BI Open (Norwegian Business School)
Not a member yet
6706 research outputs found
Sort by
Applied Econometric Studies in Political Representation and Mobilization
Full text linkAbstract Chapter 1: Child Penalties in Politics
Women tend to experience a substantial decline in their labour income after their first child is born, while men do not. Do such ‘child penalties’ also exist in the political arena? Using comprehensive administrative data from Norway, we find that women are less likely than men to secure elected office after their first child is born. The effects manifest already from the nomination stage, where mothers receive less favourable rankings on party lists relative to comparable fathers. This paper broadens our understanding of a fundamental social issue in political representation and demonstrates how motherhood affects even positively selected women.
Abstract Chapter 2 (not available)
Abstract Chapter 3: Bound by Borders: Voter Mobilization Though Social Networks A vast and growing quantitative literature considers how social networks shape political mobilization but the degree to which turnout decisions are strategic remains ambiguous. Unlike previous studies, we establish personal links between voters and candidates and exploit discontinuous incentives to mobilize across district boundaries to estimate causal effects. Considering three types of networks – families, co-workers, and immigrant communities – we show that a group member’s candidacy acts as a mobilizational impulse propagating through the group’s network. In family networks, some of this impulse is non-strategic, surviving past district boundaries. However, the bulk of family mobilization is bound by the candidate’s district boundary, as is the entirety of the mobilizational effects in the other networks.publishedVersio
The Causal Effect of Affluence on Voter Turnout: New Evidence from Lottery Winnings
Full text linkAffluent citizens commonly record higher election turnout than less affluent citizens. Yet, the causal effect of affluence on voter turnout remains poorly understood. In this article, we rely on Norwegian administrative data to estimate the impact of random, exogenous shocks in (unearned) income on individual-level voter turnout. Exploiting the random timing and size of lottery wins for identification, our main findings suggest that a lottery windfall in the years just before an election boosts individuals’ turnout probability by 1.6 to 1.9 percentage points. Crucially, these point estimates reflect only a small share of turnout differences observed across the income distribution. Hence, our findings strongly suggest that most of the commonly observed positive income-turnout associations do not reflect a causal relationship.publishedVersio
Investor Activity and Performance
Full text linkThis dissertation, which examine different aspects of investor activity and performance, were made possible by a unique dataset covering all investors' transactions in the Norwegian stock market over more than two decades. I spent the better part of a year cleaning data and consulting with market participants and the data vendor to understand the data's intricacies and formulate relevant research questions. While processing half a billion transactions was an extremely demanding task, this novel market-wide dataset enabled both the investigation of new questions and a holistic reexamination of existing theories about market participants.
In the first paper, “Investor Activity and Wealth Transfers”, I investigate the evolution of investor activity and the consequential wealth transfer between investor categories. I document excessive activity across investor categories with significant downward-sloping trends in both activities and wealth transfers over time. This study employs a novel performance attribution model decomposing transactions into market timing, stock selection and short-term trading. The method avoids the caveats of statistical estimations by directly calculating activity and wealth transfers from the detailed data. The first paper's comprehensive analysis of all investor categories and market activity evolution over time makes novel contributions across multiple research streams, enriching our understanding of market dynamics. Its descriptive approach offers fresh perspectives that complement traditional academic frameworks. Following coverage in the leading national financial newspaper, the paper garnered much interest from market practitioners, reaching the top 10% most viewed papers on SSRN within weeks of publication. This enthusiastic response demonstrates how bridging theoretical research with practical market insights can create particularly valuable contributions to both academia and industry.
In the second paper, “Investor Category Trading Imbalances and Return Predictions When Predictions Balance Out”, I investigate an apparent paradox in the literature regarding how different investors' trading imbalances predict stock returns. The research offers three main contributions to the field: It first demonstrates that institutional and retail trading patterns have opposing relationships with future returns - institutional buying generally signals positive returns over periods up to 250 days, while retail buying signals negative returns of comparable size. Second, the paper explains why previous studies may find conflicting results, particularly when they examine incomplete investor groups or use metrics that are not zero-sum across all investors. Finally, by analyzing four distinct institutional investor categories, the research challenges existing theories about liquidity provision, finding that neither retail investors nor dealer banks serve as liquidity providers to other institutions seeking rapid trade execution.
