Prosjektet vil studerer ulike elementer ved Covid- krisen og langsiktige effekter på person- og bedriftsnivå, samt ser dette i sammenheng med eierstruktur i bedriftene og hvem som taper og tjener på ulike offentlige korona-støttetiltak og den generelle konjunkturutviklingen. Ambisjonen er å bruke ulike identifikasjonsstrategier og gjøre kausale studier som kan gi noe om de direkte årsakssammenhengene og effektene av krisen. Dette vil bidra til generell innsikt om hvordan økonomisk politikk kan brukes i økonomiske kriser og legge grunnlaget for fremtidig politikkutforming.
Prosjektet og deltagerne legger stor vekt på forskningsformidling til brukere og allmennheten, samt å delta i den offentlige debatten basert på resultater fra dette svært politikkrelevante prosjektet.
We plan to exploit the impact of the crisis to analyze how the economy actually works by utilizing rich administrative micro data as well as survey data. By combining frontline methodological advances with detailed data from various sources and several countries we will provide novel insights into core economic, political and societal research questions. We have already provided detailed insights into the nature of the first six weeks of the Covid-19 crisis in Norway in a previous project (Alstadsæter et al, 2020), documenting that the effects of social distancing measures quickly spread to industries that were not directly affected by policy. We also found that the shock had a strong socio-economic gradient, hit a financially vulnerable population, and parents with younger children, and was driven by layoffs in smaller, less productive, and financially weaker firms.
In the current project, we build on our previous results and utilize very detailed Norwegian administrative data covering the universe of Norwegian firms and individuals for the period 1993-2018 and onwards to bring new insights on incentives and behavior and how job loss may foster entrepreneurship. In a novel sub-project, we will study the anatomy of firms’ investments, job creation, and innovation in an European setting by combining survey og register data in Norway, Denmark, and Germany in order to facilitate cross-country comparisons. We also study how the crisis affects migration patterns and what the consequences for the Norwegian labor market are. Finally, we will build on our previous results and investigate longer term impact on inequality, as well as delving into the question and developing a new methodology to analyze the effects of a wealth tax on value creation.