This report looks at the competitiveness of the Norwegian banking sector, in particular with respect to banking regulation and taxation. How do Norwegian banks perform relative to other European banks and relative to other firms in Norway? Do Norwegian banks have a competitive handicap compared...

We analyze how a major negative shock to the producers of fossil fuels may lead to a shift from dirty to clean R&D along the supply chain. First, we develop a theoretical framework of directed technical change, showing that adjustment costs in R&D activity can lead fossil energy sector suppliers...

This paper makes use of a reform that allowed firms to use patents as stand-alone collateral, to estimate the magnitude of collateral constraints and to quantify the aggregate impact of these constraints on misallocation and productivity. Using matched firm-bank data for Norway, we find that...

While the impact of globalization on income inequality has received a lot of attention, little is known about its effect on the gender wage gap (GWG). This study argues that there is a systematic difference in the GWG between exporting firms and non-exporters. By the virtue of being exposed to...

This paper develops a model of trade and CO2 emissions with heterogenous firms, where firms make abatement investments and thereby have an impact on their level of emissions. The model shows that investments in abatements are positively related to firm productivity and firm exports. Emission...

This paper studies strategies pursued by banks in order to differentiate their services and soften competition. More specifically we analyse whether bank's ability to avoid losses, its capital ratio, or bank size can be used as strategic variables to make banks different and increase the...

This paper demonstrates the importance of using a flexible cost function specification when analyzing economies of scale and estimating the cost effect of banking mergers. The inflexibility of the translog cost function is illustrated and results are compared to more flexible spline and Fourier...

We introduce a model analyzing how asymmetric information problems in a bank-loan market may evolve over the age of a borrowing firm. The model predicts a life-cycle pattern for banks' interest rate markup. Young firms pay a low or negative markup, thereafter the markup increases until it falls...

We derive empirical implications from a stylized theoretical model of bankborrower relationships. Banks' interest rate markups are predicted to follow a life-cycle pattern over the borrowing firms' age. Due to endogenous bank monitoring by competing banks, borrowing firms initially face a low...