This is a revised plan for the finalization of the "Youth Groups for Sustainable Development: Lessons from the Ethiopian Model" (Researcher project under NORGLOBAL2, funded by the Research Council of Norway). The project started in 2019 and was planned to last for four years. A civil war broke...

After the great turmoil of the latest financial crisis, the criticism of the regulatory frameworks became increasingly stronger. The rules that banks needed to comply with are presumed to be procyclical and unable to prevent and mitigate the extent of strong financial and economic cycles. As a...

This paper investigates household purchasing behavior in response to differing alcohol and tobacco taxes near an international border. Our study suggests that large tax differentials near borders induce economically important tax avoidance behavior, which may limit a government's ability to...

Rental-equivalence is often used in computing price changes of owner-occupied housing in the CPI. We use an alternative approach, employing interest-adjusted house prices. For Norway 2000-2008 our method yielded a 30% CPI-increase, compared to the official 17%.

The paper explores how repeated revisions of consumption plans increase long-run utility. If agents value present anticipations of future consumption, some revisions may be viewed as a benign form of self-delusion. We consider a minimal generalization of the Samuelson discounted utility model to...

Housing markets tend to display positive serial correlation as well as considerable volatility over time. We present a heterogeneous agent model illustrating the connection between adaptive expectations and housing market fluctuations. A dwelling serves as a shelter, as a vehicle for investment...

A number of European countries changed their tax system in the early 1990s along the lines of the US tax reform act of 1986. After the reforms marginal tax rates were generally lower, and mortgage interest deductions less generous. At the same time a long period of house appreciation started in...

Measuring change in the price of housing is an important and notoriously difficult task for national statistical agencies. Different approaches have been attempted, but suffer from known weaknesses. This article suggests dividing housing outlays into consumption and saving. The changes in prices...