Rune Jørgen Sørensen (b. 1955) is professor of political economy and political science. His research interests includes studies of public governance, local and central government policies, health and education economics. He has published extensively, including in Health Economics, Journal of Health Economics, Education Economics, Public Choice, Public Administration, Public Administration Review, Journal of Public Economics, Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Journal of Theoretical Politics, European Journal of Political Science, European Journal of Political Economy, and British Journal of Political Science.
Sørensen has teached at all levels, both ordinary education courses and executive education programs.
He has served on a number of government boards and committees, as department chair in two periods and as provost at the Norwegian Business School.
Affluent 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.
Geys, Benny & Sørensen, Rune Jørgen (2024)
Transitory Income Windfalls and Charitable Giving: Evidence from Norwegian Register Data, 1993–2021
This paper studies the impact of unearned, transitory income shocks on charitable giving using Norwegian administrative data. We exploit the random timing and size of lottery wins and our long time period (1993 2021) to estimate both short- and longer-term impacts. We find no meaningful effect of small windfalls. Yet, windfalls exceeding $10,000 induce a long-lasting increase in the likelihood to donate, the absolute level of donations and the share of annual income donated (conditional on donating). We show that this is consistent with individuals thinking of large transitory income shocks as a long-term addition to their annual income
Sørensen, Rune Jørgen (2024)
Are politicians more generous? Evidence from charitable giving
This paper analyzes the relationship between charitable giving and political candidacy. It uses individual-level Norwegian register data, which is combined with data on the universe of candidates running for local elections (2003–2021). These data include information on tax-deductible donations to approved organizations. Existing and new evidence suggest these gifts are a valid marker of pro-social preferences, with charitable contributors also displaying a positive correlation with competence. The average politician is more generous than the general population both before, during, and after their election to public office. An event study indicates that while contributions remain predominantly stable; they increase modestly when candidates are standing for election and decrease afterward.
Politicians are commonly believed to gain financially from holding and/or having held office. We argue that there may often also be economic downsides to pursuing a political career, and investigate whether and when politicians can(not) capitalize on their political experience. We thereby study both entry into and exit from political office, and directly compare the returns to politics across government levels and types of politicians. Empirically, we build on detailed information from Norwegian administrative register data over the period 1970-2019 to study individual-level income developments before, during and after a political career at the national and local levels (covering nearly 22,000 individuals and 700,000 person-years). Using an event-study methodology, we show that politicians on average witness a significant income boost during their time in office. In sharp contrast, leaving political office is on average associated with a substantial drop in income, which generally outweighs the income gain from entry into office. These findings suggest that most politicians face a net present value loss from holding office.
Sørensen, Rune Jørgen (2023)
Educated politicians and government efficiency: Evidence from Norwegian local government
The paper studies the effect of politicians’ education levels on government efficiency. Using data on Norwegian local government, the paper measures efficiency by DEA-productivity indicators and comprehensive indicators of service production. The identification of causal effects exploits close (within-list) elections to design an instrumental variable for council shares with higher education.
Consistent with survey data, the estimates show that better-educated politicians induce higher levels of efficiency, particularly for old-age care services. A similar empirical strategy indicates that political experience has small efficiency effects. Educational misrepresentation has modest effects on fiscal allocations and is mostly canceled out by the efficiency gains.
In many countries, public sector employees are eligible to hold political offices during their employment as civil servants. This often triggers conflict-of-interest concerns that elected public employees might sway policies to their professional benefit. In this article, we build on representation scholarship in political science and public administration to assess such substantive effects of public employees’ political representation using detailed Norwegian administrative register and survey data (2003–19). Our main results indicate that public employees differ little from other members within their party in terms of ideology and policy preferences. They do, however, appear to move their party slightly toward the left of the political spectrum, consistent with preference spillover effects induced by heightened public sector representation. Finally, using an instrumental variable approach exploiting close elections, we find that political representation of public employees is associated with at best modest public spending, employment, and wage effects at the local level.
We study the effects of parenting style on students’ school performance, assuming that immigrant parents’ child-rearing strategies derive from their country of origin. Following Doepke and Zilibotti [2017. Parenting with style: Altruism and paternalism in intergenerational preference
transmission. Econometrica, 85(5), 1331–1371. https://do.org/10.3982/ ECTA14634], we measure patterns of parenting using data from the World Value and European Value Surveys. We combine these data with Norwegian register data on students’ test scores and exam results. Non-authoritarian parenting styles that encourage hard work (authoritativeness) or allow students to develop their independence and imagination (permissiveness) yield the better educational outcomes.
Economic theory and evidence suggest that political leaders take advantage of government revenue windfalls – particularly from natural resource exploitation – to enrich themselves. We revisit this hypothesis by combining information on massive local government hydropower and petroleum revenues in Norway with five decades of registry data on individual mayors’ earnings and wealth. We find that, while the resource expansions massively boost local government revenues and spending, there is no evidence that mayors exploit the windfalls to enrich themselves. We attribute our precisely estimated zero-finding to characteristics of the Norwegian institutional and informational environment. First, we show that the revenue windfalls induce citizens to seek political information and raise their rates of electoral participation. Second, in the early sample period when local newspapers were more important, mayors’ wage responses were negatively related to newspaper coverage. In sum, our results suggest that voter information is a key disciplining accountability mechanism, potentially explaining our zero-rent result.
