Many people have contributed to this dissertation with kindly offered advice, encouragement, inspiration, support, and friendship. First of all, I wish to thank my supervisor Jarle Møen and cosupervisor Erik Biørn, for patience, supporting advice and thoughtful comments. Special thanks to my co-authors, in alphabetical order, Ådne Cappelen, Øivind A. Nilsen, Arvid Raknerud and Terje Skjerpen for inspiring and insightful discussions. All of them have contributed in numerous ways to this dissertation and have improved my ability to carry out economic research. It has been an honour and a pleasure to work with them. This dissertation is the result of my work on different projects in the Research Department of Statistics Norway. I thank my colleagues in the Research Department for providing an inspiring and pleasant working environment. In particular, I wish to thank, in chronological order, Torbjørn Haegeland, Mads Greaker and Erik Fjaerli, who all have been the head of research units where I have been employed, for embarking with me on this doctoral journey and for providing an opportunity to fulfil it. I also would like to thank the department of Economics, University of Oslo, for having me as a Ph.D. student; the Norwegian School of Economics in Bergen for having me as a guest during spring 2009; and the organizers (the Centre of European Economic Research, ZEW) and participants at the Competition and Innovation Summer School in 2012 for providing a professional and inspiring arena for sharing experience and discussing preliminary work. I acknowledge the financial support from the Research Council of Norway (for the writing of the first, third and fourth papers) and from the Norwegian Ministry of Local Government and Modernisation (for the writing of the final paper). Finally, I thank my family and friends for their love and support. Special thanks to my mother Elena for always believing in me, to my father Vladimir for always challenging me, to my husband Håvard for always supporting me, and to my two children, Katarina and Henrik, for making my doctoral journey more meaningful. Oslo, April 2015 Marina Rybalka Essay 3: The effects of R&D tax credits on patenting and innovations With Ådne Cappelen and Arvid Raknerud Essay 4: Returns to public R&D grants and subsidies With Ådne Cappelen and Arvid Raknerud Essay 5: The innovative input mix: Assessing the importance of R&D and ICT investments for firm performance in manufacturing and services

Abstract:In this paper we analyse how oilrig activity in different Non-OPEC regions is affected by the crude oil price. Oilrig activity outside OPEC is an important indicator for production in the near future, and is more sensitive to the oil price than production from existing fields. We estimate relationships between oilrig activity and crude oil prices using Equilibrium Correction Models (ECM) augmented with a stochastic time trend. The results generally show a positive relationship between oilrig activity and the crude oil price, but the strength of the relationship differs across regions. Rig activity in the US seems to react much faster and stronger to oil price changes compared to other regions. In the long-run the price elasticity in the US is above 1.5. Half the effect is observed after six months. In other regions the long-run elasticity is mainly between 0.5 and 1. Overall, it seems to be a clear relationship between the oil industry structure in the region and the reaction to price changes.

Although substantial research has been conducted to quantify the determinants of international migration, most official population projections do not include such determinants in a formal migration model. Statistics Norway forecasts gross immigration to Norway using an econometric model based on standard migration theories. The main variables include income level, unemployment, and population size in Norway and the sending countries, and the number of immigrants already living in Norway. Projections of exogenous variables are drawn from international and Norwegian sources. Three different alternatives are specified for the income variables, leading to three different forecasts for gross immigration until 2100.

