In the absence of financial frictions, the purpose of thin capitalization rules is to limit multinational firms’ possibilities of engaging in tax planning via debt shifting. This paper analyzes the effects of thin capitalization rules in the case where firms have limited access to external...

Duverger (1954) noted that changes in electoral systems will have two types of effects: mechanical effects, and reactions of political agents in anticipation of these, which he referred to as psychological effects. It is complicated to empirically separate the two effects since these occur...

We evaluate the policy of flexible inflation targeting implemented by the Norges Bank since March 2001. We discuss the reasons why the real interest rates are significantly higher in Norway than in the rest of Europe. Finally we propose some institutional changes that can improve the policy...

Given the wide use of childcare subsidies across countries, it is surprising how little we know about the effect of these subsidies on children's longer run outcomes. Using a sharp discontinuity in the price of childcare in Norway, we are able to isolate the effects of childcare subsidies on...

In late 2003, Norway passed a law mandating 40 percent representation of each gender on the board of publicly limited liability companies. The primary objective of this reform was to increase the representation of women in top positions in the corporate sector and decrease gender disparity in...

In this paper we study the impact of reference pricing (RP) on entry of generic firms in the pharmaceutical market. For given prices, RP increases generic firms' expected profit, but since RP also stimulates price competition, the impact on generic entry is theoretically ambiguous. In order to...

Policy makers use reference pricing to curb pharmaceutical expenditures by reducing coverage of expensive branded drugs. In a theoretical analysis we show that the net effect of reference pricing is generally ambiguous when accounting for entry by generic producers. Reference pricing shifts...

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 changes in the relative (percentage) PSE are not an accurate indicator of the...

This paper investigates how mothers' decision to stay at home with young children affects their subsequent work careers. Identification is based on the introduction of the Cash-for-Care program in Norway in 1998, which increased mothers' incentives to withdraw from the labor market when their...

We theoretically and numerically analyse the impacts for a small, open country with carbon abatement ambitions of joining a coalition with allowance trading. Besides welfare impacts for both the coalition and the small, open economy joining the coalition, we scrutinise how the studied policy...