Ageing is often believed to induce a movement towards the right of the political spectrum. Yet, empirical evidence remains inconclusive due to a dearth of longitudinal datasets covering multiple cohorts. Using eleven rotating panels of the Norwegian Election Studies (1977–2017) and exploiting first-derivative properties of the vote choice function, our empirical approach identifies non-linear life-cycle effects while controlling for cohort and period effects. Our main findings indicate that shifting towards the left is more likely among the young (under 40 years) whereas shifting towards the right occurs at an older age (over 55 years). Evaluating potential mechanisms, we find that individuals’ income, retirement, family status and political interest explain only a small part of the observed ageing effect. Life-cycle shifts in (some) policy preferences may play a bigger role. Finally, aging effects are similar across women and men, and only marginally stronger among groups with lower education and income levels.
Countries have widely diverging regulations regarding the eligibility of public sector employees for political office, and the stringency of such regulations remains fiercely debated. Building on a demand and supply model of political selection, this article contributes to such debates by studying whether and how the incentives of public employees as both consumers and producers of public services (their ‘double motive’) affects their descriptive political representation. Our analysis employs population-wide individual-level register data covering four Norwegian local elections between 2007 and 2019 (N>13 million observations). Using predominantly individual-level panel regression models, we find that public employees are strongly overrepresented on election lists and have a higher probability of election (conditional on running). Looking at underlying mechanisms, we provide evidence consistent with the ‘double motive’ of public employees inducing their self-selection into standing for elected office (at higher-ranked ballot positions). Demand-side effects deriving from party and voter selection receive more limited empirical support. We discuss ensuing concerns about the potential substantive representation of policy self-interests by elected public employees.
Building on agency-theoretical perspectives of public bureaucracies, we argue that politician–bureaucrat preference alignment can have important implications for bureaucrats’ pay. We study such
private gains to bureaucrats from their political alignment with elected politicians using detailed
data on all 1,632 top administrators active in all Norwegian municipalities over a period of 25 years
(1991–2015). Whereas existing studies generally rely on proxies for politician–bureaucrat political
alignment, a rare feature of our data allows measuring it directly since 27% of top bureaucrats ran
for political office. We focus explicitly on individuals at the very top of the administrative hierarchy
and are able to separate the intensive margin (i.e., wage increases) from any additional effects at
the extensive margin (i.e., new appointments). Using close elections for inference in a regression
discontinuity analysis, we find that politician–bureaucrat alignment significantly increases top bureaucrats’ wage even in the Norwegian civil service system. This has important implications also
from a theoretical perspective. Our results indeed go against predictions from models with policymotivated bureaucrats, but are consistent with politically aligned principal–agent matches being
more productive.
Does working in the public rather than the private sector have a causal effect on electoral participation? Extant evidence using cross-sectional survey data remains unpersuasive due to data limitations and concerns posed by preference-based job selection. We address these challenges using population-wide individual-level register data on voter turnout covering four Norwegian local and national elections between 2013 and 2019. We identify causal effects by tracking the same individuals over time during (a) shifts between private- and public-sector employment, (b) relocations between municipalities, and (c) shifts into retirement. We find that local public-sector employees display 1–3 percentage points higher voter turnout compared with private-sector employees. These effects arise particularly when working in their residential municipality, but they largely dissipate upon retirement.
Cox, Gary W.; Fiva, Jon H., Smith, Daniel M. & Sørensen, Rune Jørgen (2021)
Moral hazard in electoral teams: List rank and campaign effort
How do parties motivate candidates to exert effort in closed-list elections, where seat outcomes are uncertain only for candidates in marginal list positions? We argue that parties can solve this moral hazard problem by committing ex ante to allocate higher offices in government, such as cabinet portfolios, monotonically with list rank. Under this schedule of compensation, parties have incentives to rank candidates in order of quality (under some conditions) and candidates have incentives to increase the volume and geo-diversity of their campaign efforts as their rank improves. Using detailed data on Norwegian candidates and their use of mass and social media in recent elections, we confirm that (1) candidate quality increases with list rank, and (2) candidates in safer ranks shift from intra-district to extra-district and national media exposure—a composition of effort that can increase their party’s chance of entering government, and thus their own potential share of the spoils.
Geys, Benny & Sørensen, Rune Jørgen (2020)
Administrative Delegation in Budgetary Powers and Fiscal Performance
Does delegation of the budget preparation process to top civil servants improve or worsen fiscal performance? We address this question by analyzing high‐quality data on budgetary procedures and fiscal performance over a 25‐year period in Norwegian local governments. This long time period allows exploiting substantial variation in budgetary procedures across time and space. The results show that administrative delegation decreases fiscal deficits as a share of current revenues. Compared to procedures relying on political coordination or the traditional ‘bottom‐up’ procedure, deficits are approximately 0.3 percentage points lower on average under administrative delegation. Still, this effect is conditional upon the presence of minority governments and fails to materialize when the mayor enjoys majority support in the local council. Our results thus indicate that administrative delegation in budgetary processes may constitute an important tool to alleviate poor fiscal performance arising due to political coordination failures and weak political decision‐making.