In the third paper, "Six combinations of disposition effects: Investor heterogeneity and the effect of aggregation", I investigate a well-researched topic, the disposition effect, among mutual funds. I find that even the most sophisticated professional investors exhibit this bias in their trading patterns. The average mutual fund shows two distinct tendencies: a propensity to sell winners over losers (the classical disposition effect) and a propensity to sell stocks with high absolute returns (the absolute or V-shaped disposition effect). Through detailed transaction data analysis, I demonstrate that aggregation obscures significant heterogeneity in selling behavior, and that the V-shaped disposition effect prevalent among mutual funds significantly detracts from selling performance.publishedVersio
Multimodal identity work: The power of visual images for identity construction in the gig economy
Full text linkWe adopt a visual methods approach, in conjunction with an interview-based study, to investigate the identity work of creative workers who sell their services remotely as online freelancers via gig economy platforms. Based on visual self-portrayals elicited from 53 remote gig workers, including illustrators, animators and graphic designers, and their subsequent verbal reflections on these images, our study elucidates the generative power of visual images for gaining insights into identity work, especially in non-traditional work contexts facilitated by digital technologies. We distinguish key identity work strategies that remote gig workers use to construct their identities in relation to idealized, publicly available and free-floating imaginaries of platform labour. These strategies ranged from fully embracing such imaginaries to their vehement rejection, as well as strategies aimed at maintaining a balance between these extremes. Besides the embodied, sensorial intensities and imaginative projections underpinning such identity construction in the gig economy, our analysis foregrounds also the spatial aspects of identity work. Theoretically, we propose a redefinition of identity work as a multimodal accomplishment rather than exclusively a narrative one to better explain the elusive and contradictory aspects of identity work, including its affective and spatial character.Multimodal identity work: The power of visual images for identity construction in the gig economypublishedVersio
The role of taste-shape correspondences and semantic congruence in product preference and taste expectations
Full text linkPeople infer the taste of products based on semantic knowledge (e.g., associations with the category and brand elements). They also link shape features with certain taste qualities through inherent associations commonly referred to as crossmodal correspondences. This research examined how shape features influence the evaluation of familiar and unfamiliar products, and thus varying levels of semantic knowledge. Participants evaluated the expected taste, familiarity, liking, and willingness to purchase products with curved and angular logos presented with sweet, bitter, and neutral characteristics, as well as unfamiliar products. The results of Experiment 1 indicated that the curved logos were preferred and associated with greater sweetness, while the angular logos were less preferred and associated with bitterness. However, in Experiment 2, these differences disappeared when the logos were presented with packages of familiar (sweet, bitter, and neutral) and unfamiliar products. In Experiment 3, the expected tastes for the logos were more pronounced when they were framed as representing new or unfamiliar products than sweet and bitter familiar products. The difference in expected sweetness between curved and angular logos was greater for new or unfamiliar products than for familiar sweet products, and the same pattern was found for expected bitterness. Together, these results suggest that feature-based expectations of taste are absent or less pronounced when semantic knowledge about the products is greater.acceptedVersio
Resilience and Adaptability in Paracetamol Supply Chains: A Systems Perspective on COVID-19 Challenges and Responses in Ethiopia
Full text linkBackground: The COVID-19 pandemic exposed vulnerabilities in global supply chains, including those for essential medicines like paracetamol. This study aimed to assess the resilience and adaptability of Ethiopia’s paracetamol supply chain during the pandemic. Methods: A mixed-methods approach was employed, combining semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders and analysis of secondary data on paracetamol availability and supply chain disruptions. The study employed systems thinking and supply chain resilience frameworks, utilizing causal loop diagrams to visualize system dynamics. Results: Eighteen stakeholders, representing seven pharmaceutical manufacturers, five import companies, and five wholesalers, participated in the study. These participants had between three and fourteen years of experience in their respective roles. The study revealed complex interactions within the paracetamol supply chain, highlighting both challenges and adaptive responses. While 500 mg paracetamol tablets were readily available, shortages of other formulations were observed due to a range of factors, including limited product diversification, political instability, inflation, and reduced production efficiency. Conclusions: The resilience and adaptability of stakeholders, particularly manufacturers and importers, were crucial in maintaining the supply of 500 mg paracetamol tablets. Key strategies included regional sourcing, increased production, and improved partnerships. Understanding the interconnectedness of factors within the supply chain is essential for developing effective strategies to enhance its resilience and ensure sustained access to paracetamol in the future.Resilience and Adaptability in Paracetamol Supply Chains: A Systems Perspective on COVID-19 Challenges and Responses in EthiopiapublishedVersio
