The ability of the public sector to recruit skilled workers is important for the quality of public sector services. Centralized and rigid pay systems in the public sector might give limited labor supply and shortages of qualified personnel in areas and periods with strong outside labor markets....

This paper studies the relationship between education and crime. We exploit Norwegian register data on skills at the end of compulsory education at age 16, high school attainment, and detailed imprisonment data. We find that skills, as measured by GPA, have a strong diminishing effect on...

This paper exploits that students at age 16 in Norway are randomly selected into one compulsory exit exam in either mathematics or languages. A few days before the actual exam day, the students are notified about exam subject. The students have an intensive preparation period, and preparation in...

This paper estimates the impact of geographical proximity to upper secondary schools on graduation propensity. It uses detailed information on real travel time between students’ homes and schools in Norway and on the composition of study programs at each school. We find that reduced travel...

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether efficiency in public service provision is affected by political and budgetary institutions, fiscal capacity, and democratic participation. In order to address this issue we take advantage of a new global efficiency measure for Norwegian local...

Using panel data for Norwegian schools, we establish a two-equation supply and demand model for teachers with approved education. Taking into account nationally determined teacher pay and a strict teacher appointment rule, the data enable us to separately estimate supply and demand functions for...

This paper compares union wage bargaining outcomes across different types of employers. Five different employer objectives are discussed; profit–, welfare– and output maximization, and two specifications of a Leviathan. The model shows that the ordering of the union wage level across employer...

We analyze whether the amount of schooling influences intelligence as measured by IQ tests. By use of a novel longitudinal dataset we are able to condition on early cognitive ability to account for selection into non-compulsory schooling when estimating the effect on cognitive ability at age 20....

This paper investigates whether gender gaps in student achievement are related to evaluation schemes. We exploit different evaluations at the end of compulsory education in Norway in a difference-in-difference framework. Compared to scores at anonymously evaluated central exit exams, girls get...

By using data from 16 OECD countries who participated in TIMSS 2007, this paper analyzes the effect of assigning homework on student achievement. The identification rests on within-student variation in homework across subjects in a sample of students who have the same teacher in both mathematics...