The strong correlation between child care and maternal employment rates has led previous research to conclude that affordable and readily available child care is a driving force both of cross-country differences in maternal employment and of its rapid growth over the last decades. We analyze the...

There is a heated debate in the US, Canada and many European countries about introducing universally accessible child care. However, studies on universal child care and child development are scarce and only consider short-run outcomes. We analyze the introduction of universal child care in...

Theory and evidence point towards particularly positive effects of high-quality child care for disadvantaged children. At the same time, disadvantaged families often sort out of existing programs. To counter differences in learning outcomes between children from different socioeconomic...

Many developed countries currently consider a move towards a universal child care program. The challenge in assessing the case for universal child care programs is that the evidence base is scarce. We analyze the staged expansion of subsidized, universally accessible child care in Norway. Our...

Norwegian administrative data are used to evaluate the impact of a doubling of the threshold in the earnings test on the labour force activity. We find no impact on labour market participation, but positive effects on earnings. The effect increases with exposure to the reform and is stronger for...

Norwegian administrative data are used to evaluate the impact of a doubling of the threshold in the retirement earnings test. We find almost no impact on the extensive margin, but a positive effect on the intensive margin. This positive effect is uneven over the earnings distribution, and...

We study the effect of salience in the social security benefit system on labor earnings by exploiting kinks and notches in budget lines introduced by earnings testing and social security accrual mechanisms for 67-69 year old workers in Norway. An earnings test had large effects on labor...