In this chapter, Jon Erik Dølvik and Johannes Oldervoll review how recurrent crises since the 1980s have taught Norwegian policymakers to stabilize a crisis-prone petroleum economy through comprehensive macroeconomic policy coordination. While regaining monetary policy autonomy and establishing fiscal policy rules that enable countercyclical use of petroleum revenues, Norway has drawn on reinvigorated wage coordination and welfare state expansion to cushion joblessness and financial hardship in turbulent times. This coordination from the top has been successful in tackling economic volatility but has failed to stem widening wage and wealth gaps during recent years’ affluence and rise in cross-border labour mobility and immigration. Although seemingly robust in the face of periodic shocks, and helping Norway to avert increased financial hardship during the Great Recession, the Norwegian policy regime appears to have lost some of its capacity to balance equity and efficiency.
Welfare and the Great Recession: A Comparative Study Stefán Ólafsson et al.
Dølvik, J. E. & Oldervoll, J. (2019). Norway: Averting Crisis through Coordination and Keynesian Welfare Policies. In S. Ólafsson, M. Daly, O. Kangas, J. Palme, eds., Welfare and the Great Recession. A Comparative Study. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198830962.003.0012
