Based on a sequence of reforms in the Norwegian unemployment insurance (UI) system, we show that activity-oriented UI regimes - i.e., regimes with a high likelihood of required participation in active labor market programs, duration limitations on unconditional UI entitlements, and high sanction...

We find that the lifecycle employment profiles of nonwestern male labor migrants who came to Norway in the early 1970s diverge significantly from those of native comparison persons. During the first years after arrival almost all of the immigrants worked and their employment rate exceeded that...

Based on Norwegian register data we show that having a lone parent in the terminal phase of life significantly affects the offspring's labor market activity. The employment propensity declines by around 1 percentage point among sons and 2 percentage points among daughters during the years just...

Economies with low unemployment often have high disability rates. In Norway, the permanent disability insurance rolls outnumber registered unemployment by four to one. Based on administrative register data matched with firms' financial statements and closure data collected from bankruptcy...

We examine the origins and outcome of entrepreneurship on the basis of exceptionally comprehensive Norwegian matched worker-firm-owner data. In contrast to most existing studies, our notion of entrepreneurship not only comprises self-employment, but also employment in partly self-owned limited...

In most countries, employers are financially responsible for sick pay during an initial period of a worker's absence spell, after which the public insurance system covers the bill. Based on a quasi-natural experiment in Norway, where pay liability was removed for pregnancy-related absences, we...

Can activation requirements control moral hazard problems in public sickness absence insurance and accelerate recovery? Based on empirical analysis of Norwegian data, we show that it can. Activation requirements not only bring down benefit claims, they also reduce the likelihood that long-term...

We examine the impact of job loss on entrepreneurship behavior in Norway. Our identification strategy relies on the use of mass layoffs caused by bankruptcies as indicators of exogenous displacement. We find that working in a company which is going to close down due to bankruptcy during the next...