We estimated the effects of education on mortality and causes of death in Norway. We identified causal effects by exploiting the staggered implementation of a school reform that increased the length of compulsory education from seven to nine years. The municipality-level education data were combined with complete records of all deaths from 1960 to 2015 from the Norwegian Cause of Death Registry. These data covered the entire life span of persons aged 16–64. One additional year of education caused a reduction in mortality of about 10% for men. The effect was negligible for women. For men, a large part of the effect was due to fewer accidental deaths. We suggest two explanations for this finding. First, there are differences in risk-taking behaviour between people with a high level of education and those with a low level. Second, more education leads to upward occupational mobility. This mobility is mainly from occupations for which the risk of accidents is high to occupations for which the risk is low. Our results supported the fundamental cause theory. This is because education had a stronger effect on mortality for causes of death that are preventable than for causes of death that are not preventable. More education had no effect on the probability of dying of diseases that were amenable to medical intervention only. This gives some support to our results that patients are treated equally, independent of their level of education. This may be due to the large public involvement in financing and provision of health services.
Support for environmental protection is generally perceived as driven by cohort or generational effects. We argue and empirically illustrate that such attitudes also fluctuate over the life cycle. Using rotating panels of the Norwegian Election Studies (1989-2013), our analysis is able to identify such life-cycle effects while controlling for cohort and period effects through a methodological innovation exploiting the first-derivative properties of the environmental concern function. Our main findings provide strong evidence of an inverted U-shape over the life cycle, which implies that substantial population aging in advanced economies may partially offset any generational shift towards a greater emphasis on protecting the environment.
Geys, Benny & Sørensen, Rune Jørgen (2019)
The Impact of Women above the Political Glass Ceiling: Evidence from a Norwegian Executive Gender Quota Reform
Women have historically been underrepresented in democratic assemblies, particularly in top positions with executive powers. Most gender quota reforms address this by mandating a more equal gender representation on election lists. In contrast, a 1992 legislative reform in Norway required parties' candidate lists for the local executive board to comprise at least 40% politicians of each gender. This legal change was not only exogenously imposed by a higher-level government, but also generated distinct quota-induced constraints across Norwegian municipalities. We exploit the resulting variation in ‘quota shocks’ using a difference-in-differences design to identify the quota's effect on women's political representation as well as local public policies. We find that more women enter the executive board after the reform, though spill-overs on women's representation in the local council and on the probability of a female mayor or top administrator are weak. We also find no consistent evidence for shifts in public policies due to increased representation of women in positions with executive powers.
Fiva, Jon H.; Folke, Olle & Sørensen, Rune Jørgen (2018)
The Power of Parties: Evidence From Close Municipal Elections in Norway
We show that small shifts in representation can affect policy in proportional election systems. Using data from Norway, we find that a larger left-wing party leads to more property taxation, higher childcare spending, and lower elderly care spending, while local public goods appear to be a non-partisan issue. These effects are partly due to shifts in bloc majorities, and partly due to changes in the left–right position of the council, keeping the majority constant. The estimates on spending allocations are rather imprecise, but they are consistent with evidence on politicians' fiscal preferences and patterns in media attention.
Objective:
To examine the effect that the introduction of new diagnostic technology in obstetric care has had on fetal death.
Data Source
The Medical Birth Registry of Norway provided detailed medical information for approximately 1.2 million deliveries from 1967 to 1995. Information about diagnostic technology was collected directly from the maternity units, using a questionnaire.
Study Design:
The data were analyzed using a hospital fixed‐effects regression with fetal mortality as the outcome measure. The key independent variables were the introduction of ultrasound and electronic fetal monitoring at each maternity ward. Hospital‐specific trends and risk factors of the mother were included as control variables. The richness of the data allowed us to perform several robustness tests.
Principal Finding:
The introduction of ultrasound caused a significant drop in fetal mortality rate, while the introduction of electronic fetal monitoring had no effect on the rate. In the population as a whole, ultrasound contributed to a reduction in fetal deaths of nearly 20 percent. For post‐term deliveries, the reduction was well over 50 percent.
Conclusion:
The introduction of ultrasound made a major contribution to the decline in fetal mortality at the end of the last century.
Frivillig kommunesammenslåing - betydningen av folketall, inntekt og politisk avstand
, s. 17- 28.
I denne artikkelen analyserer vi lokale folkeavstemninger om kommunesammenslåing. Det forventes at stor forskjell i folketall, inntektsnivå og politiske preferanser mellom kommuner vil gjøre sammenslåing vanskelig. Det foreligger data for 253 folkeavstemninger i den reformprosess som nå foregår. Mange kommuner har holdt flere avstemninger og har stilt spørsmål om flere alternativer. Analysen her baserer seg på forskjeller blant kommuner innen en aktuell sammenslåings-konstellasjonen og ser bare på symmetriske folkeavstemninger. Hovedresultatet er en positiv sammenheng mellom folketall og andel ja-stemmer til sammenslåing. Bekymringen for å bli overkjørt ser ut til å være større enn håpet om stordriftsgevinster for små kommuner. Analysen indikerer at politisk avstand betyr noe i tillegg – man ønsker ikke å bli styrt av et annet politisk flertall. Vi studerer også beslutningen om å holde avstemning og valgdeltagelsen. Små kommuner har høyere tilbøyelighet til å holde folkeavstemning. Små og rike kommuner innen konstellasjonen har høyere valgdeltagelse – de har mer å forsvare.