Leveraging quality improvement initiatives to support development of decision support tools in healthcare
Full text linkModelling and simulation studies have been used to inform the choices and development of quality improvement (QI) initiatives in health care, for example, by helping refine the intervention to be implemented or support decisions around the management of demand and capacity. We do not know whether a modelling study can itself be informed by a QI project and what are the associated benefits and challenges. In this research, we sought to investigate the opportunities and challenges associated with an ongoing health service-led QI project in informing the development of a stochastic simulation-based decision support tool to inform decisions around the commissioning of anticoagulation services for patients with atrial fibrillation. We found that the positive synergies offered by the QI project included good access to stakeholders and envisaged end users, co-producing relevant and impactful scenarios for experimentation, as well as access to good quality individual patient level data. On the other hand, substantial effort was required to populate input parameters with values that pertain to the natural history of the disease and the effectiveness of the different treatments. Our findings indicate that, if stakeholders require modelling results to inform aspects of a QI project, upfront investment is needed to ensure timely interaction between the two studies.Leveraging quality improvement initiatives to support development of decision support tools in healthcarepublishedVersio
Communicated and Perceived Public Consensus About Climate Change
Full text linkPeople’s beliefs about the public opinion on climate change can play a significant role in determining their own attitudes and likelihood to engage in climate-friendly behavior. However, limited research exists on the perception of consensus and effective ways to inform individuals about public opinion. In this study, we examined whether presenting information in two different formats—packed or unpacked—would impact people’s perception of public agreement on climate change. In two experiments (total N = 506; 151 participants from the USA and 355 participants from Norway), participants read about the public opinion on different topics related to climate change, either in an “unpacked” way (e.g., 5% strongly oppose, 8% somewhat oppose, 41% somewhat support, and 46% strongly support funding research into renewable energy), or in a “packed” way (e.g., 13% somewhat or strongly oppose, and 87% somewhat or strongly support funding research into renewable energy), before rating the perceived public (dis)agreement about the topics. We hypothesized that presenting information in a packed way would lead to higher perceived agreement, but found no support for this hypothesis. Interestingly, our results showed that participants’ own beliefs or attitudes were positively related to perceived agreement. The findings contribute to the literature on false consensus and motivated reasoning.publishedVersio
The Norwegian Parliamentary Debates Dataset
Full text linkRecent advancements in computing power and machine learning techniques have facilitated the digitization of new corpora, as well as new methods for studying high-dimensional data. This has enabled empirical investigations of fundamental questions in the social sciences that were previously restricted by technical limitations or data availability. In this note, we introduce a new dataset covering debates in the Norwegian Parliament in the 1945-2024 period. This dataset, which covers close to one million speeches, includes information about speeches (full text, date of speech, and chamber), speakers’ status (parliamentary president, member of parliament, deputy member of parliament, or cabinet minister), as well as speaker background characteristics (party affiliation, committee membership, district affiliation, rank on electoral lists, gender, and birth year). This dataset will enable extensive research into political representation in a party-centered electoral framework. More broadly, this dataset serves as a vital resource for interdisciplinary research, enabling studies on the evolution of language, rhetoric, and the broader socio-economic factors influencing legislative behavior.publishedVersio
The healthy aging and service firms: the promise of smart technologies
Full text linkPurpose The world is getting older but healthier, making the over-65s healthy aging the only age-based growth segment in developed countries. This article offers a new perspective on healthy aging consumers and examines how service firms can use smart technologies, such as intelligent automation (IA), artificial intelligence (AI), and service robots, to improve their customer experience (CX). Design/methodology/approach This conceptual article draws insights from the literature on healthy aging in consumer behavior, psychology, and medicine, amongst others, and the literature in service management and marketing on technology. Findings This article first demonstrates the attractiveness of the healthy over-65s segment to service firms. Second, it addresses the previously overlooked healthy aging segment in consumer research, connecting it to the evolving physical, cognitive, and socio-emotional responses of older adults in service settings. Third, it advances how service firms can use smart technologies to improve the healthy aging’s CX in the contexts of hedonic and utilitarian services delivered in physical and digital service environments. Practical implications This paper focuses service firms on their fastest-growing segment, that is, healthy older consumers. It provides recommendations on how service firms can use smart technologies to serve this segment better. Originality/value This article opens a new stream of service research on healthy aging and technology.publishedVersio