Kjell G. Salvanes

Staying in the Classroom and out of the maternity ward? The effect of compulsory schooling laws on teenage births

This article investigates whether increasing mandatory educational attainment through compulsory schooling legislation encourages women to delay childbearing. We use variation induced by changes in compulsory schooling laws in both the US and Norway to estimate the effect in two very different institutional environments. We find evidence that increased compulsory schooling does in fact reduce the incidence of teenage childbearing in both the US and Norway, and these estimates are quite robust to various specification checks. These results suggest that legislation aimed at improving educational outcomes may have spillover effects onto the fertility decisions of teenagers.

Too Young to Leave the Nest: The Effects of School Starting Age

Using Norwegian data, we examine effects of school starting age (SSA). Unlike much recent literature, we can separate SSA from test age effects using scores from IQ tests taken outside school at about age 18. We find a small, negative effect of starting school older but much larger positive effects of age at test. Also, starting older leads to lower earnings until about age 30. We find little impact of SSA on educational attainment, but boys who start older are less likely to have poor mental health at age 18. Additionally, starting school older has a negative effect on the probability of teenage pregnancy.

Individual transferable quotas in multispecies fisheries

Dale Squires and Samuel F. Herrick, Jr are at the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service, P.O. Box 271, La Jolla, California 92038-0271, USA. Harry Campbell is at the University of Queensland, Queensland, Australia. Stephen Cunningham and Sean Pascoe are at the University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, UK. Christopher Dewees is at the University of California, Davis, Davis USA. R. Quentin Grafton is at the University of Ottawa, Ottawa Canada. James Kirkley is at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, Gloucester, VA, USA. Sean Pascoe is also at the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Canberra, Australia. Kjell Salvanes is at the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration, Bergen, Norway. Bruce Shallard can be contacted at Bruce Shallard and Associates, New Zealand. Bruce Turris is at the Canada Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Vancouver, Canada. Niels Vestergaard is at the Danish Institute for Fisheries Economics Research, Esbjerg, Denmark.

Testing for Market Power Using a Dynamic OLigopoly Model

Abstract We propose a dynamic reformulation of the oligopoly model of Bresnahan (1982) and Lau (1982) in an error correcting framework. This reformulation addresses both statistical problems generated by short run dynamics in the data and incorporates important dynamic factors such as habit formation from the demand side and adjustment costs for the producer. We also propose a test for separability of the variables involved in the identification of the market power parameter. To illustrate the model, the French market for fresh salmon is analysed. The results suggest the salmon market to be competitive in the long run, but indicate that the largest producer, Norway, has some market power in the short run.

Market Delineation and Demand Structure

This paper addresses the relationship between the cointegration approach to market delineation and the more traditional approach of analyzing the demand structure among different products in terms of degree of substitutability. Cointegration tests for market delineation and estimation of a dynamic system of demand equations are undertaken utilizing the same data set. The data set consists of three high-quality seafood products in the European Union. The results are encouraging as the results from the two approaches are not only compatible, but are also complementary in the sense that they provide more information together than they do separately. Copyright 1997, Oxford University Press.

A Flying Start? Maternity Leave Benefits and Long-Run Outcomes of Children

We study a change in maternity leave entitlements in Norway. Mothers giving birth before July 1, 1977, were eligible for 12 weeks of unpaid leave, while those giving birth after that date were entitled to 4 months of paid leave and 12 months of unpaid leave. The increased time spent with the child led to a 2 percentage point decline in high school dropout rates and a 5 percent increase in wages at age 30. These effects were larger for the children of mothers who, in the absence of the reform, would have taken very low levels of unpaid leave.

Small Family, Smart Family? Family Size and the IQ Scores of Young Men

This paper uses Norwegian data to estimate the effect of family size on IQ scores of men. Instrumental variables (IV) estimates using sex composition as an instrument show no significant negative effect of family size; however, IV estimates using twins imply that family size has a negative effect on IQ scores. Our results suggest that the effect of family size depends on the type of family-size intervention and that there are no important negative effects of expected increases in family size. However, unexpected shocks to family size resulting from twin births have negative effects on the IQ scores of existing children.

Willingness to Compete: Family Matters

This paper studies the role of family background in explaining differences in the willingness to compete. By combining data from a lab experiment conducted with a representative sample of adolescents in Norway and high quality register data on family background, we show that family background is fundamental in two important ways. First, boys from low socioeconomic status families are less willing to compete than boys from better off families, even when controlling for confidence, performance, risk preferences, time preferences, social preferences, and psychological traits. Second, family background is crucial for understanding the large gender difference in the willingness to compete. Girls are much less willing to compete than boys among children from better off families, whereas we do not find any gender difference in willingness to compete among children from low socioeconomic status families. Our data suggest that the main mechanism explaining the role of family background is that the father’s socioeconomic status has a large effect on the boys’ willingness to compete, but no effect on the girls. We do not find any effect on the willingness to compete for boys or girls of the mother’s socioeconomic status or other family characteristic that may potentially shape competition preferences, including parental equality and sibling rivalry.

The demand for salmon in France: the effects of marketing and structural change

Two aspects of change in the market for salmon in France during the 1980s are the subject of econometric analysis. First, an hypothesis that a change in the distribution pattern for salmon, with a larger share of the product traded further down the distribution channel, has lead to more elastic demand is tested via demand analysis. Second, the effects of advertising in expanding the salmon market is tested.

A Fish Is a Fish Is a Fish? Testing for Market Linkages on the Paris Fish Market

This paper applies both the Engle-Granger and Johansen cointegration test procedures to determine the existence of market linkage among high-valued (salmon and turbot) and low-valued (cod) fish species using monthly average wholesale price data recorded on the Paris fish market. We find that the price of salmon is determined exogenously to the system of prices examined and that the market for salmon is not linked to the markets for turbot or cod.