A normative foundation for equity‐sensitive health evaluation: The role of relative comparisons of health gains

We explore in this paper the relationship between equity‐sensitive population health evaluation measures and normative concerns for relative comparisons of health gains. Such a relationship allows us to characterize focal equity‐sensitive models for the evaluation of population health. Instances are the so‐called multiplicative Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALYs) and multiplicative Healthy Years Equivalents (HYEs), as well as generalizations of the two. Our axiomatic approach assumes social preferences over distributions of individual health states experienced in a given period of time. It conveys informational simplicity, as it does not require information about individual preferences on health.     

When Preferences for a Stable Interest Rate Become Self‐Defeating

Monetary policymakers often seem to have preferences for a stable interest rate, in addition to stable inflation and output. In this paper, we investigate the implications of having an interest rate level term in the loss function when the policymaker lacks commitment technology. We show that such preferences may become self‐defeating, in the sense that they generate a less stable interest rate than in the case without preferences for interest rate stability.     

Transitions From School to Work and the Early Labour Market Experience

We consider transitions from school to work and the early market experience. The duration of post-school unemployment, wages, and job duration are estimated simultaneously. We find that individuals with higher levels ofschooling get jobs more quickly and have longer employment durations. Apprentices have shorter unemployment periods and stay longer in their jobs than others at the same educational level. Females have shorter unemployment periods and lower wages, and also stay in the first job longer. The unemployment duration and the accepted wage affect job duration positively, but the estimated covariance terms suggest unobserved factors working in the opposite direction.     

Remote operation in environmentally sensitive areas: development of early warning indicators

Exploration and production of oil and gas in certain sensitive areas such as the Barents Sea and Lofoten is controversial and further expansion depends on the ability to avoid harmful spills. One way of improving the ability to avoid such spills is to use early warning indicators. The objective of the work presented in this paper is to describe and compare strengths and weaknesses of different approaches for the development of early warning indicators. The approaches that have been compared are: safety performance-based methods; risk-based methods; incident-based methods; and resilience-based methods. There are pros and cons with all methods. All methods are very favorable with respect to some characteristics and at the same time very unfavorable to some other characteristics. They are also different in terms of scope and depth of analysis. This suggests that we should be flexible with respect to the choice of methods, and preferably use more than one method. Thus, the main conclusion is that it is favorable to have the possibility to use several different methods for the establishment of early warning indicators.