Analysing Place and Place‐making: Urbanization in Suburban Oslo

Despite developments within planning theory challenging the ideal of the rational master plan it may be argued that there is still use for the production of knowledge through analysis in planning. However, the cultural complexity of today's planning contexts, and a move towards governance and entrepreneurial policies, makes it difficult to make places, to achieve social welfare and sustainability. Traditionally, the analysis of places has been done by architects and planners focusing on physical form, having an essentialist perspective of place resembling the theory of genius loci. In Norway, the planning authorities refined this methodology in the 1990s. This approach is, however, not in tune with a progressive view of places as multiple and dynamic social constructions, and may be accused of ‘symbolic violence’. If one is to take this view seriously and still be able to make plans, planning must also be based on other types of knowledge. In this article I argue for a socio‐cultural approach to reveal social representations and practices that make a place. I use the case of place‐making in Sandvika, a suburban ‘minicity’ outside Oslo, as an example of how a constructivist understanding differs from and may supplement an essentialist approach.     

BANKRUPTCY DISCRIMINATION WITH REAL VARIABLES

This paper reconsiders the accepted usage of nondeflated financial ratios in statistical models to differentiate between failed and nonfailed firms. Non-deflated ratios are hypothesized to inadequately reflect inter-temporal macroeconomic fluctuations that affect the ability of firm's to survive. Using a sample of 124 oil and gas companies between the period 1982–1988, the going concern assumption is evaluated with statistical logit models using either nondeflated or deflated financial ratios. Deflated company ratios are created by transforming data with price indices or by creating market value ratios. Empirical results suggest that a superior bankruptcy early warning model is developed for the oil and gas industry by creating real financial and reserve ratios and by introducing external factors, such as oil prices, interest rates and accounting method, as independent predictors. Overall classification accuracy is approximately 95 percent.     

Using traffic data to estimate wildlife populations

Wildlife populations are threatened worldwide by, among others, habitat fragmentation and hunting pressure. An important impediment for the large scale, national and regional, management of the populations is the difficulty to quantify population dynamics. The purpose of this study is to present a tool for such estimations which is based on available data in several countries; traffic load and traffic accidents with wildlife. An econometric model is developed, which accounts for landscape characteristics. It is applied to wild boar in Sweden, for which data on traffic load and accidents for different counties and years are available. Landscape characteristics are introduced with direct or indirect effects on population growth. The indirect landscape model gives the best statistical performance, and the results show relatively small differences in calculated intrinsic growth rate among counties but considerable differences in predicted population developments.     

Globalization and school enrollment in a panel of countries

As the process of globalization has gained momentum in the past few decades, so too has interest in the effects of globalization on various socioeconomic outcomes grown. In this paper, I investigate the relationship between globalization and primary school enrollment. Both the economic globalization and social globalization measures from the KOF Index of Globalization are utilized in the analysis in order to capture the broad nature of globalization. The results of the panel data analysis indicate that there is a weak relationship between economic globalization and primary school enrollment, whereas the relationship between social globalization and primary school enrollment is both robust and highly significant. Examining the data by groups of countries indicates that relationship between economic globalization and school enrollment is positive and significant in Latin America and the Caribbean and in Asia, while it is weakly negative in Eastern Europe. The positive relationship between social globalization and school enrollment on the other hand is driven by countries in Latin America and the Caribbean and the Middle East and Africa.     

Econometric Evaluation of the New Keynesian Phillips Curve*

We give an appraisal of the New Keynesian Phillips curve (NPCM) as an empirical model of European inflation. The favourable evidence for NPCMs on euro‐area data reported in earlier studies is shown to depend on specific choices made about estimation methodology. The NPCM can be re‐interpreted as a highly restricted equilibrium correction model. We also report the outcome of tests based on variable addition and encompassing of existing models. The results show that economists should not accept the NPCM too readily.     

Meddelelse fra bedømmelseskomiteen for den av de nordiske aktuarforeninger opstillede prisopgave

Abstract

I 1922 besluttede de nordiske aktuarforeninger å utskrive en priskonkurranse for et arbeide på aktuarvidenskapens område, og undertegnede blev av de enkelte foreninger opnevnt til redaksjonskomite for opgaven og til bedømmelseskomite for eventuelle besvarelser.     

Mortality investigation among persons whose applications for insurance have heen rejected

Abstract

Extract

Life insurance companies are interested III investigations of the mortality among that group of applicants whose applications for insurance, for health reasons, have not been accepted. The compa. nies thereby obtain material enabling them to decide whether their rejection policy during a period has been too strict or not, and on which points, if any, the selection of risks can be liberalized.     

Twin Data vs. Longitudinal Data to Control for Unobserved Variables in Earnings Functions – Which Are the Differences?*

This paper compares two different approaches empirically to control for unobserved characteristics when estimating the effect of marriage on male and female earnings: the longitudinal and the twins approach. The estimates were obtained by exploiting the longitudinal dimension of a large sample of Swedish twins, so that longitudinal and twin‐based estimates could be obtained in the same sample. The two approaches lead to different conclusions both regarding the role of unobserved characteristics in the cross‐sectional earnings–marriage relationship and the effect of marriage on earnings. The paper investigates three potential explanations of this difference.     

Measuring financial performance on dairy farms

The motivation for this paper was to improve the information provided by the extension service for dairy farming. Databases as the Norwegian Dairy Financial Recording (NDFR) are commonly used for comparative analysis of farms. In the present paper, the problems related to these comparisons are discussed. Four different measures of financial performance are presented. The measures are; the gross margin, extended gross margin, and two different efficiency indexes based on use of data envelopment analysis (DEA). All four measures have advantages and disadvantages. The two gross margins are suitable for ranking farms when evaluating the impact of operative management variables, e.g., disease and miscellaneous welfare enhancing inputs on performance. However, efficiency indexes, which are estimated as ratios of actual and maximum output, given inputs, are more suitable when evaluating the impact of strategic management variables, e.g., concentrate or roughage per litre milk produced on performance.