Based on administrative registers from Norway, we examine how unemployment insurance (UI) and active labor market … programs (ALMP) affect the transition rates from unemployment to regular employment and entrepreneurship. We find that the …

Economies with low unemployment often have high disability rates. In Norway, the permanent disability insurance rolls … outnumber registered unemployment by four to one. Based on administrative register data matched with firms' financial statements … percent of all new disability insurance claims. We conclude that unemployment and disability insurance are close substitutes …

Based on a sequence of reforms in the Norwegian unemployment insurance (UI) system, we show that activity-oriented UI … on unconditional UI entitlements, and high sanction probabilities - deliver substantially shorter unemployment spells … introduction of a soft constraint appears particularly effective; our results show that the expected unemployment duration falls by …

We examine empirically the impacts of labor market policies - in terms of unemployment insurance (UI) and active labor … expected unemployment duration, while improving the quality of the resultant job. Participation in ALMP raises the probability …