Bensnes, S., Hernæs, Ø., King, Max (2026) "No payoff from time off? Mandated paid vacation and late-career employment". Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization. [Published version] [pre-print]
Bensnes, S. (2025) "Time to Spare and Too Much Care? Congestion, Treatment Provision and Health Outcomes in the Maternity Unit". Health Economics. [Published version] [pre-print]
Bensnes, S. & Huitfeldt I. (2020). "Rumor Has It: Physician and Patient Responses to Online Ratings". Journal of Health Economics. [Published version] [pre-print]
Bensnes, S. (2019). Scheduled to gain: Short- and long-run effects of examination scheduling, Scandinavian Journal of Economics. [Published version] [pre-print]
Bensnes, S. & Strøm, B. (2018). Earning or learning: How extending closing time in the retail sector affects youth employment and education. Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics. [Published version] [pre-print]
Bensnes, S. S. (2016). You sneeze, you lose: The impact of pollen exposure on cognitive performance during high-stakes high school exams. Journal of Health Economics. [Published version] [pre-print]
"Reconciling Estimates of the Long-Term Earnings Effect of Fertility". Joint with Ingrid Huitfeldt and Edwin Leuven. [Working paper]
Abstract: This paper presents novel methodological and empirical contributions to the child penalty literature. We propose a new estimator that combines elements from standard event study and instrumental variable estimators and demonstrate their relatedness. Our analysis shows that all three approaches yield substantial estimates of the long-term impact of children on the earnings gap between mothers and their partners, commonly known as the child penalty, amounting to 15 percent. However, the models lead to very different conclusions as to whether it is mothers or partners who drive this penalty – the key policy concern. While the event study attributes the impact to mothers, our results suggest that maternal changes account for less than half of the penalty. Our paper also has broader implications for event-study designs. In particular, we assess the validity of the event-study assumptions using external information and characterize biases arising from selection in treatment timing. We find that women time fertility as their earnings profile flattens. The implication of this is that the event-study overestimates women’s earnings penalty as it relies on estimates of counterfactual wage profiles that are too high. These new insights in the nature of selection into fertility show that common intuitions regarding parallel trend assumptions may be misleading, and that pre-trends may be uninformative about the sign of the selection bias in the treatment period.
Media:
"Copayments and Healthcare Utilization". Joint with Ingrid Huitfeldt and Victoria Marone. [Working paper]
Abstract: Patient cost-sharing is used as a tool to limit over-utilization of insured healthcare services in almost all high-income countries. We study its distributional consequences in the context of a publicly-funded universal health insurance system, where consumers (as tax-payers) are residual claimants on insurer spending. We highlight the distinction between consumers’ elasticityof demand for healthcare services—which moderates how cost-sharing rules affect healthcare utilization—and their baseline level of demand—which moderates how cost-sharing rules affect out-of-pocket costs. Using detailed administrative data on the Norwegian national health insurance scheme, we study a 2010 policy change that raised the age threshold for cost-sharing exemption, thereby increasing patient cost-sharing substantially for adolescents. We find that females and native-born Norwegians have higher average utilization and thus have more at stake financially from cost-sharing, but are relatively less responsive to cost-sharing. In contrast, lower-income individuals as well as individuals with a chronic health condition have both higher average healthcare utilization as well as higher responsiveness. Cost-sharing therefore places a larger burden on these groups both in terms of the financial cost of out-of-pocket spending and in terms of reduced quantities of healthcare used.
"Missing the mark? School spending and educational outcomes". Joint with Sturla Løkken and Alfred Løfgren.
"Firms and the child penalty in wages". Joint with Anna Godøy and Edda Solbakken.
"Banning Outsourcing: The 2023 Restriction of Temp AgencyHiring in the Construction Sector in Oslo". Joint with Maria Hoen, Johannes Schmeider, Benjamin Schoefer and Marte Strøm
Bensnes, S., Huitfeldt, I., Snilsberg, Ø., Telle, K. (2021). Hvem bruker “Fritt behandlingsvalg”? Tidskrift for velferdsforskning, 1, 1-9. [Link]
Bensnes, S., Huitfeldt, I., Snilsberg, Ø., Telle, K. (2021). Hvem bruker “Fritt behandlingsvalg”? Tidskrift for velferdsforskning, 1, 1-9. [Link]
Andresen, M., Bensnes, S., Løkken, S. (2020). Hva koster det å stenge utdanningssektoren? Beregning av kostnader av smittevernstiltak mot COVID-19 for humankapital, studieprogresjon og produktivitet Samfunnsøkonomen, 2, 51-63. [Link]
Media:
Andresen, M., Bensnes, S., Løkken, S. Hva koster det å stenge utdanningssektoren? Beregning av kostnader av smittevernstiltak mot COVID-19 for humankapital, studieprogresjon og produktivitet. SSB Rapport nr. 15/2020. [Link]
Falch, T., Bensnes, S., Strøm, B. (2016). Skolekvalitet i videregående opplæring. Utarbeidelse ad skolebidragsindikatorer. SØF-rapport nr. 01/16. [Link]