Norway Growth Research Articles

Redescribing fossil-fuel investments: how hegemony challengers ‘invert’ arguments in the Norwegian public discourse on climate risk

ABSTRACT This article introduces the concept of inversion as a rhetorical-political strategy used to redescribe climate concerns from being sacrificed in favour of profitability to seeing that profitability necessitates climate concerns. Drawing on discourse theory and rhetorical analysis, the article analyses discursive struggles in the dominant discourse of fossil-fuel growth in Norway, from 2013 to 2019. By inverting the image of fossil-fuel dependency from growth and success to loss and stagnation in the Norwegian public discourse on fossil fuels and climate risk, those who challenge the hegemonic pro-fossil fuel-investments system pave the way for an alternative description of an ideal welfare state. As such, inversion, as a practice and rhetorical-political strategy may help us understand the strategic manoeuvring of the environmental movements as counter-hegemonic forces.

Job mobility, reallocation and wage growth: A tale of two countries

Job reallocation is a key driver of aggregate wage growth, but its role in different economic systems remains understudied. This paper takes a comparative view and analyses the role of job mobility in job reallocation and aggregate wage growth in Norway, comparing it to published results for the United States. The results show first that, as expected, overall job mobility is much lower in Norway compared to the United States, likely reflecting the compressed wage distribution. However, the speed of job reallocation from low-wage to high-wage firms is similar to or even higher than in the United States. Second, in both Norway and the United States, the process of job reallocation is strongly pro-cyclical. This is entirely driven by the pro-cyclical nature of net job-to-job mobility from low- to high-wage firms. Third, for Norway, the bulk of aggregate wage growth reflects on-the job wage growth, while its cyclicality is largely driven by net job-to-job mobility from low to high-wage firms. This paper shows that reallocation is not necessarily less efficient in more egalitarian societies with lower mobility and different wage structures.

Is Norway on the pathway to green growth? Evidence on decoupling between GDP and environmental footprints

AbstractProponents of green growth argue that technological advancements and price signals can decouple economic growth from environmental impact through resource substitution and enhanced efficiency. In this research, we investigate the extent to which economic growth in Norway is decoupling from three key indicators of environmental pressure: energy use, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and material consumption. Our findings show efficiency improvements across all of these indicators, but no absolute decoupling for any of them, and less so, a sufficient absolute decoupling to meet global sustainability targets. Despite the prevalent discourse surrounding a purported ‘green shift’, the overall environmental pressure within Norway is still on an upward trajectory. Mounting evidence regarding the absence of sufficient absolute decoupling suggests that the time may be ripe for high‐income nations like Norway to transcend policy focus on green growth and engage in transitions towards a post‐growth economy.

Economic decline and the birth of a tourist nation

ABSTRACTPrice competitiveness is key for tourists’ destination choice. In the study, we evaluate the effects of an economic decline caused by non-tourism industry on a tourist destination’s price competitiveness. An econometric model of hotel revenue function is estimated in the study. Specifically, we estimate hotel revenue functions at the regional level in Norway to investigate how the crude oil price collapse and the subsequent economic decline influenced tourism demand in Norway. This type of cross-sectorial effect of non-tourism industries on tourism competitiveness has been little discussed in the tourism literature. The results show that the fall in crude oil price boosted tourism growth in Norway through a weakening of the local currency. This means tourism development is not always associated with economic growth, as discussed in most of the tourism literature. There might be some upper bounds of wealth in a nation where additional growth does not foster further tourism development due to the inflationary effects of economic growth. The study therefore adds new insights into the literature on tourism and economic growth.

Immigration and the Dutch disease A counterfactual analysis of the Norwegian resource boom 2004-2013

We study how labour migration modified the Dutch disease effects during the Norwegian resource boom 2004–2013. In these years the resource movement effect of the petroleum industry was larger than the spending effect. This was mainly due to the introduction of a fiscal policy rule in 2001 that limited spending. The EU-enlargement in 2004 increased labour migration and affected also the Norwegian labour market. We find that economic growth in Norway was roughly doubled from 2004 to 2013 because of the resource boom while total population increased by 2% because of higher immigration. Moreover, both the resource movement and spending effects on Mainland GDP were roughly unaffected by immigration while employment increased, real wages fell and so did productivity. The negative effects of the boom on industries producing tradables were counteracted by endogenous terms of trade effects, immigration and demand effects of the boom.

