Kompetanseforskjeller mellom innvandrere og innfødte arbeidere kan være én mulig årsak til at de har ulik ledighets- og sysselsettingsmønster. Innvandrere står overfor en mer usikker avkastning på investeringer i humankapital enn innfødte arbeidere. De står f.eks. overfor en...

This paper tests for multiple equilibria in the Norwegian unemployment rate and investigates whether it displays asymmetric response to positive and negative shocks. Linear and nonlinear univariate models are employed to account for the unemployment behaviour over the period 1972-1997. Among...

Despite the emerging consensus on the validity of purchasing power parity (PPP) between trading countries in the long run, empirical evidence in favour of the PPP theory is scarce in data predominantly exposed to real shocks. This paper tests for PPP between Norway and its trading partners using...

Major changes in the Norwegian exchange rate have often coincided with large fluctuations in the price of crude oil. Previous empirical studies have however suggested a weak and ambiguous relation between the oil price and the exchange rate. In contrast to these studies, this paper explores 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...

Recent work by Clements and Hendry have shown why forecasting systems that are in terms of differences, dVARs, can be more accurate than economet- ric models that include levels variables, ECMs. For example, dVAR forecasts are insulated from parameter non-constancies in the long run mean of the...

In recent years, the OECD has measured the structural rate of unemployment by an indicator called the Non-Accelerating Wage Rate of Unemployment. The NAWRU indicator is an important element in the policy analysis of the OECD. The rise in the estimated NAWRUs is also taken as evidence that Nordic...

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...

Estimates of the NAIRU are usually derived either from a Phillips curve or from a wage curve. This paper investigates the correspondence between the operational NAIRU-concepts and the steady state of a dynamic wage-price model. We derive the parameter restrictions that secure that...