Recent research explores the effect of financial and career incentives on public-sector hiring processes and subsequent performance. The reverse relation between performance and bureaucrats’ compensation and turnover has received only limited attention. Due to the distinct features of public-sector organizations, bureaucrats are traditionally argued to require either permanent positions and fixed wages, or low-powered performance incentives. This article studies how the performance of top civil servants in Norwegian local governments affects their compensation and turnover. We thereby build on a unique new dataset over the period 1991-2014. Our results indicate that better performing top civil servants obtain a higher compensation and are less likely to be replaced. Nonetheless, these incentives remain low-powered in line with agency theory prescriptions.
Geys, Benny & Sørensen, Rune Jørgen (2017)
Never Change a Winning Policy? Public Sector Performance and Politicians’ Preferences for Reforms
Despite the increasing stress on performance in public sector organizations, there is still little empirical evidence on whether—and if so, how—politicians respond to performance information. This article addresses this research gap by linking registry statistics on school performance in Norway's 428 municipalities with data from an information experiment embedded in a survey of local politicians. Findings show that school performance bears only a weak relationship to politicians' preferences for resource-related reforms, but it strongly affects preferences for governance-related reforms, indicating the importance of accounting for heterogeneity across alternative types of (school) reforms. Moreover, local politicians are, on average, well informed about school performance. This reflects the force of local inhabitants' high information level on politicians' accountability.
Little is known about how physicians and hospitals respond to the risk of being negatively exposed in the mass media. We assume that newspapers will cover events more closely in the areas where they have most of their circulation. Within such areas the likelihood of negative publicity increases. The research question is whether obstetricians respond to negative newspaper coverage by choosing the least risky method of delivery, i.e. Caesarean section. This was tested on a large set of data from the Medical Birth Registry of Norway for the period 2000–2011. The Registry contains detailed medical information about all deliveries, for both the mother and the infant. This set of data was merged with a set of data that contained information about newspaper coverage for the municipalities in which all hospitals were located. Altogether, more than 620 000 deliveries in 46 municipalities were included in the study. The data were analyzed using a hospital fixed effects regression. The main result was that newspaper coverage had a significant positive effect on the probability of having a Caesarean section. Several supplementary analyses supported the main finding. Altogether, our results indicate that obstetricians are sensitive to the risk of being exposed in the mass media. This is likely to be because obstetricians care about their reputation.
The influx of immigrants to Norway over the last decades is a large-scale natural experiment. This paper exploits municipal-level variations in the immigrant population (1977–2011) to estimate the causal effects on voter support for the right-wing, anti-immigration Progress Party. The results indicate that voters keep incumbents accountable for permissive immigration policies. Immigration from non-Western countries (Africa, Asia, Latin America) has increased electoral support for the Progress Party. However, the effects are quite modest and noticeable only in the initial phases of immigration. Survey data covering ten elections (1989–2011) indicate a similar development in anti-immigration attitudes. The primary immigration shock tends to burn out quite fast as people get direct experience of immigrants on a daily basis.
Geys, Benny & Sørensen, Rune Jørgen (2016)
Revenue scarcity and government outsourcing: Evidence from Norwegian local governments
It is often said that ‘necessity is the mother of invention’. In this article, we assess whether this also applies to the design of public authorities' service provision. In particular, we evaluate whether revenue scarcity – as an indicator of fiscal stress – induces government outsourcing. In contrast to previous studies, we exploit arguably exogenous variation in local government revenue across time and space to derive stronger inferences on the role of revenue scarcity for outsourcing. Using data from Norwegian local governments covering the period 1995–2012, our main results indicate that a decrease in local government revenues is linked to more outsourcing of both infrastructure and support services.
Grytten, Jostein Ivar; Monkerud, Lars Chr., Skau, Irene, Eskild, Anne, Sørensen, Rune Jørgen & Saugstad, Ola Didrik (2016)
Saving Newborn Babies – The Benefits of Interventions in Neonatal Care in Norway over More Than 40 Years
The aim of this study was to examine the effect that the introduction of new medical interventions at birth has had on mortality among newborn babies in Norway during the period 1967–2011. During this period, there has been a significant decline in mortality, in particular for low birth weight infants. We identified four interventions that together explained about 50% of the decline in early neonatal and infant mortality: ventilators, antenatal steroids, surfactant and insure. The analyses were performed on a large set of data, encompassing more than 1.6 million deliveries (Medical Birth Registry of Norway). The richness of the data allowed us to perform several robustness tests. Our study indicates that the introduction of new medical interventions has been a very important channel through which the decline in mortality among newborn babies occurred during the second half of the last century.
Rattsø, Jørn & Sørensen, Rune Jørgen (2016)
Public–private political cleavage: what happens after retirement?
Political preferences of public employees differ from those of workers in the private sector. The former are more likely to vote for left-wing parties and orient themselves ideologically towards the left. This political cleavage can be understood as the result of occupational incentives, or alternatively, as ideological self-selection whereby individuals favoring government solutions seek employment in the public sector. We test the selection hypothesis by estimating the effects of public versus private occupational sector on political preferences before and after retirement. The data are from the Norwegian Election Surveys and cover nine national elections between 1977 and 2009. The research design addresses a series of cross-sectional data and the key challenge of endogenous retirement is handled with instrumental variables. Party choice, ideological orientation, and public spending preferences are shown to change following retirement, and former private and public employees converge. The results reject selection based on ‘hard-wired’ political preferences.
