Statistics Norway administrative registers (restricted access)

Mixed: aggregates public, microdata restricted

Statistics Norway publishes aggregate tables publicly, but the linked individual- and firm-level microdata is restricted. This page carries no provenance badge: the microdata has no access path we can run here, and the public aggregates were not exercised in this session. Microdata is reached only through an approved project in SSB’s secure environment (the microdata access service), with output subject to confidentiality review. The page documents what the registers are and the gotchas; treat it as unverified. This is the honest grade under the institute’s Verified discipline.

Statistics Norway (Statistisk sentralbyra, SSB) maintains the Norwegian administrative registers: population demographics, employment, income, and the tax-based household balance sheet (financial assets, real assets, and debt), all linkable at the individual level through national identifiers and to firms. The tax-record wealth data is especially detailed because Norway levies a wealth tax, so household balance sheets are reported annually. A paper we distill uses it: Betermier, Calvet, Knupfer & Kvaerner use SSB tax records for investor demographics, balance sheets, income, and wealth (annual, 1997 to 2017), linked to individual stockholdings from VPS.

• Cost: aggregate tables are free; the linked microdata is not for sale.
• Producer: Statistics Norway (SSB).
• Coverage: the full resident population and Norwegian firms on annual panels, with national identifiers enabling individual, household, and firm linkage.

Access (restricted)

• Aggregates are public; microdata is not. SSB publishes statistics and tables openly; the linked individual/firm microdata is confidential.
• Through SSB’s secure microdata service. Approved researchers access pseudonymized extracts in a secure environment; the microdata does not leave SSB, and outputs are checked before release.
• Project approval required. Access requires an approved research project and the relevant authorization; data is a project-specific extract, not an open download.

Gotchas (the ones that bite pipelines)

These are the failure modes to expect; they are documented, not verified here.

• Tax-record wealth is a year-end snapshot at assessed values. Balance-sheet items are reported for tax purposes at year-end and at assessed (not always market) values; this affects real estate and unlisted assets especially. Do not treat assessed values as market values without adjustment.
• Linkage keys are pseudonymized per project. Individual and firm keys are pseudonyms tied to a delivery; you cannot merge across separately delivered extracts. Plan all links inside one delivery.
• Household versus individual. Many outcomes are individual but tax and wealth concepts can be household-level; mixing the two double-counts or misattributes. Fix the unit before aggregating.
• Definitional changes and the wealth-tax regime. Income and wealth concepts follow tax rules that change over time; a long panel is not perfectly consistent. Read the documentation for your years.
• Coverage of assets. Listed-equity and bank-reported items are well measured; some assets (private business, foreign holdings) are less complete. Do not read a missing asset as zero.
• Output is disclosure-reviewed and cannot be redistributed. Microdata results leave the secure environment only after review.

Citation

Cite the producer and access route, e.g.: Statistics Norway (SSB) administrative registers, accessed via the SSB secure microdata service under approved project, YYYY-MM-DD. For public figures, cite the relevant SSB statistics. State the years, the unit (individual or household), and the registers linked.