We consider the effects of voluntary international environmental protocols on emissions with regard to the 1985 Helsinki Protocol and the 1994 Oslo Protocol on the reduction of sulphur oxides. Our analysis utilizes panel data from 30 European countries for the period 1960–2002. We divide these...

Using intergenerational data with a substantial part of the life-cycle earnings of children and almost the entire life-cycle earnings for their fathers, we present new estimates of intergenerational mobility in Norway. Extending the length of the fathers’ earnings windows from 5 to 30 years...

The current shortage of health workers in many low-income countries poses a threat to the quality of health services. When the number of patients per health worker grows sufficiently high, there will be insufficient time to diagnose and treat all patients adequately. This paper tests the...

In many countries, the social insurance system is under pressure from an ageing population. An increasing number of people are on sickness benefits and disability pensions in Norway. The general practitioner (GP) is responsible for assessing work capacity and issuing certificates for sick leave...

In this paper we analyse individual vocational rehabilitation clients’ decisions to enter active training or not. Although the Government pays the direct costs of training, the composition of the total costs of training may be decisive for individual choices. Based on labour market theory, we...

The decision to take more education is complex, and is influenced by individual ability, financial constraints, family background, preferences, etc. Such factors, normally unobserved by the researcher, introduce endogeneity and heterogeneity problems into estimating the returns to education. In...

This paper estimates treatment effects for back pain patients using observational data from a low-key social insurance reform in Norway. Using a latent variable model we estimate the average treatment effects (ATE), the average effect of treatment on the treated (TT), and the distribution of...

This paper analyses the impact of access to health care and economic conditions on health outcomes. Fixed-effects models are estimated using municipality data from 1996 to 2001. Health is proxied by total mortality rates divided into three different causes of death. Access to health care is...

We analyse a labour market programme for partly disabled workers that involves the transition from Labour Market Enterprises to a job in the ordinary labour market. We find that the percentage of these people finding jobs after a maximum two-year programme period has increased over time. In...

This paper analyses the effect of aspects of family background, such as family income and parental education, on the educational attainment of persons born from 1967 to 1972. Family income is measured at different periods of a child’s life to separate longterm versus short-term effects of...