Unemployment duration and unemployment insurance: a comparative analysis based on Scandinavian micro data

Based on pooled register data from Norway and Sweden, we findthat differences in unemployment duration patterns reflect dissimilaritiesin unemployment insurance (UI) systems in a way that convincinglyestablishes the link between economic incentives and job searchbehaviour. Specifically, UI benefits are relatively more generousfor low-income workers in Sweden than in Norway, leading torelatively longer unemployment spells for low-income workersin Sweden. Based on the between-countries variation in replacementratios, we find that the elasticity of the outflow rate frominsured unemployment with respect to the replacement ratio isapproximately one in Norway and 0.5 in Sweden.     

The development of real wages in Norway about 1730–1910

Abstract

Prior to about 1850, the classes in Norway living in households where the living standard of household members was wholly or largely determined by the size of an annual wage paid in cash were numerically speaking marginal. In 1801, for example, the aggregate urban population of Norway formed no more than about 10% of the country's total population of 883,000. During the industrial revolution in Norway the subsistence economy was to a large extent replaced by the cash economy, but around 1910 about 360,000 of the occupationally active total of 880,000 were still employed in primary occupations.     

Nordic Lessons from Exchange Rate Regimes

The Nordic countries of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden share common history, culture and institutions. Four, with the exception of Finland, have languages that stem from a common root. Yet the five countries have chosen different paths when it comes to membership in international organizations. Denmark, Iceland and Norway became founding members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization while Finland and Sweden decided to stay neutral. Denmark, Sweden and Finland belong to the European Union while Iceland and Norway only belong to the European Single Market. Only Finland of the three European Union member countries has adopted the euro as its currency, Denmark has a fixed exchange rate against the euro and Sweden has a floating exchange rate regime. Yet, in spite of different monetary regimes, the economic performance in recent decades is quite similar, casting doubt on the importance of the exact regime chosen.     

高端航运服务业的不同模式及对上海的启示

高端航运服务业可以分为两种模式,一种是以市场交易为特征的伦敦模式,另一种是正在形成中的以知识经济为主的新加坡、挪威模式。文章分析了两种模式的不同特点,认为伦敦模式更多地是航运业和金融业结合,新加坡、挪威模式更多地是航运业和先进制造业相结合。上海在发展高端航运服务业的过程中,除了学习伦敦模式,大力发展航运金融、海上保险等之外,还可以利用已有雄厚的制造业基础和技术创新能力,大力发展海洋研发,在海洋技术上占据制高点。     

Purchasing Power of Labour: Norwegian Real Wages, 1726–2006

Abstract

By utilizing data from one of the largest international historical archives on wages and prices, this article offers new nominal and real wage series for Norway, 1726–2006. These serve as measures for the purchasing power of labour as input to production. The new series cover all main industries and thereby enables solid conclusions. The new series challenge existing views on the development of the purchasing power of labour in Norway during the last three centuries.     

Clé Lesger,The Rise of the Amsterdam Market and Information Exchange – Merchants,Commercial Expansion and Change in the Spatial Economy of the Low Countries,c.1550–1630

Abstract

Between 1930 and 1935, Sverre Steen wrote four volumes of Det norske folks liv og historie [The Life and History of the Norwegian People], covering the period 1500–1814. He has now half completed the task of bringing the work further towards our own time in a comprehensive series entitled ‘Free Norway’. The first three volumes are devoted to political history in the period immediately following 1814. In this, the fourth volume, entitled ‘The Old Society’, Steen examines the social and economic history of the period 1814–1840. Both the title and the arrangement of the book indicate that Steen's intention is to provide a survey of the foundations of Norwegian society before continuing his work in further volumes, not only about ‘Free Norway’, but also about ‘New Norway’.     

The grain trade in northern Europe before 1350

A network of interregional grain routes extended across northern Europe in the century before 1350. With an interlude from c . 1310 to 1330 English grain was shipped to western Norway and the last decades before 1350 witnessed increasing English deliveries to the Netherlands. The most important of these commercial links were the grain routes from Mecklenburg, Pomerania, and Prussia to Norway, England, and the Netherlands established on a regular basis c . 1300. In western Europe the Baltic grain deliveries were an alternative source of supply which affected prices, urbanization, and the profitability of arable farming.     