Helland, Leif & Sørensen, Rune Jørgen (2015)
Partisan bias, electoral volatility, and government efficiency
Lack of party competition may impair government efficiency. If the voters are ideologically predisposed to cast their vote in favor of one political party, they may reelect an underperforming incumbent. Party polarization may augment this effect since the median voter faces a higher cost of selecting a better, but ideologically distant incumbent. Alternatively, if the electorate is evenly divided between parties, polarization may induce parties to apply greater effort to improve their election prospects. The current paper analyzes efficiency in Norwegian local government. Efficiency has been measured by means of panel data on government service output over a ten-year period. Electoral dominance has been measured as number of elections where one party bloc receives at least 60 percent of the votes, measured over six consecutive elections. Party polarization is defined as the ideological distance between the two party blocs, and it is measured on basis of survey data on the ideological preferences of elected politicians. Lack of party competition reduces cost efficiency, the effect being stronger in governments where party polarization is large. These agency losses are greater in high-revenue municipalities.
Birth weight is an important predictor of health and success in later life. Little is known about the effect of mothers’ education on birth weight. A few causal analyses have been done, but they show conflicting results. We estimated the effect of mothers’ education on birth weight by using data on a school reform in Norway. During the period 1960-1972, all municipalities in Norway were required to increase the number of compulsory years of schooling from seven to nine years. We used this education reform to create exogenous variation in the education variable. The education data were combined with large sets of data from the Medical Birth Registry and Statistics Norway. Since municipalities implemented the reform at different times, we have cross-sectional as well as time-series variation in the reform instrument. In the analyses, we controlled for municipality fixed effects, municipality-specific time-trends and mothers’ and infants’ year of birth. Using this procedure we found a fairly large effect of mothers’ education on birth weight. Increasing mothers’ education reduces the likelihood of low birth weight, even in a publically financed health care system. In interpreting these results it is important to keep in mind that we have examined only one channel, which is through birth weight, through which education may explain differences in health. There are other potential channels that should be explored by future research. In particular, it would be of interest to examine whether education has causal effects on the broader determinants of health, such as psychopathology, social capital and networks, and family stress and dysfunction.
A recurrent assertion is that aging will intensify age-related conflict over public budget allocation. If people are led by their self-interest, the young will prioritize public education services, while the elderly will demand better pensions and health-care services. Addressing this issue requires longitudinal survey data and estimation of age (life-cycle), period and cohort effects. Except for a few of studies based on US data, such analyses are non-existent. We use repeated cross-section survey-data for 22 countries. Respondents are classified into ten-year age-groups and birth decades, and we estimate a regression model explaining respondents’ public spending preferences. When period and cohort effects are taken into account, elderly people want less education spending, and more health care and pension spending. These life-cycle effects vary considerably between countries, but are generally quite small. Preferences also appear mostly unrelated to left-right party choice.
Representative democracy does not necessarily eliminate political corruption. Existing models explain the survival of rent-taking politicians by ideological divisions in the electorate and/or informational asymmetries. The current paper demonstrate that rent extraction can persist even if voters are fully informed and ideologically homogenous. We show that in such an environment, voters may gain by persistently reelecting a rent-taker that limits his rent extraction. Such an equilibrium occurs when voters and politicians do not discount the future too heavily, and the share of honest candidates is relatively small.
Grytten, Jostein Ivar; Monkerud, Lars Christian & Sørensen, Rune Jørgen (2012)
Adoption of Diagnostic Technology and Variation in Caesarean Section Rates: A Test of the Practice Style Hypothesis in Norway
We address models that can explain why expert patients (obstetricians, midwives and doctors) are treated better than non-experts (mainly non-medical training). Models of statistical discrimination show that benevolent doctors treat expert patients better, since experts are better at communicating with the doctor. Agency theory suggests that doctors have an incentive to limit hospital costs by distorting information to non-expert patients, but not to expert patients. The hypotheses were tested on a large set of data, which contained information about the highest education of the parents, and detailed medical information about all births in Norway during the period 1967 to 2005 (Medical Birth Registry). The empirical analyses show that expert parents have a higher rate of Caesarean section than non-expert parents. The educational disparities were considerable 40 years ago, but have become markedly less over time. The analyses provide support for statistical discrimination theory, though agency theory cannot be totally excluded.
Grytten, Jostein Ivar; Monkerud, Lars Christian, Hagen, Terje P., Sørensen, Rune Jørgen, Eskild, Anne & Skau, Irene (2011)
The impact of hospital revenue on the increase in Caesarean sections in Norway. A panel data analysis of hospitals 1976-2005
The literature on intergenerational conflict and public budgets has shown that the demands of the elderly may crowd out educational spending. We extend this literature to take into account altruism within the family where individuals care about the welfare of family members. The conflicting claims to the public budget will reflect the political strength of age groups, but may also be influenced by whether middle-aged have children or elderly parents in the community. We investigate the role of family altruism using both survey data and demographic and local government budget data in Norway from 1992 to 2004. Family altruism matters for local government spending on primary education, but does not affect spending on old-age care and health services. The old must take care of their own interests themselves.
