The 'saving for a rainy day' hypothesis implies that households' saving decisions reflect that they can (rationally) predict future income declines. The empirical relevance of this hypothesis plays a key role in discussions of fiscal policy multipliers and it holds under the null that the...

Using aggregate quarterly data for the period 1975q1-2010q4, I find that the US housing market changed from a stable regime with prices determined by fundamentals, to a highly unstable regime at the beginning of the previous decade. My results indicate that these imbalances could have been...

The ‘saving for a rainy day’ hypothesis implies that households’ saving decisions reflect that they can (rationally) predict future income declines. The empirical relevance of this hypothesis plays a key role in discussions of fiscal policy multipliers and it holds under the null that the...

Collective agreements have played a central role in the system of wage formation in Norway for more than fifty years. Although the degree of coordination achieved has been variable, pattern wage bargaining has been a mainstay of the system. We investigate the degree of invariance in wage...

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...

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...

In this paper the effects on aggregate consumption of changes in the age distribution of the population are analysed empirically. Economic theories predict that age influences individuals' saving and consumption behaviour. Despite this, age structure effects are rarely controlled for in...

The 'saving for a rainy day' hypothesis implies that households' saving decisions reflect that they can (rationally) predict future income declines. The empirical relevance of this hypothesis plays a key role in discussions of fiscal policy multipliers and it holds under the null that the...

Collective agreements have played a central role in the system of wage formation in Norway for more than fifty years. Although the degree of coordination achieved has been variable, pattern wage bargaining has been a mainstay of the system. We investigate the degree of invariance in wage...