The ongoing financial crisis is shaking central bankers' certainties about their mission, and a rethinking of such mission can greatly benefit from a non-finalistic reassessment of how central banking has evolved over the centuries. This paper does so by taking a functional, instead of an...

We use a dynamic factor model and a detailed panel data set with quarterly accounts data on all Norwegian banks to study the effects of banks' funding costs on their retail rates. Banks' funds are categorized into two groups: customer deposits and long-term wholesale funding (market funding from...

This study reports the outcome of an effort to collect market price data for Norway with a view to constructing monthly price indices from the year 1777 to 1920. The material covers data on commodity prices from agriculture, shery, dairying, manufacturing and mining. Indices of the wholesale and...

This paper presents new indices for industrial production in Norway covering the years 1896-1948. Separate annual and monthly indices of gross output and labour productivity are computed for 45 manufacturing and mining industries, using annually updated weights based on value added at factor...

The present paper offers new knowledge of historical national accounting in Norway in several ways. Firstly, a new and novel set of annual gross domestic product series by industry are presented for the period 1830-1930. Secondly, the new estimates suggest revision of the historical national...

We use a TVP-VAR model to investigate possible changes in the time series properties of key Norwegian macroeconomic variables since the 1980s. The sample period is characterised by deregulation, globalization, sizable petroleum revenues, a switch from exchange rate to inflation targeting and...

Most theories of electoral participation predict that turnout should be higher in elections where more is at stake. We test this prediction, by studying how turnout is affected by exogenous variation in governments' financial flexibility to provide pork for their voters. By utilizing...

Rational choice theories of electoral participation stress that an individual's decision to vote depends on her expected net benefit from doing so. If this instrumental motive is relevant, then turnout should be higher in elections where more is at stake. We test this prediction, by studying how...

For later generations, August 1914 has become a watershed in monetary history. In a matter of days, the belligerent and neutral countries of Europe alike suspended the gold standard. The international monetary regime that had served the world economy for close to four decades was no more....

We study overnight interbank interest rates paid by banks in Norway over the period 2006-2009. We observe large variations in interest rates across banks and over time. During the financial crisis, the interest rates are found to be substantially below indicative quotes of interest rates...