We develop a new indicator of labour market tightness, based on the pure calendar time changes in individuals’ transition rates from unemployment to employment.Based on Norwegian register data from the 1989-2002 period, we show that this indicator,in contrast to the aggregate rate of...

We show that recent attempts to reorganise and cut costs in the Norwegian health care and social services sectors have had the unintended side effects of raising the level of sickness absence and disability among the employees, and that these effects have persisted several years after completion...

We present comparable evidence on intergenerational earnings mobility for Denmark, Finland, Norway, the UK and the US, with a focus on the role of gender and marital status. We confirm that earnings mobility in the Nordic countries is typically greater than in the US and in the UK, but find...

With the aid of Norwegian register data, the paper investigates whether or not the relative unemployment propensity for the low-skilled has increased during the 1990’s. Two alternative notions of ‘low skills’ are employed; i) low education, and ii) low previous earnings, conditioned on...

We examine empirically the impacts of labor market policies - in terms of unemployment insurance (UI) and active labor market programs (ALMP) - on the duration and outcome of job search and on the quality of a subsequent job. We find that time invested in job search tends to pay off in the form...