Norwegian clergy

Abstract

The purpose of this important book is, in the words of the author, 'to throw light on the Norwegian clergy as a social group' in nineteenth century Norway. Dr. Mannsaker emphasizes that, as implied by the local and temporal definition of his subject, his approach is historical rather than sociological or demographic. This means that he is interested not primarily in the most general aspects of his subject, but in those which are peculiar to conditions in Norway in the historical period under consideration.     

Influence of oil prices on stock market indexes in Russia and Norway

The effects of oil price dynamics on share quotations are discussed in the paper for the 2000–2012 period for two oil exporting countries—Russia and Norway. It has been shown, using a vector autoregressive model, that, in spite of intuitive expectations, oil prices have not been a systematic risk factor for Russian and Norwegian stock market indices. In Norway, share quotations definitely responded to the dynamics of the US dollar exchange rate relative to the world’s main currencies and the S&P 500 stock index, as well as to fluctuations in the global and domestic interest rates, although to a lesser degree. In Russia, share quotations are practically exclusively affected by their own shocks (a factor that is explained by some specific features characterizing Russia’s major public companies).     

Electrification and industrialisation: An assessment of the industrial breakthrough in Norway

Abstract

The article relates the ‘industrial breakthrough’ in Norway to the introduction of electricity in manufacturing production. Viewing electricity as a General Purpose Technology (GPT), the new device fostered advances across a broad spectrum of sectors. Several other key technologies (e.g., within chemical industries) also played their part. However, in Norway, electricity took an extraordinarily strong position. By presenting quantitative evidence of the electrification process, and relating it to annual estimates of employment, productivity and value added between 1896 and 1920, it is shown that the manufacturing sector was too small to form a ‘breakthrough’ before the turn of the century. It was not until the widespread introduction of electricity and electric motors gained some momentum in the first decades of the twentieth century that the economy become really industrialised.     

The Norwegian market for British Shipbuilding, 1945–1967

Abstract

The British Shipbuilding industry experienced a process of both competitive and comparative decline during the period 1945 to 1967 — when the world market for ships was at its most vibrant. The present article seeks to analyse this decline through an examination of the loss of the industry's most important export market — Norway. It is argued that issues such as price, failure to meet delivery dates and to offer competitive credit terms, were all factors in British shipbuilding's loss of market share in Norway. Ultimately British shipbuilders retained a production oriented strategy in a market which was being revolutionised in both structural and technological terms. The failure to adopt a marketing oriented strategy, therefore, underpinned the failure of the British shipbuilding industry in the Norwegian market and would also account for its failure in the domestic market.     

The transition from tenancy to freehold peasant ownership in Norway

Abstract

Already in the late seventeenth century many tenant farmers in Norway were buying their farms, and it has been held that by about 1750 freeholders were in the majority in the country.     

Are children poor men's riches?

Abstract

Extract

Fertility declined fairly simultaneously in most western countries nearly a century ago. The question of which social groups were early in starting the decline is thought to have been answered: the common assertion is that the highest social groups started to control their fertility and, as time passed, that their new reproductive behaviour percolated down through the social layers. The current project on the secular decline in fertility in Norway has revealed that the families at the very top of the social hierarchy were the national pioneers in family limitation. The hypothesis in this article is, however, that family limitation in Norway also had an independent point of departure in the rural lower classes. In this article, I will therefore challenge the ‘general truth’ that there is always an inverse relationship between fertility and social status in the initial phase of the secular decline in fertility.     

Land ownership in the nordic countries

Abstract

The article examines the relationship between the Norwegian State and international cartels and trusts in the interwar years. In this period, Norway was at the forefront with regard to implementing legislation regulating cartels, yet the legislation was not an antitrust legislation in the modern sense. It was aimed not only at protecting consumer interests, but more importantly at defending domestic businesses against foreign monopolies and cartels. In the article we examine how the Norwegian authorities interacted with international cartels and trusts in seven different cases in the interwar period. The study shows that although there was a deep seated scepticism towards concentration of market power in Norway, cartels received support from the Norwegian government when they were deemed to be beneficial to Norwegian economic interests. The legislation was used to foster the development of domestic cartels, while at the same time it was employed as a tool to limit the operations of foreign cartels and trusts.     

