This article analyses factors behind underemployment in Norway and has a focus on gender. The analysis, based on Labour Force Survey data, shows that economic fluctuations during the latest one and a half decade bring about changing underemployment levels of both women and men. The Norwegian...

The number of housewives has declined significantly in most Western countries, but there is now a renewed interest in the homemaker role in the media and public discourse. Utilising representative survey data from 2007 we examine the prevalence and characteristics of the housewife role in...

In spite of increased labour market participation in recent decades, women in Norway still have high part-time rates and seldom work more than their partners. Given that an aging population implies a projected large labour demand in many Western countries, it is important to explore potential...

Children cause large earnings drops for mothers but not fathers, a stylized fact known as the "child penalty" that explains a substantial portion of remaining gender income gaps. Can policy reduce the child penalty? We first document how changes in the child penalty over a long time horizon in...

In the Norwegian fabricated metal industry there has been a shift in demand from unskilled to skilled workers during the period 1972 to 1990, and relative demand for white collar employees has also increased. The paper analyses the factors behind the shift in the composition of these three kinds...

This paper presents novel methodological and empirical contributions to the child penalty literature. We propose a new estimator that combines elements from standard event study and instrumental variable estimators and demonstrate their relatedness. Our analysis shows that all three approaches...

In 2004 Norwegian authorities announced a reform introducing dividend taxation for personal (but not corporate) owners to take effect starting in 2006. This change provided incentives to maximize dividends in 2004 and 2005, and to retain earnings in the following years. Using Norwegian registry...

In 2005, over 8% of Norwegian shareholders transferred their shares to new (legal) tax shelters intended to defer taxation of capital gains and dividends that would otherwise be taxable in the aftermath of 2006 reform. Using detailed administrative data we identify family networks and describe...

The dual income tax provides the self-employed individual with large incentives to participate in tax minimizing income shifting. The present paper analyses the income shifting incentives under the Norwegian split model in the presence of technology risk, and it concludes that the widely held...

Empirical examination of whether R&D subsidies to private firms crowd out private investments has been hampered by problems related to selection. A particular worry is that research intentions and the quality of current research ideas may be correlated with the likelihood of applying for and...