Export diversification, mean-reversion of exports, and stability of export–growth causality

ABSTRACTThis study proposes a five-step statistical procedure to examine a linkage among export diversification, mean-reversion of exports, and stability of the export–growth causality. This linkage was assessed for France, Norway, and Switzerland between 1980Q1 and 2016Q4. The findings indicated that the mean-reversion tendency of the export sectors in France and Switzerland was stronger than in Norway, which highlighted the important role of export activities for economic growth in France and Switzerland. Also, the causal relationship between exports and economic growth in Norway was found to be more unstable than in France, but more stable than in Switzerland.

Debating the moral and economic foundations of a democratic polity

From around the middle of the 18th century, agrarian reforms came on the agenda in most countries of western Europe. Although Norway’s economy was not manorial like that of Denmark and much of the rest of the continent, a debate emerged on how to improve Norwegian agriculture as well. Contrary to what the idealized picture of the typical Norwegian peasant might make us believe, the Norwegian right of redemption, odelsretten, was at the heart of these discussions. This article explores the differing opinions voiced over the ancient familial right from the viewpoint of intellectual history, drawing on the European historiography on political languages and the rise of commercial society and arguing that they should be interpreted as different responses to the societal changes caused by the economic growth in Norway from the middle of the 18th century.

Forecasting Labour Productivity Growth in Norway for the Period 2012-2021 Using ARIMA Models

There appeared to be a change in labour productivity growth in Norway (a fall in the growth rate) in the middle of the 2000s, followed by a slight recovery at the end of the period under consideration (1971-2011). The 2007-2009 financial and economic crisis in Norway (which resulted from the banking crisis) caused an even greater drop in labour productivity growth to the extent that it in 2008 it reached its lowest point over the last three decades. After 2008, labour productivity growth started to increase. In this paper, in order to forecast time-series labour productivity growth in Norway for the period 2012-2021, the ARIMA model is fitted to Norwegian time-series labour productivity growth data obtained in the period 1971-2011. Using the Box-Jenkins model selection methodology, ARIMA (1, 1, 1) with no constant is selected as an appropriate model. As the selected ARIMA model indicates, labour productivity growth in Norway shall continue to increase very slowly and will ultimately reach a non-zero constant in the forecast period (2012-2021) following its recovery after 2008. Long-term forecasts for time-series labour productivity growth in Norway using ARIMA (1, 1, 1) with no constant will also reach a non-zero constant. Initially, it might be concluded that slow technological development as a result of the 2007-2009 financial and economic crisis could explain the slowdown in the recovery of labour productivity growth both in the forecast period (2012-2021) and over the longer term. However, due to the fact that the 2007-2009 financial and economic crisis has changed the underlying process which Norwegian labour productivity growth rate followed in the immediately preceding period, and that a technological revolution, which can be considered as a contributing factor, also took place in that period, it seems unlikely that a single labour productivity growth time series will be rich enough to describe the variation in the data. From the data and the analysis performed, it seems plausible to conclude that the crisis has changed the underlying process determining the labour productivity growth rate in Norway (at least in the short term), and therefore forecasts based on such models are rather unreliable.

Overvekt hos barn - hvilken betydning har bosted?

Targeted measures to prevent overweight children are dependent on a knowledge of which environmental factors play a part. We wanted to investigate whether overweight in Norwegian eight-year-olds is related to whether they live in urban or rural areas. In the cross-sectional study "Children's growth in Norway 2008", the weight, height and waist of 3473 eight-year-olds were measured. We examined relationships between overweight and waist measurement and centrality, population density and number of inhabitants in the municipalities where the children lived by means of regression analyses. In adjusted analyses, the odds on children in central municipalities being overweight was 34 lower than for children in less central municipalities (OR = 0.66; 95 % CI: 0.46-0.94), and children in municipalities with a high population density had on average 0.66 cm smaller waists than children in municipalities with a low population density (95 % CI: 0.02-1.31). The relationships between overweight and the explanatory variables population density and number of inhabitants, and between waist measurement and the explanatory variables centrality and population density showed the same tendency, but were not statistically significant in the adjusted analyses. The results indicate that there is a higher percentage of overweight children in rural areas than in urban areas. Education and income level in the municipalities appeared to explain some of the effect of the urbanity variables on overweight and waist measurement.

