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.