This paper examines the impact of performance-related pay on wage differentials within firms. Our theoretical framework predicts that, compared to a fixed pay system, pay schemes based on individual effort increase within-firm wage inequality, while group-based bonuses have minor effects on wage...

This paper studies the distributions of literacy skills, education, and employment of immigrants and natives in three host countries: Canada, the United States, and Norway. For natives, we uncover remarkably stable relations between literacy skills, schooling, and employment across countries....

Whether increasing resource use in schools has a positive effect on pupil performance has occupied governments, parents and researchers for decades. A main challenge when trying to answer this question is to separate the effects of school resources from the effects of pupils' family background,...

Despite important policy implications associated with the allocation of education resources, evidence on the effectiveness of school inputs remains inconclusive. In part, this is due to endogenous allocation; families sort themselves non-randomly into school districts and school districts...

There is massive cross-sectional evidence that children of more educated parents outperform their schoolmates on tests, grade repetition and in educational attainment. However, evidence for causal interpretation of this association is weak. Within a rich census level data set for Norway, we...

The national Norwegian school reform of 1994, which gave statutory right to at least three years of upper secondary education, had a significant impact on educational attainment among immigrant youth. In particular, we find that the immigrant transition rate from compulsory schooling to...

We measure the effective assistance to 18 Norwegian private industries in 1989 caused by government budgetary subsidies, indirect commodity taxes, import protection through nominal tariffs and non-tariff-barriers, price discrimination of electricity and capital income taxation. The assistance...

We measure the effective assistance to 17 Norwegian private industries in 1989 and 1991 caused by government budgetary subsidies, indirect commodity taxes, import protection through nominal tariffs and non-tariff barriers, and electricity market distortions. The assistance effects are measured...

An indicator of allocation effects of industrial policy is derived from a theoretical framework of monopolistic competition. The indicator gives a qualitative picture of how industrial policy affects industry structure and resource allocation, it identifies the policy measures that work as...

This paper studies how productivity shifts at the level of the firm are transmitted to aggregate industry productivity in a model of heterogeneous firms. We analyse both uniform productivity shifts, and catching up by reducing the productivity differentials between firms. The two kinds of shifts...