About

ESOP is a research centre funded by the Research Council of Norway as a Norwegian Centre of Excellence. ESOP aims at exploring the links between equality, social organization, and economic performance, both in rich and poor countries. The ambitions are:

• to confront economic theory with the Nordic lessons: Do we need to change the basic behavioral and institutional assumptions or can the Nordic lessons be explained in a standard economic approach when only the details get right?
• to understand the linkages between economic performance, distribution, and social disparities: What are the costs and benefits of more equality?
• to explore the sustainability of generous welfare states and the viability of egalitarian market economies: What determine their performance and their economic and political feasibility?
• to understand the interaction between policies, institutions and long term development: What set of policies and institutions may generate an egalitarian development path within a consistent arrangement?
• to bring these research topics to the international research frontier: What are the general lessons for economics?