Official forecasts for oil revenues and the burden of pensioners are used to estimate forward-looking fiscal policy rules for Norway and compared with permanent-income and bird-in-hand rules. The results suggest that fiscal reactions have been partial forward-looking with respect to the rising...

We estimate fiscal reaction functions for non-hydrocarbon tax and public spending shares of national income and for debt management strategies adopted by Norway and compare these with rules that would prevail under the permanent income hypothesis and bird-in-hand rule. We conclude that the...

The analysis of the effect of tariffs for labor productivity faces the challenge of tariff policy endogeneity. Tariff policy is designed to promote economic development and the industrial sector tariff structure may reflect characteristics of the industries protected. We seek to identify the...

The household portfolio is dominated by a small number of assets; primarily housing and mortgages. We compare data on actual portfolios of Norwegian households with estimated optimal portfolios, using traditional financial theory. We find actual portfolios to be close to the portfolio indicated...

Many countries spend significant resources on investment promotion agencies (IPAs) in the hope of attracting inflows of foreign direct investment (FDI). Despite the importance of this question for public policy choices, little is known about the effectiveness of investment promotion efforts....

The spatial distribution of oil is determined by natural geography alone. However, we show that the distribution of oil exploration is affected by the quality of countries’ institutions. A global data set on the precise location of oil wells and national borders allows for a regression...

Foreign exchange windfalls such as those from natural resource revenues change non-resource exports, imports, and the capital account. We study the balance between these responses and, using data on 41 resource exporters for 1970-2006, show that the response to a dollar of resource revenue is,...

Foreign exchange windfalls such as those from natural resource revenues change non-resource exports, imports, and the capital account. We study the balance between these responses and, using data on 41 resource exporters for 1970-2006, show that the response to a dollar of resource revenue is,...

Official forecasts for oil revenues and the burden of pensioners are used to estimate forward-looking fiscal policy rules for Norway and compared with permanent-income and bird-in-hand rules. The results suggest that fiscal reactions have been partial forward-looking with respect to the rising...

We provide evidence that institutions strongly influence where investors drill for oil and gas. At national borders, investors drill on the side with better institutionalquality two times out of three. To identify the effect of institutions, we utilise a global data set on the location of...