Sickness absence tends to be negatively correlated with unemployment. This may suggest disciplining effects of unemployment but may also reflect changes in the composition of the labour force. A panel of Norwegian register data for the years 1990-1995 is used to analyse sickness absences lasting...

In this paper we analyse individual vocational rehabilitation clients’ decisions to enter active training or not. Although the Government pays the direct costs of training, the composition of the total costs of training may be decisive for individual choices. Based on labour market theory, we...

This paper estimates treatment effects for back pain patients using observational data from a low-key social insurance reform in Norway. Using a latent variable model we estimate the average treatment effects (ATE), the average effect of treatment on the treated (TT), and the distribution of...

In this paper we investigate the incentives of unemployed workers to wait for a recall when recall probabilities are endogenously determined by the waiting decisions of others. Because of a positive externality that arise when workers seek new employment, an excessive number of workers choose to...

This paper uses longitudinal employer–employee data and multilevel models to examine both observed and unobserved variation of the probability and length of certified and self-certified sickness absence for Norwegian primary school teachers. We argue that self-certified absences are...

This paper analyses the effect of aspects of family background, such as family income and parental education, on the educational attainment of persons born from 1967 to 1972. Family income is measured at different periods of a child’s life to separate longterm versus short-term effects of...

The international integration of regulated markets poses new challenges for regulatory policy. One question is the implications that the overall international regulatory regime will have for cross-border and/or domestic merger activity. In particular, do non-coordinated policies stimulate...

The general opinion among power industry representatives and electricity market analysts is that the Nordic electricity market has worked well. The purpose of this paper is to explore why the Nordic electricity market has performed well and to consider to what extent the Nordic experiences are...

We have followed a pay for performance reform in the phone based customer service centre of an insurance company, from its introduction in 2001 until the end of 2004. We use hard and soft data from the design and impact of the reform to contrast two theories of work motivation; the traditional...

A widespread belief in the popular press is that job stability has declined across Western economies over the last 15 years. However, little support for this is found in the empirical literature. We use an extensive employer–employee data set for Norway to analyse changes in job stability in...