Recent theoretical research suggests that property taxation has incentive effects that can help control cost problems in the public sector. The institutional setting in Norway allows this first empirical investigation of the incentive effect of property taxation, since we can separate between...

Capitalization of the property tax is of particular interest in Norway since many local governments decide not to have a property tax. We apply a rich data set of housing transactions and characteristics for three years (1997–1999) and combine them with local government-level data about...

The paper provides an analysis of efficiency in the care for the elderly sector in Norway. In a first step, we perform DEA analysis to calculate the degree of efficiency in each municipality and the national level efficiency potential. The analysis reveals substantial variation in efficiency...

The paper analyzes the intertemporal spending behavior of Norwegian local governments with particular attention to liquidity constraints imposed by balanced-budget rules. The main findings are: (i) On average, local government spending behavior is neither perfectly forward looking nor fully...