The generous Nordic model of welfare is commonly viewed as an exceptional success both in terms of equality and economic growth. However, it has recently become evident that subgroups of the population with weak labour market attachment and high welfare dependency, such as lone mothers, were...

This paper provides an in-depth look at some of the key development issues facing households in Ethiopia, in the context of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG). Using household survey data from 2000, 2002, and 2005, we found that Ethiopia is making progress toward some vital MDG goals, but...

Economic theories of imperfectly competitive labour markets predict that wages are linked to profits. In spite of this, profit variables are not explicitly specified in empirical models of wage formation that otherwise are appealing. Does this mean that theory overplays the role of profitability...

Pervasive skill-biased technological changes, probably from trade in computer technology, have visualized the pros and cons of wage setting centralization in small open economies. Skill mismatch has increased in countries with wage rigidity. As a small open economy with centralized wage setting,...

Oil price shocks have played a dominant role in the macroeconomic development of the world economy over the last twenty five years. In this paper a large, estimated, macro-economic world model with time varying trade weights, monetary and fiscal policy rules and explicit modelling of the...

This paper calculates core inflation, by imposing long run restrictions on a structural vector autoregression (VAR) model containing the growth rate of output, inflation and oil prices. Core inflation is identified as that component in inflation that has no long run effect on output. No...

Macroeconomic effects of the high oil prices in the period 1979-85 for the Norwegian economy are considered. An alternative low oil price scenario is developed and effects of the oil shock are calculated as the deviation between actual history and the counterfactual base. International effects...

I offer a macroeconomic perspective on the "Reserves for All" (RFA) proposal to let the general public use electronic central bank money. After distinguishing RFA from cryptocurrencies and relating the proposal to discussions about narrow banking and the abolition of cash I propose an...

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act included more than $90 billion in strategic clean energy investments intended to promote job creation and promote deployment of low-carbon technologies. In terms of spending, the clean energy package has been described as the nation’s “biggest...

In many developing countries, there does not exist a time series of nationally repre- sentative household budget or income surveys, while there often are urban household surveys as well as nationally representative Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) which lack information on incomes. This...