At the present time, the Norwegian state owns a large number of business enterprises. The state controls around 35 percent of the total values on the Oslo Stock Exchange, and five of the seven largest listed companies are partially owned by the state, ranging from 34 to 64 percent. This article traces the background of state ownership from the formative phase of state involvement in the modern economy, and it demonstrates how this ownership provided growth in state enterprises after 1945. The broad support for large state enterprises is explained by ongoing national, political, social, and economic contexts. There is a high level of trust in the state, which is perceived as a protector of common interests. Broad support is also based on the fact that there is a lack of private investors and a strong inclination to restrict foreign influence in the domestic economy.
ArgumentNorwegian statisticians were pioneers in the development of sampling techniques for social and economic investigations in the late nineteenth century. After a few years of extensive use of sampling surveys in large-scale social and economic investigations, the method fell out of use in the early 1900s. This article supports Alain Desrosières’ argument that the emergence of sampling procedures in social investigations must be seen in relation to a modern “individualistic” view of society. But the importance of the institutional setting is also stressed: The way statistical research was connected to the power and resources of the State within the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) was a central element in the development and implementation of the new technique. A separate argument is presented to explain why the method suddenly lost ground in Norway and the general director of the CBS stopped promoting his method in the meetings of the International Statistical Institute. The explanation is probably to be found in a large and politically important survey in the 1890s that was attacked by a group of actuaries from private insurance firms. The heated and long-lasting debate turned into a question about trust in the new method and the reputation of the head of CBS as a statistical expert. The necessary trust and confidence was lost when the CBS in 1906 had to admit that important estimates from this survey obviously were erroneous.
This book traces the 200-year history of Norges Bank, which was established in 1816 with a dual purpose: to bring order and stability to the chaotic monetary system following the Napoleonic wars and provide Norway with a bank. The present Norges Bank is a modern well-functioning central bank, with strong likenesses to similar institutions in other countries. This book is particularly concerned with the relations between the bank and the political institutions. The bank’s role has been shaped and reshaped by perceptions of what kind of financial services Norway needed, how economic policy was coordinated, and how discretionary power was distributed between the elected bodies, the executive branch, and underlying institutions with a defined mandate. The central aim of this book is to trace and explain these changes over the past two centuries. It is also, to some extent, a contribution to the relatively broad literature on the history of national central banks.
Learning from failing. The origins of the Norwegian oil fund The Norwegian Government Pension Fund Global is the world's largest sovereign wealth fund. 1 At present, it has a market value of about NOK 7,100 billion (USD 815 billion), which is around 140 per cent of Norway's GDP. This is a result not only of high levels of petroleum revenue, but also of a solution whereby government revenue is channelled straight into the fund and invested abroad, with clear rules for how capital can be fed back into the Norwegian economy through annual political decisions on balancing the government budget. And it is only the return on the fund that can be used in this way; the capital invested is not available for consumption and must remain in global capital markets. The principles behind the fund have won international recognition as a well thought-out solution for managing large inflows of commodity revenue in a relatively small economy. The apparent success seems to have shaped a more general understanding of cleverness and foresight in the making of the fund, and, in a larger perspective, of the Norwegian State's handling of petroleum incomes in general. 2 The fund was established by the Norwegian Parliament rather late in the Norwegian oil history, in 1990. This means that the relevant bill was prepared at the same time as Johan P.
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