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Koronaepidemiene i Norge og Sverige går hver sin vei

April 2020

Authors:

Lasse Fridstrøm

Transportøkonomisk institutt, TØI

KORMOD – a simple model of the coronavirus epidemics in Norway in Sweden The Swedish and Norwegian coronavirus epidemics are studied by means of a ludicrously simple spreadsheet model, named KORMOD. The prevalence of infectious people is calculated as the sum of all individuals infected 3 to 9 days earlier, or by applying the gamma-shaped serial time interval distribution used by the Imperial College in their March 30 report. As it turns out, these two assumptions produce very similar results. As of April 24, 2020, the basic reproduction number is seen to be well below 1 in Norway, and well above 1 in Sweden. This seems to be true even if the incidence (and hence also the prevalence) of coronavirus infections should be grossly underreported. https://samferdsel.toi.no/hjem/koronaepidemiene-i-norge-og-sverige-gar-hver-sin-vei-article34513-98.html

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Preprint

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Non-COVID-19 Deaths After Social Distancing in Norway

June 2020

Lay persons and policy makers have speculated on how the imposition of social distancing to reduce SARS CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2) infection has affected non-COVID-19 (coronavirus disease of 2019) deaths. No rigorous estimation of the effect appears in the scholarly literature. We use time-series methods to compare non-COVID-19 deaths observed in Norway before and ... [Show full abstract] during the epidemic to those expected from non-COVID-19 deaths in Sweden as well as from the history of Norwegian mortality trends. We find that in the first 8 weeks after the divergence between Swedish and Norwegian policies (the only period for which dependable data can be had) approximately 650 fewer Norwegians died than expected.

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A surprisingly simple way to assess the reproduction number of any national corona epidemic

May 2020

Lasse Fridstrøm

The KORMOD model of the corona epidemic is ridiculously simple - rich in terms of output, but undemanding in terms of input. The only information used is the daily incidence of new positive coronavirus tests. The prevalence of infectious people is calculated as the sum of all new infections (the incidences) 3 to 9 days back. The daily incidence rate = incidence/prevalence = new infections per ... [Show full abstract] infectious person per day. The reproduction number (R) is 7 times the daily incidence rate, since the infectious period is 7 days long. Alternatively, a gamma distribution with mean 6.5 or 4.8 days is used for the infection-to-infection time. We apply the model to plot the reproduction numbers of the USA, UK, Germany, Russia, India, Turkey, Brazil, Chile, Sweden and Norway.

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Reforming Motor Vehicle Taxation in Norway

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Lasse Fridstrøm

The Norwegian system of motor vehicle taxation is described and compared to estimated external costs of road use. Also, the Norwegian system is compared to those of Denmark and Sweden. A future system relying on marginal cost road pricing is sketched.

Article

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Comparing the Scandinavian automobile taxation systems and their CO 2 mitigation effects

August 2021 · International Journal of Sustainable Transportation

Despite their similarities, Scandinavian countries have adopted starkly different automobile tax regimes. The Danish system entails very high and convex tax rates with moderate CO2 differentiation. In Norway, tax rates are high and convex with strong CO2 differentiation and total exemptions for zero emission vehicles, even from value added tax. Sweden practices feebates – CO2 dependent ... [Show full abstract] subsidization along with moderate taxation. Relying on a disaggregate discrete choice model of automobile purchase, we simulate the demand for passenger cars as of 2016 in Norway under a set of conditions resembling, respectively, the Danish, Norwegian or Swedish fiscal incentives before and after recent reforms. In all cases, implications are derived in terms of energy technology market shares, average type approval CO2 emission rates, and aggregate fiscal revenue. The automobile taxation system is seen to have remarkable impacts on all three accounts. In essence, among the three jurisdictions examined, the Norwegian fiscal regime has by far the strongest CO2 abatement effect. The Danish system is less effective in terms of CO2 abatement, but provides twice as much government revenue. The Swedish feebate strategy is by far the least effective in terms of both CO2 mitigation and revenue collection. • Highlights • Automobile taxation is a powerful greenhouse gas abatement instrument. • Tax exemptions for battery electric cars accelerate their market uptake. • The disparate experiences of the three Scandinavian countries are quite instructive.