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...

Labour market conditions at the time and place of potential entry into the labour market are shown to have a substantial and persistent impact on adult labour market performance. Birth cohorts that face particularly depressed labour markets when they graduate from primary- and/or secondary...

We use Norwegian register data from 1989 to 2002 to estimate the causal effects of programme participation on the transition rate from unemployment to employment,by means of a dependent risks hazard rate model. The separate roles of causality and unobserved heterogeneity are non-parametrically...

From a detailed study of the yearly wage bargaining rounds in Norway and Sweden, we construct time series of five complemetary coordination indices. Econometrics is used to evaluate the importance of the coordination indicators for our understanding of the changes in the rates of unemployment...

Based on a combined register database for Norwegian and Swedish unemployment spells, we use the ‘between-countries-variation’ in the unemployment insurance systems to identify causal effects. The elasticity of the job hazard rate with respect to the benefit replacement ratio is around -1.0...

Building on register data describing monthly labour market status for the whole Norwegian population 1992-95, we estimate grouped competing risk hazard rate models for transitions between employment, unemployment and non-participation. The models impose no parametric restrictions on either...

We use Norwegian micro-data to identify the driving forces behind unemployment spells following temporary- and permanent dismissals. The duration of unemployment spells for permanently dismissed workers is primarily explained by individual resources and economic incentives, while spell-duration...

A popular explanation for the European unemployment problem is that relative wages have failed to adjust to changes in relative productivities. Many economists reject this hypothesis on the ground that the ratios of low- to high-skill unemployment have not increased. Building on a search model,...

We investigate how unemployment exit probabilities are affected by economic incentives, spell duration and macroeconomic conditions. Building on a database containing all registered unemployment spells in Norway in 1989-1998, we apply an econometric model in which exit probabilities vary freely...