Using registry data on every employed Norwegian woman giving birth to her first child during the period 1995–2008, we describe patterns of certified and paid sick leave before, during and after pregnancy. By following the same women over time, we can explore how observed sick leave patterns...

Any contribution to a pay-as-you-go pension system may be considered mandatory savings to the extent that it gives a claim to a future benefit. Contributors to the economic literature have argued that an increase in this savings component will lower implicit marginal tax rates, thereby reducing...

The main objective of this paper is to estimate labour supply effects of an early retirement programme in Norway. Detailed administrative data are employed in order to characterize full paths towards retirement and account for substitution from other exit routes, such as unemployment and...

Disability Insurance (DI) programs have long been criticized by economists for apparent work disincentives. Some countries have recently modified their programs such that DI recipients are allowed to keep some of their benefits if they return to work, and other countries are considering similar...

We study two recent changes in incentives to work facing 67-69 year old workers in Norway: an earnings test reform which increases current earnings from work, and a pension system maturation which removes pension accrual from work. Within a difference-in-differences framework, we exploit these...

Norway. The new system fulfils several criteria for a defined contribution scheme. Earnings from all years in work count in the accumulation of entitlements, and an actuarial rule converting the final balance into an annuity is introduced. But the pension system will still be a part of the...

The discrete choice model of McFadden (1973) is used to quantify the desire for going into rehabilitation or disability among fully employed married women in Norway. Predictions using the model indicate that as much as 60 percent of full-time employed married women going into disability or...

We investigate the impact of plant downsizing on disability pension utilization in Norway. Plant downsizing substantially increases the disability entry rate of workers in affected plants. Workers originally employed in plants that closed between 1993 and 1998 were 27.9 percent more likely to...

A precautionary saving model is extended to include old-age pensions and provides the framework for an empirical analysis of the relation between old-age pensions and private consumption. Norwegian macro-data for socioeconomic groups of households are used to estimate consumption functions for...

The Norwegian pension reform of 2006 intends to (1) improve long run fiscal sustainability by reducing the growth in public old-age expenditures, (2) strengthen labour supply incentives, and (3) maintain the main redistributive features of the present system. We assess to what extent the reform...