Collective agreements have played a central role in the system of wage formation in Norway for more than fifty years. Although the degree of coordination achieved has been variable, pattern wage bargaining has been a mainstay of the system. We investigate the degree of invariance in wage...

Collective agreements have played a central role in the system of wage formation in Norway for more than fifty years. Although the degree of coordination achieved has been variable, pattern wage bargaining has been a mainstay of the system. We investigate the degree of invariance in wage...

Wage coordination plays an important role in macroeconomic stabilization. Pattern wage bargaining systems have been common in Europe, but in different forms, and with different degrees of success in terms of actual coordination reached. We focus on wage formation in Norway, a small open economy,...

The ‘saving for a rainy day’ hypothesis implies that households’ saving decisions reflect that they can (rationally) predict future income declines. The empirical relevance of this hypothesis plays a key role in discussions of fiscal policy multipliers and it holds under the null that the...

In this paper the effects on aggregate consumption of changes in the age distribution of the population are analysed empirically. Economic theories predict that age influences individuals’ saving and consumption behaviour. Despite this, age structure effects are rarely controlled for in...

Empirical and theoretical studies suggest that employment behaviour varies with the state of the labour market since hiring and firings costs depend on the availability of labour. Extending earlier empirical work on this subject, we test for state dependence in employment adjustment and in the...

In the mid-eighties econometric forecasts and ex post simulations of private consumption in Norway began to show clear signs of "structural breakdown" .This evidence lends itself to two interpretations, distinct in their implications for econometric modelling of aggregate consumption. On the one...

Inflation targeting makes the Central Bank's conditional inflation forecast the operational target for monetary policy. Successful inflation targeting requires knowing the transmission mechanisms to inflation from shocks as well as instruments. The econometric implications are that the...

Economic theories of imperfectely competitive labour markets predict that wages are linked to profits. In spite of this, profit variables are not explicitely specified in empirical models of wage formation that otherwise appear to be interpretable, to have well behaved residuals and to have...

In this paper the effects on aggregate consumption of changes in the age distribution of the population are analysed empirically. Economic theories predict that age influences individuals' saving and consumption behaviour. Despite this, age structure effects are rarely controlled for in...