A system of consumer expenditure functions is estimated from Norwegian household budget data. Specific features o f our approach are: (i) Panel data on individual households are used, which offer far richer o p p o r t u n i t i e s f o r i d e n t i f i c a t i o n , e s t i m a t i o n a n d t e s t i n g t h a n u s u a l c r o s s s e c t i o n data. (ii) Measurement errors are carefully modelled. Total consumption expenditure is modelled as a latent variable, purchase expenditures on different goods and two income measures are used as indicators of this basic latent variable. (iii) The distribution of latent total expenditure across households, and its evolution over time, is estimated and important properties tested. (iv) Individual differences in preferences, represented by individual, time invariant latent variables, are modelled, identified, estimated, and tested. (v) We test the hypothesis that preferences are uncorrelated with total consumption expenditure, which is basic to all cross section estimation of consumer demand functions. (vi) The model can be formalized as a special case of the LISREL model, and the maximum likelihood algorithm of the computer program LISREL VI is applied. 1 Paper presented at the Econometric Society European Meeting, Bologna, August 29-September 2, 1988. This research has been financed in part by NORAS (project no. 214 1 802). Liv Daasvatn has given valuable programming assistance in the preparation of the data.

a b s t r a c tEmissions from oil and gas extraction matter for the life cycle emissions of fossil fuels, and account for significant shares of domestic emissions in many fossil fuel exporting countries. In this study we investigate empirically the driving forces behind CO 2 -emission intensities of Norwegian oil and gas extraction, using field-specific data that cover all Norwegian oil and gas activity. We find that emissions per unit extraction increase significantly as a field's extraction declines. Moreover, emission intensities increase significantly with a field's share of oil in total oil and gas reserves. We also find some indication that oil and CO 2 -prices may have influenced emission intensities on the Norwegian continental shelf.

Abstract:This paper analyzes labor force participation with particular reference to the discouraged worker effect. Discouraged workers are those who do not search for work because they view their chances of finding a suitable job as too low. The theoretical point of departure is a search model where the worker evaluates the expected utility of searching for work and decides to participate in the labor market if the expected utility of the search exceeds the utility of not working. From this framework we derive an empirical model for the probability that the worker will be unemployed or employed as a function of the probability of getting an acceptable job, given that the worker searches for work. The model is estimated on a sample of married and cohabitating women in Norway covering the period from 1988 to 2008. The results show that the discouraged worker effect is substantial. On average, about one third of those who are out of the labor force are discouraged according to our analysis.

We propose a new method for estimating capital stocks at the firm level by combining business accounts information and investment data. The method also produces capital estimates at the sector or industry level by summing individual firms' capital stocks and appropriately inflating this sum to account for firms not included in the data set. Our approach has two major advantages compared with the much used Perpetual Inventory Method (PIM). First, long investment series are not necessary. Second, sector capital estimates are automatically adjusted for changes in the capital stock because of entry and exit of firms. While capital growth rates in Norwegian manufacturing were only 1 percent on average during 1993-2004 according to national accounts figures, our method yields much higher growth rates of 5.5 percent on average. Copyright � 2007 The Authors; Journal compilation � International Association for Research in Income and Wealth 2007.

BackgroundIn some Western countries, a disturbingly low share of girls has been observed among new-borns from Indian immigrants. Also in Norway, a previous study based on figures from 1969–2005 showed a high percentage of boys among children of Indian origin living in Norway, when the birth was of higher order (third birth or later). This was suggested to reflect a practice of sex-selective abortions in the Indian immigrant population. In this article we have seen whether extended time series for the period 2006–2012 give further support to this claim.MethodsBased on data from the Norwegian Central Population Register we used observations for the sex of all live births in Norway for the period 1969–2012 where the mother was born in India. The percentage of boys was calculated for each birth order, during four sub periods. Utilising a binomial probability model we tested whether the observed sex differences among Indian-born women were significantly different from sex differences among all births.ResultsContrary to findings from earlier periods and other Western countries, we found that Indian-born women in Norway gave birth to more girls than boys of higher order in the period 2006–2012. This is somewhat surprising, since sex selection is usually expected to be stronger if the mother already has two or more children.ConclusionsThe extended time series do not suggest a prevalence of sex selective abortions among Indian-born women in Norway. We discuss whether the change from a majority of boys to a majority of girls in higher order could be explained by new waves of immigrant women, by new preferences among long-residing immigrant women in Norway – or by mere coincidence.