Sørensen, Rune J. (2009)
En effektiv offentlig sektor: Organisering, styring og ledelse i offentlig virksomhet
Grytten, Jostein & Sørensen, Rune J. (2009)
Patient choice and access to primary physician services in Norway
4(1) , s. 11- 27.
Helland, Leif & Sørensen, Rune J. (2009)
Hvorfor overlever politisk korrupsjon i representative demokratier?
25(3) , s. 219- 236.
Rattsø, Jørn & Sørensen, Rune Jørgen (2009)
Gråhåret makt og kommunale budsjetter : de eldre må stole på seg selv
, s. 351- 364.
Helland, Leif & Sørensen, Rune J. (2009)
Geographical redistribution with disproportional representation: a politico-economic model of Norwegian road projects
Offentlig motivasjon i forfall? Arbeidsmotivasjon blant ansatte i offentlig og privat virksomhet, 1989-2007
(2)
Rattsø, Jørn & Sørensen, Rune J. (2008)
Pengerikelighetens utfordringer i offentlig sektor
11(4) , s. 28- 33.
Sørensen, Rune J. (2008)
Does public ownership impair efficiency in Norwegian Refuse Collection?
, s. 5- 5.
Sørensen, Rune J.; Bjone, Ralph & Molden, Lars (2008)
Forsvaret på shopping: Usikkerhet, opportunisme og kontraktsutforming
(2) , s. 19- 19.
Grytten, Jostein & Sørensen, Rune J. (2008)
Busy Physicians
27(2) , s. 510- 518.
Helland, Leif & Sørensen, Rune J. (2008)
Demokrati og effektivitet
Sørensen, Rune J. (2007)
Does dispersed public ownership impair efficiency? The case of refuse collection in Norway
85(4) , s. 1045- 1058.
Grytten, Jostein & Sørensen, Rune J. (2007)
Primary Physician Services - List size and Primary Physicians? Service Production
26(4) , s. 721- 741.
Rattsø, Jørn & Sørensen, Rune J. (2007)
Region søker oppgaver
48, s. 565- 578.
Sørensen, Rune J.; Pettersen, Gry & Aambakk, J.I. (2007)
Militær Ledelse. En sammenligning av ledelse i Forsvaret med ledelse i privat og offentlig sektor
10(5) , s. 51- 62.
Sørensen, Rune J. (2006)
Local government consolidations: The impact of political transaction costs
127, s. 75- 95.
We offer an explicit test of these propositions based on data for Norwegian local government. Elected politicians and administrative leaders are more interested in consolidating when efficiency gains are large. Local revenue disparities and to some extent dissimilar party preferences are significant impediments to voluntary mergers. Additionally, smaller municipalities are often prepared to sacrifice some efficiency gain to remain independent polities.
Blom-Hansen, J.; Monkerud, Lars C. & Sørensen, Rune J. (2006)
Do parties matter for local revenue policies? A comparison of Denmark and Norway
45, s. 445- 465.
This article investigates the impact of party ideology on revenue politics. Theoretically, claims can be made that party ideology should matter for revenue policies. First, leftist governments are more favourable towards government intervention and a large public sector. To accomplish this, leftist governments need more revenue than bourgeois governments. Second, revenue policy is a redistributive policy area well suited for ideological positioning. However, the claim that party ideology does not matter can also be made since raising revenue is unpopular and politicians may shy away from new initiatives. Empirically, the question is unsettled. The article investigates the problem by looking at three revenue policy areas (income and property taxation, and user charges) in two countries (Denmark and Norway). The data used is from the municipal level, providing several hundreds of units to compare. The evidence favours the 'parties matter' argument, particularly in the Danish case.
Sitter, Nick & Sørensen, Rune J. (2006)
Fiscal Federealism and Political Competition in the enlarged European Union: the Old Man's Burden?
Sørensen, Rune J. (2005)
Et folkestyre i fremgang demokratisk kontroll med brannalarmer og autopiloter
22(Årg. 22, nr 3) , s. 258- 270.
Grytten, Jostein; Skau, Irene & Sørensen, Rune J. (2005)
Kjennetegn ved solo- og gruppepraksis i norsk allmennmedisin
125, s. 1357- 1360.
Grytten, Jostein & Sørensen, Rune J. (2005)
Fortsatt grådige fastleger med knapphet på listepasienter? statistiske illusjoner ved bruk av registerdata
(Årg. 59, nr 6) , s. 12- 21.
Grytten, Jostein; Skau, Irene & Sørensen, Rune J. (2005)
Fastlegereformen og folketrygdens utgifter til allmennlegetjenesten
125, s. 2812- 4.
Sørensen, Rune J. & Monkerud, Lars C. (2005)
Lokaldemokrati og kommuneskatt. Velgerne stemmer på politiske partier, men spiller det noen rolle?
Sørensen, Rune J. (2005)
Kommunenes frihet til å kreve skatt velgernes kontroll med skattenivået i Norge
8(Årg. 8, nr 4) , s. 215- 225.
