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.
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.
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.
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.
Sørensen, Rune Jørgen; Iversen, Jon Marius Vaag, From, Johan & Bonesrønning, Hans (2022)
Parenting styles and school performance: evidence from second-generation immigrants in Norway
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Geys, Benny & Sørensen, Rune Jørgen (2018)
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.
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.
Frivillig kommunesammenslåing - betydningen av folketall, inntekt og politisk avstand
Frich, Jan C; Iversen, Tor & Tjerbo, Trond (red.). Helsepolitikkens faglige premisser
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.
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.
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.
Grytten, Jostein Ivar; Monkerud, Lars Chr., Skau, Irene, Eskild, Anne, Sørensen, Rune Jørgen & Saugstad, Ola Didrik (2017)
Saving Newborn Babies – The Benefits of Interventions in Neonatal Care in Norway over More Than 40 Years
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.
Helland, Leif & Sørensen, Rune J. (2009)
Hvorfor overlever politisk korrupsjon i representative demokratier?
Norsk Statsvitenskapelig Tidsskrift, 25(3), s. 219- 236.
Helland, Leif & Sørensen, Rune J. (2009)
Geographical redistribution with disproportional representation: a politico-economic model of Norwegian road projects
Patient choice and access to primary physician services in Norway
Health Economics, Policy and Law, 4(1), s. 11- 27.
Rattsø, Jørn & Sørensen, Rune Jørgen (2009)
Gråhåret makt og kommunale budsjetter : de eldre må stole på seg selv
Saglie, Jo (red.). Det nære demokratiet : lokalvalg og lokal deltakelse
Sørensen, Rune J. (2008)
Does public ownership impair efficiency in Norwegian Refuse Collection?
Dijkgraaf, E.; Gradus, R.H.J.M. (Eds.), The Waste Market: Institutional Developments in Europe
Helland, Leif & Sørensen, Rune J. (2008)
Demokrati og effektivitet
Universitetsforlaget.
Rattsø, Jørn & Sørensen, Rune J. (2008)
Pengerikelighetens utfordringer i offentlig sektor
Magma forskning og viten, 11(4), s. 28- 33.
Sørensen, Rune J.; Bjone, Ralph & Molden, Lars (2008)
Forsvaret på shopping: Usikkerhet, opportunisme og kontraktsutforming
Beta
Sørensen, Rune J. (2008)
Offentlig motivasjon i forfall? Arbeidsmotivasjon blant ansatte i offentlig og privat virksomhet, 1989-2007
Tidsskrift for velferdsforskning
Grytten, Jostein & Sørensen, Rune J. (2008)
Busy Physicians
Journal of Health Economics, 27(2), s. 510- 518.
Sørensen, Rune J.; Pettersen, Gry & Aambakk, J.I. (2007)
Militær Ledelse. En sammenligning av ledelse i Forsvaret med ledelse i privat og offentlig sektor
Magma forskning og viten, 10(5), s. 51- 62.
Rattsø, Jørn & Sørensen, Rune J. (2007)
Region søker oppgaver
Tidsskrift for samfunnsforskning, 48, s. 565- 578.
Grytten, Jostein & Sørensen, Rune J. (2007)
Primary Physician Services - List size and Primary Physicians? Service Production
Journal of Health Economics, 26(4), s. 721- 741.
Sørensen, Rune J. (2007)
Does dispersed public ownership impair efficiency? The case of refuse collection in Norway
Public Administration, 85(4), s. 1045- 1058.
Sitter, Nick & Sørensen, Rune J. (2006)
Fiscal Federealism and Political Competition in the enlarged European Union: the Old Man's Burden?
Europe's Nascent State: Public Policy in the European Union, Essays in Honour of Kjell A. Eliassen , J. From & N. Sitter (eds)
Blom-Hansen, J.; Monkerud, Lars C. & Sørensen, Rune J. (2006)
Do parties matter for local revenue policies? A comparison of Denmark and Norway
European Journal of Political Research, 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.
Sørensen, Rune J. (2006)
Local government consolidations: The impact of political transaction costs
Public Choice, 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.
Sørensen, Rune J. & Monkerud, Lars C. (2005)
Lokaldemokrati og kommuneskatt. Velgerne stemmer på politiske partier, men spiller det noen rolle?
NOU 2005:6, Vedlegg 1
Sørensen, Rune J. (2005)
Friske penger til en syk kommunestruktur
Synspunkter på dagens kommunestruktur
Grytten, Jostein; Skau, Irene & Sørensen, Rune J. (2005)
Kjennetegn ved solo- og gruppepraksis i norsk allmennmedisin
Tidsskrift for Den norske legeforening, 125, s. 1357- 1360.
Grytten, Jostein; Skau, Irene & Sørensen, Rune J. (2005)
Fastlegereformen og folketrygdens utgifter til allmennlegetjenesten
Tidsskrift for Den norske legeforening, 125, s. 2812- 4.
Grytten, Jostein & Sørensen, Rune J. (2005)
Fortsatt grådige fastleger med knapphet på listepasienter? statistiske illusjoner ved bruk av registerdata
Økonomisk forum, s. 12- 21.
Sørensen, Rune J. & Vabo, S. I. (2005)
Sentraliseringsparadokset: Hvorfor staten overtar styringen fra kommunene
Tidsskrift for samfunnsforskning, 46
Sørensen, Rune J. (2005)
Kommunenes frihet til å kreve skatt velgernes kontroll med skattenivået i Norge
Tidsskrift for velferdsforskning, 8(Årg. 8, nr 4), s. 215- 225.
Sørensen, Rune J. (2005)
Et folkestyre i fremgang demokratisk kontroll med brannalarmer og autopiloter
Nytt Norsk Tidsskrift, 22(Årg. 22, nr 3), s. 258- 270.
Sørensen, Rune J. (2004)
Frivillige sammenslåinger av kommuner – en vakker, men håpløs idé
Samfunnsspeilet : Tidsskrift om levekår og livsstil, 2
Sørensen, Rune J. (2004)
Et forvitret demokrati? Makt- og demokratiutredningens misvisende konklusjon om det norske demokratiet
Norsk Statsvitenskapelig Tidsskrift, 20, s. 156- 176.
Sørensen, Rune J. (2004)
Markedsreformer i offentlig sektor: Elitistisk motebølge,velferdskoalisjonens interesser eller partienes konkurranse om velgere?
Tidsskrift for samfunnsforskning, s. 509- 546.
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]. NTNU Samfunnsforskning AS.
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.
Rattsø, Jørn & Sørensen, Rune Jørgen (2022)
Utfordringer i offentlig sektor – styring, ressursbruk, resultater
Søgaard, Fridthjof; Offerdal, Kristine & Bjerga, Kjell Inge (red.). Norsk byråkrati - kan det bli bedre? Tekster om arbeidet i regjeringskontorene
Fiva, Jon H.; Hagen, Terje P. & Sørensen, Rune Jørgen (2021)
Kommunal organisering
[Textbook]. Universitetsforlaget.
Sørensen, Rune Jørgen & From, Johan (2018)
Osloskolen opp én divisjon – mer tid til læring og oppfølging
[Report]. Handelshøyskolen BI, Senter for innovasjon i utdanning.
Sørensen, Rune Jørgen & Thomsen, Carlo (2018)
En effektiv offentlig sektor Organisering, styring og ledelse i stat og kommune