Bubble, Bust and More Boom: The Political Economy of Housing in Norway

Norway has in the last 25 years experienced one housing market bubble, a severe bust in that housing market, and a new boom that may still prove to be a bubble as well. This article analyses the recommodification of the Norwegian housing market and puts forward three arguments: Firstly, that recommodification has contributed to a severe destabilization of Norway's macroeconomy and may do so again. Secondly, that Norway's growth model is increasingly similar to the American one, in that it is increasingly driven by private consumption based on the creation of new wealth out of the housing-monetary policy nexus. Finally, it discusses the thesis that recommodified housing may well drive politics to the right, albeit very slowly. This can happen partly through the tax reluctance mechanism identified in earlier contributions to the political economy of housing, and partly through a reluctance to spend mediated through a macroeconomic governance regime that engenders support for policies that are perceived to contribute to keeping nominal interest rates low.

Regional differences in climatic responses of Norway spruce ( Picea abies L. Karst) growth in Norway

We examined growth responses of Norway spruce using tree-ring series from increment cores and monthly climate variables over the period 1900–1998. The 1398 cores were selected from 588 plots scattered all over Norway. We correlated tree-ring indices with temperature, precipitation, Palmer drought severity index and length of the growing season. The weather in June had the largest influence on ring widths. However, two different, and almost opposite, response types were found: Tree growth was restricted by June precipitation in the lowlands in southeastern Norway, but by the June temperature in other regions and at high altitudes. In order to define the shift between these two main response types, we correlated response functions with various 30-year mean climatic variables, including humidity and aridity indices. The 30-year mean June temperature was the variable most clearly showing this shift in response, with a threshold at 12–13 °C. At sites with normal temperature below this threshold, spruce responded positively to unusually warm and dry June months, and vice versa.

The possible influence of nitrogen and acid deposition on forest growth in Norway

Nitrogen has probably led to increased forest growth in southernmost Norway with an order of magnitude around 25%. This is based on an analysis of three Norwegian sets of data with residuals from standard growth models as a response variable, together with data on deposition and soil chemistry. Growth was positively correlated to nitrogen deposition and to soil nitrogen, and negatively correlated to the C/N ratio in the soil. Also, nitrogen deposition was positively correlated to soil nitrogen and negatively to soil C/N. There were no relationships between growth and the soil acidification variables: pH, base saturation, Al concentration or Ca/Al ratio. There is a large residual error in this kind of study, and power analyses indicated that in order to detect changes in growth of a magnitude around 20%, one needs roughly 200 observations.

Large-scale variations in radial tree growth in Norway: An application of median polish for spatial trend detection

Radial growth was measured on 11,452 Norway spruce ( Picea abies) trees on a systematic random sample of 1492 forest inventory sites in Norway. The data were decomposed using median polish and examined for spatial trends. Radial growth was higher than average in the far south and lower than average in the north. This latitudinal trend followed a linear gradient in the eastern, continental parts of the country. A similar but less smooth gradient was also found in the western, coastal region. Summary points were used to characterize and compare the two gradients. Radial tree growth in the western region was consistently lower than in the eastern region, but the shapes of the two gradients were almost identical. These may be explained as an effect of a climatic gradient shared by the two regions, with high radial growth broadly corresponding to a warmer climate and a longer growing season. Norway spruce is at the limit of its geographical range near the western coast of Norway, which may explain the generally lower growth rate here. The results do not support the hypothesis that widespread forest decline is taking place in Norway, but surprisingly high growth in the extreme south of the country may be related to the fertilizing effect of airborne nitrogen deposition. Median polish of geographical data was found to perform well as an alternative technique for spatial trend detection.

The labour market, unemployment and economic growth in Norway, 1920–1939

Abstract This article attempts an essentially macro-economic look at the development of the Norwegian economy in the inter-war period. The main focus is on the macro-economic determinants of labour market developments, in particular the causes of the extensive unemployment that persisted in the inter-war period. The article relies partly on previous research undertaken by both economists and economic historians, but also breaks new ground both with respect to the quantification of unemployment and in advancing an (admittedly tentative) explanation of its causes.