Sørensen, Rune J. (2005)
Friske penger til en syk kommunestruktur
Sørensen, Rune J. & Vabo, S. I. (2005)
Sentraliseringsparadokset: Hvorfor staten overtar styringen fra kommunene
46, s. 503537- 503537.
Grytten, Jostein & Sørensen, Rune J. (2004)
Grådige leger med knapphet på pasienter? En analyse av tilbudsindusert etterspørsel i allmennlegetjenesten
58, s. 32- 37.
Rattsø, Jørn & Sørensen, Rune J. (2004)
Public Employees as Swing Voters: Empirical Evidence on Opposition to Public Sector Reform
Borge, Lars-Erik; Krehic, Lana, Nyhus, Ole Henning, Rattsø, Jørn, Sørensen, Rune Jørgen & Leyen, Kaja von der (2022)
Inntektssystemet for kommunene : Lokale skatteinntekter
[Report Research].
Denne rapporten er skrevet på oppdrag fra Kommunal- og moderniseringsdepartementet som et underlag for Inntektssystemutvalgets vurderinger av lokal beskatning, beskatningsfrihet og utforming av skatteutjevningen ved beskatningsfrihet.
Fiva, Jon H.; Hagen, Terje P. & Sørensen, Rune Jørgen (2021)
Kommunal organisering
[Textbook].
Sørensen, Rune Jørgen & From, Johan (2018)
Osloskolen opp én divisjon – mer tid til læring og oppfølging
Norske departementer i skjæringspunktet mellom politikk og fag
[Popular Science Article]. (1) , s. 22- 24.
Rattsø, Jørn & Sørensen, Rune Jørgen (2011)
Statlige selskaper med sektorpolitiske mål: En evaluering av statlig styring
[Report Research].
I rapporten analyseres styring og styringsrelasjoner overfor statlige selskaper og forvaltningsorganer med eget styre. Virksomhetene omfatter forretningsorienterte selskaper som selger produkter på markeder med sterk konkurranse, selskaper med stor markedsmakt eller monopolposisjon som er finansiert ved regulerte priser eller avgifter, helseforetak som er fullfinansiert over statsbudsjettet og står overfor lite konkurranse, og ulike typer virksomhet organisert som tradisjonell forvaltning. Analysen bygger på data fra en omfattende spørreskjemaundersøkelse blant styremedlemmer og daglig ledere. Formålet med studien er å kartlegge hvordan staten styrer, og hvordan styringen oppfattes i virksomhetens styre og ledelse. Hovedresultatene er oppsummert i avsnitt 6.
Sørensen, Rune Jørgen (2010)
Aging reduces support for the welfare state. A cross-national analysis on the impact of aging on public spending preferences, 1985-2006
[Report Research].
Sørensen, Rune Jørgen & Rattsø, J. (2010)
Statlige selskaper med sektorpolitiske mål. En evaluering av statlig styring
[Report Research].
Sørensen, Rune Jørgen (2010)
A swing-voter modell of age-related distribution. Social security and health care spending 1980-2003
[Report Research].
Sørensen, Rune Jørgen (2009)
A swing-voter model of age-related distribution. Social security and health care spending 1980-2003
[Report Research].
Helland, Leif & Sørensen, Rune Jørgen (2009)
Persistent rent extraction
[Report Research].
Sørensen, Rune Jørgen & Helland, Leif (2009)
Persistent rent-taking when voters are fully informed
[Report Research].
Helland, Leif & Sørensen, Rune Jørgen (2008)
The Agency Costs of Partisan Dominance and Electoral Uncertainty
[Report Research].
Sørensen, Rune Jørgen & Helland, Leif (2008)
Hvorfor overlever politisk korrupsjon i representative demokratier?
The impact of hospital financing systems on cesarean births in Norway, 1970-2006
[Report Research].
Sørensen, Rune J. (2007)
Omstilling og utvikling i norske kommuner: Mye skrik og lite ull?
[Report Research].
Local authorities in Norway countries face a number of challenges. Municipalities are often seen as old-fashioned and inefficient. Recent exposures of corruption have damaged their reputation further. Local government is not perceived as an attractive place of work. This is serious because shares of elderly will increase significantly from 2010, particularly in peripheral districts. Demographics means that local government will need more employees to meet the increasing demand for health care services and old-age care. Serious quality problems have been observed in education and old-age care. At the same time, a better-educated public wants better information, more influence and better quality public services. Finally, many observers claim that the local democracy is in trouble. Participation in local elections and political parties is declining, and elected representatives believe they have limited scope for pursuing their political agendas. This report addresses governance reforms initiated by local governments during the last 10-15 years. Initiatives include reforms of local democracy and relations to citizenry, new procedures for internal governance, attempts to improve user satisfaction, use of quasi-markets and competitive tendering, and the establishment of inter-municipal companies to exploit economies of scale. The crux of the analysis is whether these initiatives have improved performance. The report reviews a large number of government commission reports, consultancy evaluations and research papers. We suggest that concerns about the alleged decline of local democracy have been exaggerated. Internal governance procedures have been developed, but it is hard to see significant improvements in actual performance. Relations with service users have not changed much, and the use of competitive tendering is limited to some infrastructure services. The use of intermunicipal companies has increased a lot, but cost efficiency and political control appear to suffer from dispersed ownership.
Sørensen, Rune J. (2005)
Taxation and party fragmentation: A democratic problem?
