by firms is related not only to exogenous factors such as trade costs, but also to endogenous factors such as strategic competition on R&D. In ... -
Regulation, generic competition and pharmaceutical prices : theory and evidence from a natural experiment
(Discussion paper, Working paper, 2007-12)We study the impact of regulatory regimes on generic competition and pharmaceutical pricing using a unique policy experiment in Norway, where reference pricing (RP) replaced price cap regulation in 2003 for a sub-sample ... -
Gasoline prices jump up on Mondays : an outcome of aggressive competition?
(Discussion paper, Working paper, 2008-03)This paper examines Norwegian gasoline pump prices using daily station-specific observations from March 2003 to March 2006. Whereas studies that have analyzed similar price cycles in other countries find support for the ... -
Pay and performance in a call centre : principals and agents or principally angels?
(Discussion paper, Working paper, 2007-11)We use data from a pay reform in an insurance company to contrast different theories of work motivations. The management installed performance pay to boost sales in the customer service centre of the company. The reform ... -
FDI, R&D and endogenous competitiveness
(Discussion paper, Working paper, 2008-01)We analyze the influence of endogenous competitiveness on multinational activity. Competitiveness is endogenized by assuming that firms differ on R&D commitment power, i.e.: some firms are leaders in R&D. We show that ... -
Social security and future generations
(Discussion paper, Working paper, 2007-12)We survey the effects of social security in the form of mandatory public pension programs on the intergenerational distribution of tax burdens, income, various risks and welfare. The first part considers basic theoretical ... -
Licensing technology and foreclosure
(Discussion paper, Working paper, 2007-10)We consider an industry where one firm with a superior technology competes for market shares with several rivals. The owner of the superior technology (the dominant firm) can license or transfer the source of its ... -
Should governments help winners or losers?
(Discussion paper, Working paper, 2007-10)One central result in the strategic trade literature is that governments should not support domestic ”losers” but domestic ”winners”. We show that when first-mover advantages are taken into account, the reverse holds, ... -
A journey for your beautiful mind : economics graduate study and research
(Discussion paper, Working paper, 2007-09)A lecture to graduate students of the joint Economics Ph.D. program of the Department of Economics, University of Bergen, and the Norwegian School of Economics. -
Optimal agricultural policy and PSE measurement : an assessment and application to Norway
(Discussion paper, Working paper, 2007-10)The producer support estimate (the successor to the producer support equivalent) calculated by the OECD is widely used as an indicator of distortions created by agricultural policies. In this paper we demonstrate that ... -
Comparative advantage or discrimination? : studying male-female wage differentials using displaced workers
(Discussion paper, Working paper, 2007-09)We examine differences in search behavior between men and women using data on displaced workers. We find that men and women have similar search duration once we limit our estimation to women with a constant number of ... -
What money can buy? : three centuries of Norwegian wage and price development
(Discussion paper, Working paper, 2007-10)On the basis of newly utilized data from one of the largest manual historical archives on wages and prices internationally and unpublished data from Statistics Norway this article offers new wage and price series for ... -
A benchmark value for relative prudence
(Discussion paper, Working paper, 2007-10)In this paper we propose benchmark values for the coefficients of relative risk aversion and relative prudence on the basis of a binary choice model where the decision maker chooses between aggregating or disaggragatin ... -
Adapt or withdraw? :evidence on technological changes and early retirement using matched worker-firm data
(Discussion paper, Working paper, 2007-08)Older workers typically possess older vintages of skills than younger workers, and they may suffer more from technological change. Experienced workers never the less have accumulated human capital that make them suitable ... -
Small family, smart family? : family size and the IQ scores of young men
(Discussion paper, Working paper, 2007-08)How do families influence the ability of children? Cognitive skills have been shown to be a strong predictor of educational attainment and future labor market success; as a result, understanding the determinants of ... -
Older and wiser? : birth order and IQ of young men
(Discussion paper, Working paper, 2007-08)While recent research finds strong evidence that birth order affects children’s outcomes such as education and earnings, the evidence on the effects of birth order on IQ is decidedly mixed. This paper uses a large dataset ...