The Structure and Intensity of Energy Use: Trends in Five OECD Nations*

This paper examines trends in the structure and intensity of final energy demand in five OECD nations between 1973 and 1988. Our focus is on primary energy use, which weights fuels by their thermal content and multiplies district heat and electricity by factors of 1.15 and 3.24 to approximate the losses that occur in the conversion and distribution of these energy carriers. Growth in the level of energy-using activities, given 1973 energy intensities (energy use per unit of activity), would have raised primary energy use by 46% in the U.S., 42% in Norway, 33% in Denmark, 37% in West Germany, and 53% in Japan. Reductions in end-use energy intensities, given 1973 activity levels, would have reduced primary energy use by 19% in the U.S., 3% in Norway, 20% in Denmark, 15% in West Germany, and 14% in Japan. Growth in national income parallelled increases in a weighted index of energy-using activities in the U. S., West Germany, and Denmark but substantially outstripped activity growth in Norway and Japan. We conclude that changes in the structure of a nation’s economy may lead to substantial changes in its energy/GDP ratio that are unrelated to changes in the technical efficiency of energy utilization. Similarly, changes in energy intensities may be greater or less than the aggregate change in the energy/GDP ratio of a given country, a further warning that this ratio may be an unreliable indicator of technical efficiency.

The banking system, industrialization and economic growth in Norway, 1850–1914

Abstract Taking the views of Alexander Gerschenkron and Rondo Cameron on the role of banking in economic growth as a point of departure, the article examines the relationship between banking, industrialization and economic growth in Norway before 1914. It takes issue with the generally pessimistic view held by other Norwegian historians, a view that ascribes slow industrial growth to the underdeveloped role of the commercial banking sector. The structural characteristics of the Norwegian economy obviated the need for a strong commercial banking sector. Savings banks and private arrangements complemented the government sources of credit in providing adequate finance to all sectors of the Norwegian economy. Thus, the slow growth of commercial banking did not seriously hamper Norwegian economic growth before 1914.

ACCOUNTING FOR ECONOMIC GROWTH: THE CASE OF NORWAY

The background of economic growth in Norway is reviewed. Models that derive the direct and indirect measures used in empirical estimation and aggregate estimates for Norway's economy are analyzed, and the results are compared to those of Japan. The adoption of an outward-looking policy has led to increases in both exports and imports in Norway entailing the reallocation of resources according to comparative advantage among industries as well as specialization within industries. It is noteworthy that per capita income grew more rapidly in the 1961 to 1969 subperiod, when the establishment of the European Free Trade Association gave a boost to exports, than between 1953 and 1961. The experiences of Norway and Japan during the period of import liberalization were similar. However, available data indicate that exports made a larger contribution to economic growth in Norway than in Japan. These differences may be due to factors such as the size of the domestic market, rates of imports protection, and Norway's free trade arrangement in manufactured goods within the free trade zone.

Use of land for urban purposes in Norway

The urban areas are growing faster than ever. Two main causes may be stated, namely the urbanization process and the growing standard of living. The extent of the urban area growth in Norway has now been calculated and urban area statistics have been published. The article also deals with the problem of what is really meant by urban land, and how fast urban land is growing in Norway compared to other countries. Great variation in the use of land for urban purposes can be observed. Some of them are discussed in the article.

The history of economic growth in Norway

Abstract This book is divided into three main parts. The first describes Norwegian population growth and emigration up to World War I. The second part sets forth trends in agriculture and manufacturing during the first half of the nineteenth century. Thirdly, a description of economic developments and industrialisation after 1850 is given.

A temperature-growth index—the respiration equivalent—used in climatic studies on the meso-scale in Norway

Temperature is, in general, the main climatic factor limiting plant growth in Norway. Sensible heat does not directly supply the energy for growth in a plant. Apart from the light energy used in photosynthesis the energy needed for the different growth processes is chemical energy released through respiration. Respiration is mainly controlled by temperature. In the respiration equivalent hourly (or bihourly) temperatures are given weight according to the relative respiration at the actual temperature level, and accumulated over the period under consideration. Two maps showing the use of this index in a meso-scale study of the growth climate are presented.