Sørensen, Rune J. (red.). Taxation and party fragmentation: A democratic problem?
Grytten, Jostein; Sørensen, Rune J. & Skau, Irene (2005)
Fastlegeordningen - marked, legedekning og tilgjengelighet
[Report Research].
Myndighetenes mål med fastlegereformen var bedre tilgjengelighet, større valgfrihet og økt kvalitet i allmennlegetjenesten. Enkeltleger har fått ansvar for en avgrenset gruppe med pasienter (listepasientene), pasientene har fått lovestet rett til valg av lege, og ressursbruken i allmennlegetjenesten er økt vesentlig. I rapporten belyses effekter av disse tiltakene. Oppmerksomhet vies også effektene for pasienter med kroniske sykdommer og/eller funksjonshemminger. Rapporten er basert på flere datakilder, hvorpå de viktigst er: en intervjuundersøkelse blant allmennleger i regi av Handelshøyskolen BI, Universitetet i Oslo og Legeforeningens forskningsinstitutt (Allmennlegeundersøkelsen 2002), registerdata fra Rikstrygdeverket (Legeregningskontrollen 2001-2003) og en omfattende befolkningsundersøkelse foretatt av Statistisk sentralbyrå (Levekårsundersøkelsen 2002).
Sørensen, Rune J. & Monkerud, Lars C. (2005)
Lokaldemokrati og kommuneskatt. Velgerne stemmer på politiske partier, men spiller det noen rolle? Appendix 8 i Lokaldemokratikommisjonen
Sørensen, Rune J. & Monkerud, Lars C. (red.). Lokaldemokrati og kommuneskatt. Velgerne stemmer på politiske partier, men spiller det noen rolle? Appendix 8 i Lokaldemokratikommisjonen
Fastlegereformen - en analyse av fastlegenes arbeidsbelastning og tjenestetilbud
[Report Research].
Dalen, Dag Morten; Grytten, Jostein & Sørensen, Rune J. (2002)
Mer penger eller mer for pengene? Organisering og finansiering av norske sykehus
[Report Research].
Sykehussektoren har et betydelig potensial for økt kostnadseffektivitet, og vår forståelse er at høyere kvalitet og bedret tilgjengelighet kan oppnås uten en like sterk vekst i helseutgiftene. Gjentatte og store tilleggsbevilgninger fra staten har ført til at kontraktene med sykehusene har fått liten troverdighet. Dette har i sin tur svekket mulighetene for ledelse i sykehusene, og slik redusert kostnadseffektiviteten i sektoren. I lys av denne situasjonsforståelsen diskuterer vi tre finansieringsmodeller for spesialisthelsetjenesten: Per capita-tilskudd, åpne og lukkede produksjonstilskudd samt refusjonsordninger. Tre organisasjonsformer drøftes: Dagens system med regionale helseforetak, en modell der dagens regionale helseforetak har ansvaret også for primærhelsetjenesten, samt en modell der helseforetak kun har eieransvaret for sykehusene mens kommunene har ansvaret for å finansiere alle offentlige helsetjenester.
Nerland, S. M; Hagen, Terje P., Ludvigsen, Sten & Sørensen, Rune J. (2002)
Finansierings-modeller og brukervalg i kommunene
[Report Research].
Sørensen, Rune J. & Dalen, Dag Morten (2001)
Eierskap og tilknytningsformer i offentlig sektor. En diskusjon av teori og empiriske resultater i internasjonal forskning
[Report Research].
Trolig har ingen vestlige land et mer omfattende offentlig eierskap enn Norge. Staten har et betydelig eierskap innenfor tradisjonell næringsvirksomhet, i offentlig infrastruktur og i tradisjonelle offentlige sektorer, mens kommuner og fylkeskommuner eier mesteparten av de institusjoner som leverer offentlige tjenester innenfor helse, omsorg og utdanning. Formålet med denne rapporten er å gi en oversikt over omfanget av det offentlige eierskapet, å gi en oversikt over den teoretiske litteraturen om offentlig eierskap og å presentere en del av den empiriske forskningen om effekter av offentlig eierskap.
Sørensen, Rune J. & Hagen, Terje P. (2000)
Hvor stort er effektivitetstapet ved statlig regulering av kommuner og fylkeskommuner?
[Report Research].
Hagen, T.P.; Rattsø, J. & Sørensen, Rune (2000)
Monopoly and competition in government service production: Economic and political determinants of reform
[Conference Lecture]. Event
Bay, Ann-Helén; Hagen, Kåre, Riis, Christian & Sørensen, Rune (1999)
Konkurranseutsetting av velferds-staten? Konsekvenser av anbudskonkurranser og fritt forbrukervalg
[Report Research].
Grytten, Jostein & Sørensen, Rune (1999)
Konkurranse og tannhelsetjenester
[Report Research].
Sørensen, Rune & Grytten, Jostein (1999)
Er det plass for markedet i helsetjenesten?
[Report Research].
Grytten, Jostein; Skau, Irene, Sørensen, Rune J. & Aasland, Olaf (1999)
Kontraktsvalg, tjenesteproduksjon og stabilitet i allmennlegetjenesten
[Report Research].
Sørensen, Rune J.; Borge, Lars-Erik & Hagen, Terje P. (1999)