De noordse economische integratie

Summary The post-war attempts to achieve a Nordic regional economic integration have not yet been successful, partly as a result of the establishment of the European Free Trade Association. These attempts were apparently shelved when two of the four Nordic countries — Denmark and Norway — applied for a membership of the European Common Market. However pending the negotiations for entry to the EEC, a draft Treaty for the establishment of the Organization for Nordic Economic Co-operation (Nordec) was drawn up on the instruction of the governments of the Nordic countries. In this paper the possible effects of this regional Nordic Common Market, when established, are briefly analyzed. The author also investigates the increase in intra-Nordic trade since EFTA was created. In view of the interprenetation of Nordic trade flows resulting from EFTA, it is highly unlikely, that Sweden could remain outside a large, integrated European market, which Denmark and Norway had joined.      

The economic impact of the Russian import ban: a CGE analysis

The aim of this paper is to assess the economic impact of the Russian embargo from 7 August 2014 on certain agricultural food products from the EU, the USA, Norway, Canada and Australia. The effects of this economic sanction are analysed in the framework of a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model with a particular focus on bilateral and total exports, production and welfare. The detailed, based on real trade data, calibration of the model allows for an exact identification of the sectoral shares and prohibitive tariffs aggregated to match the CGE model’s sectoral level of aggregation. In addition, the paper carries on a validation exercise to compare the model’s predictions with real trade data developments. The modelling simulation results show that the impact of the ban on total exports of the EU, the USA, Norway, Canada and Australia is limited. Nevertheless at a disaggregate level there are sectors – ‘vegetables and fruits’, ‘other meat’ and ‘dairy products’ – which experience two digit percentage change declines.     

南特伦德拉格 远在北极的美丽

2007年6月，重庆市与挪威南特伦德拉格郡正式缔结友好市／郡关系。此间双方在教育、科技、环保等领域开展了广泛的交流和合作，使两座相隔遥远的城市成为天涯咫尺的近邻。     

Landowners and tenants in Norway

Abstract

During the past two decades Norwegian historical research has to a considerable extent been concentrated on problems connected with the peculiar nature of the distribution of landownership in Norway before 1661, in which year the king of Denmark and Norway embarked upon a large-scale selling of Crown lands and secularised ecclesiastical estates. The results of the investigations so far carried out have for the most part been published only in parish or other local histories or in short articles in Norwegian periodicals, especially in Heimen, the organ of Norwegian local historians. It is only quite recently that a more comprehensive work has been published in this field, Halvard Bjørkvik's Jordeige og jordleige i Ryfylke i eldre tid.¹ In the present article I propose first to review this book and then to supplement it with a survey of the results of earlier research.     

Certain socioeconomic problems of development of the Arctic territories

The article discusses general problems of sustainable socioeconomic development on the foreign and Russian Arctic territories. We revealed examples of the Arctic territories where the best results in balanced socioeconomic development are achieved, i.e., Iceland, the northern provinces of Norway, and Sweden. The main challenges and risks for sustainable development of the Russian Arctic zone are indicated.     

Revising price history: consumer price index for Norway 1492–2018

ABSTRACT

The paper presents a new combined annual cost of living and consumer price index for Norway covering 1492–2018, indicating that Norwegian price history has to be revised. The new historical price index is constructed on a significantly richer data material, which also makes it cover a longer period of price history than the existing one. This is made possible by the compilation of quantitative data from numerous sources, mostly originating from the eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with grain prices stretching back to 1492. The new combined cost of living and consumer price index is constructed by a Laspeyres approach with shifting baskets for commodities and expenditure groups.

The index makes it possible to follow annual inflation and deflation in Norway for a period of 526 years. When comparing to existing indices, the new series reveals that revisions are needed in Norwegian price history. These make the historical price development more in line with those of the neighbouring countries and more in line with the pattern of wholesale prices.