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Jørgen Modalsli @modals.li · 09/07/2026

World Cup quarter-finals starting today! As in most years, this is mainly a European and South American thing. But not a very good year for South America, with only Argentina left. One country from outside Europe/South America is fairly average; this year it is Morocco.

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Jørgen Modalsli @modals.li · 04/06/2026

Now this is a first for me at an academic conference: a famous economist (Thomas Piketty) discussing the future with an (even more?) famous science fiction writer (Kim Stanley Robinson). Interesting so far, but hoping for some space travel questions! #WIC2026

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Jørgen Modalsli @modals.li · 24/02/2026

Ja interessant eksempel på sammensetningseffekt! Oslo er nesten lavest om vi ser alle husholdningene samlet, men øverst eller nesten øverst *for alle husholdningskategorier* om vi deler i SSBs fire kategorier

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Jørgen Modalsli @modals.li · 28/01/2026

Looking forward to the 2026 Norwegian Winter Games in Economic History at NTNU tomorrow, hosted by @benmschneider.bsky.social , @fjbeltrantapia.bsky.social et al. Image: view from today's workplace (Oslo-Trondheim train)

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Jørgen Modalsli @modals.li · 09/01/2026

Visiting the Economic History department at Uppsala University for a few days, nice place

Image of the river, from the city centre.

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Jørgen Modalsli @modals.li · 06/01/2026

Power outage at Oslo Airport, most services down - except, apparently, wifi via Eduroam, which works just fine

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Jørgen Modalsli @modals.li · 30/10/2025

Wealth inequality as measured by the Gini coefficient was very high at the beginning of the twentieth century, fell during the post-war period and has increased substantially since the 1980s. There is also a clear pattern if we look at top 1% wealth shares.

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Jørgen Modalsli @modals.li · 30/10/2025

New working paper! *Measuring long-run wealth inequality: Empirical results for Norway 1912-2019* (with Aaberge and Solbakken) We estimate wealth inequality in Norway based on a set of historical and contemporary sources. www.ssb.no/en/inntekt-o...

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Jørgen Modalsli @modals.li · 02/10/2025

New working paper! *Female labor force participation in historical census microdata*, available at EHES: ehes.org/wp/EHES_282.... . Female labor force participation is well measured in the Norwegian 1910 Census, and the available micro data is well suited for economic analysis (with some caveats).

$Female labor force participation in historical census microdata By: Jørgen Modalsli ABSTRACT How reliable is historical microdata? Understanding historical labor force participation is crucial for assessing long-term trends in economic development and intergenerational mobility. Most existing historical studies are, however, limited to men, and little is known about how reliable quantitative historical sources are when studying labor market outcomes for women. This paper documents that the measurement of women's economic activity in the 1910 Norwegian population census had a high level of consistency. There is extensive discussion of measurement issues in historical census reports, micro data can reproduce historical census tables with a high degree of accuracy, and other contemporary reports such as industrial censuses and tax statistics confirm the results found in the census. In addition, a double-enumeration feature of the Norwegian census is leveraged to assess consistency between enumerators, finding no indication that precision in the occupational classification of women is any lower than for men. Some potential sources of downward bias are found in the historical census microdata set provided by IPUMS. Based on the results in this paper, historical census data appears well suited to study economic activity using modern econometric methods, for women as well as men. A slight upward revision of the 39\% female labor force participation in Norway in 1910 might be in order.$

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Jørgen Modalsli @modals.li · 09/09/2025

Hva om arealfaktoren var null, altså at antall mandater til hver valgkrets bare kom an på hvor mange som bodde der, ikke hvor mye land og ferskvann de hadde? Overraskende små endringer. FrP hadde fått to mandater mindre, Arbeiderpartiet og MDG ett mandat til hver.

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Jørgen Modalsli @modals.li · 09/09/2025

Hva om sperregrensa var 5%, så KrF og MDG kom under? Da hadde de mistet sine henholdsvis fire og tre utjevningsmandater, og disse hadde blitt tildelt H (3), Rødt (1), SP (2) og SV (1). Altså netto ett mandat mer til venstresiden.

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Jørgen Modalsli @modals.li · 09/09/2025

Hva om sperregrensa var 4.5%, så KrF kom under? Da hadde KrF mistet de fire utjevningsmandatene, som hadde blitt tildelt H(1), MDG (1), SP (1) og SV (1). Altså netto tre mandater mer til venstresiden.

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Jørgen Modalsli @modals.li · 09/09/2025

Hva om sperregrensa var 3.5%, så Venstre kom over? Da hadde Venstre fått tre utjevningsmandater, på bekostning av H (1), Rødt (1) og SV (1). Altså netto to mandater mer til høyresiden.

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Jørgen Modalsli @modals.li · 09/09/2025

Her er noen "hva om"-utregninger etter stortingsvalgresultatet 2025. Alt med forbehold om feil, og at resultatene heller ikke er helt klare ennå (foreløpige tall er lastet ned fra valg.no). Mandatfordelingen med disse tallene er altså:

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Jørgen Modalsli @modals.li · 17/05/2025

On Norway's Constitution Day: a new, unknown "anti-war" party has ads all over the public transport system in Oslo. Financed by Russia? Who knows, political financing transparency laws are weak

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Jørgen Modalsli @modals.li · 29/04/2025

Great experience visiting the Social history of finance group at the University of Antwerpen today. www.uantwerpen.be/en/projects/... Many excellent questions and suggestions about historical wealth inequality! @uantwerpen.be

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Jørgen Modalsli @modals.li · 29/11/2024

Great workshop on historical microdata at CES/LMU today! Look forward to the rest of it tomorrow. Image from lunch at Munich's Englisher Garten. Presentations included, among others: @mreiske.bsky.social @christianvedel.bsky.social @jvoth.bsky.social @cathrinmohr.bsky.social

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Jørgen Modalsli @modals.li · 26/11/2024

New working paper! How Business Income Measures Affect Income Inequality and the Tax Burden, with Aaberge, Francesconi and Vestad. Using Norwegian administrative data, we show that income inequality is much higher than commonly measured. Measurement matters! www.iza.org/publications...

$This paper presents estimates of income concentration and inequality for Norway using a new comprehensive measure of income, which identifies business income as it is earned by companies rather than when it is paid out as dividends to owners. We assemble several sources of high quality register data that allow us to account for multiple layers of business ownership across all companies between 2001 and 2018. Compared to official statistics, the new measure implies that the share of income attributable to the top 1\% of the distribution more than doubles and the Gini coefficient estimates increase by about 40\%. Our new measure identifies substantial tax regressivity for individuals in the top percentile, a feature that cannot be detected by standard income measures. For instance, while the share of gross income paid in taxes by individuals at the 99th percentile is about 36\% in 2016, the corresponding share paid by individuals in the top 1\% is 19\%.$

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