Global Challenges, Sustainability, and the Welfare State - Perspectives from Labor, Behavioral and Macroeconomics

Norge er en liten, åpen, og ressursbasert økonomi der globale endringer i oljepriser, valutakursvolatilitet og andre internasjonale sjokk påvirker økonomi og velstand. samfunnets velvære. Den nåværende COVID-19-pandemien er et eksempel på et slikt sjokk med stor innvirkning på norsk økonomi. Det kraftige fallet i oljepris, høy arbeidsledighet og endringer i folks vilje til å akseptere ulikheter gir utfordringer for velferdsstaten og viser behovet for en gruppe økonomer med et bredt sett av ferdigheter for å skape ny kunnskap. Prosjektet Global Challenges, Sustainability, and the Welfare State er en unik plattform for arbeids-, atferds- og makroøkonomer som studerer økonomisk ulikhet, finansieringen av velferdsstaten, driverne for makroøkonomiske sykluser og utfordringene med en ressursbasert økonomi. Dette unike samarbeidet mellom forskere vil øke gruppens synlighet i det globale forskersamfunnet og blant beslutningstakere, ved internasjonal nettverksbygging, konferanser, forskningsutveksling og utdanning av en ny generasjon arbeids-, atferds- og makroøkonomer som kan identifisere årsakene og konsekvensene av økonomiske endringer i en global setting.

The current COVID-19 pandemic is having a profound impact on the Norwegian economy. A sharp drop in oil prices, volatility in the currency markets, high unemployment rates, and changes in people’s willingness to accept inequalities poses challenges to the welfare state and demonstrates the need for a group of economists with a brought skillset to create new knowledge for on-time policymaking. The project Global Challenges, Sustainability, and the Welfare State is a unique platform for labor, behavioral, and macroeconomists studying economic inequality, the financing of the welfare state, economic restructuring, drivers of macroeconomic cycles and economic policy, and the challenges of a resource-rich economy. In particular, we form a new collaboration between the two research groups at NHH: the Centre for Experimental Research on Fairness, Inequality, and Rationality (FAIR) and the Macroeconomics, Risk and Sustainability group. FAIR aims to conduct groundbreaking experimental research on how to address inequality in society and is an internationally leading research group in labor, behavioral and experimental economics with extensive experience in working with registry data and in running all types of experiments. The Macroeconomics, Risk and Sustainability group analyzes the linkages between the resource sectors and the overall economy and optimal fiscal policy strategies. The key features uniting the two groups are i) the use of the rich administrative data and rigorous statistical methods to identify causal effects and ii) the goal to provide research results that are highly policy relevant. This unique cooperation will expand its visibility in the global research community and the policy sphere though international network building, workshop organization, research exchanges, and the education of a new generation of labor, behavioral and macroeconomists able to identify and deal with the causes and consequences of economic changes in a global setting.