The decision to take more education is complex, and is influenced by individual ability, financial constraints, family background, preferences, etc. Such factors, normally unobserved by the researcher, introduce endogeneity and heterogeneity problems into estimating the returns to education. In...

Based on matched employer-employee data from Norway, we analyze the effects of worker displacement in 1986-1987 on their children's earnings in 1999-2001. Using displacement of fathers to indicate an exogenous earnings shock we seek to identify whether family resources have a direct effect on...

Using Norwegian intergenerational data with a substantial part of the life-cycle earnings of children and almost the entire life-cycle earnings for their fathers, we present new estimates of intergenerational mobility. Extending the length of the fathers' earnings windows from 5 to 30 years...

This paper examines the impact of performance-related pay on wage differentials within firms. Our theoretical framework predicts that, compared to a fixed pay system, pay schemes based on individual output increase within-firm wage inequality, while group-based bonuses have minor effects on wage...

In this paper we analyse early retirement pathways for Norwegian male and female workers. We apply a multinomial logit model to a data set covering more than 10 500 employees, ages 56-61, in 1989. The aim is to analyse the transition to different destinations, i.e. disability pension,...

In this paper we analyse early retirement for men and women focusing on family characteristics such as marital status, spouse income and wealth, and spouses? labour market status. The female participation rate is high in Norway, implying that the country is particularly suitable for the study of...

Labour-market polarization is characterized by increased employment in occupations at the top but also at the bottom of the skills and wage distributions, followed by a relative decline in 'middling' occupations. This paper documents a polarization trend also in the Nordic labour markets and...

Previous research on changes in intergenerational mobility suggests that mobility is decreasing over time. One explanation for this pattern is increased cross-sectional income inequality. In contrast to most other OECD countries, income inequality in Norway has been remarkably stable through...

The analysis, based on register data for Norwegian cohorts born 1950, 1955, and 1960, shows that the intergenerational earnings mobility is high. Using quantile regression, mobility is found to be lower at the lower end of the earnings distribution than at the upper end. The findings also...

This paper addresses whether children's exposure to parents receiving disability benefits induces a higher probability of receiving such benefits themselves. Most OECD countries experience an increasing proportion of the working-age population receiving permanent disability benefits. Using data...