Project manager: Aline Bütkofer

duration: 2020 - 2024

PROJECT summary:

Norway is a small open resource-based economy where global changes in oil prices, exchange rate volatility, and other international shocks affect the society’s wellbeing. The current COVID-19 pandemic is an example of such a shock with a profound impact on the Norwegian economy. The sharp drop in oil prices, 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 broad 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, drivers of macroeconomic cycles, and the challenges of a resource-rich economy. This unique cooperation of researchers will expand the visibility of the group members in the global research community and the policy sphere through 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.