What are the excess costs of a separate 20% target for renewable energy as a part of the EU climate policy for 2020? We answer this question using a computable general equilibrium model, WorldScan, which has been extended with a bottom-up module of the electricity sector. The model set-up...

The paper empirically investigates whether a lack of competition determines the poor productivity performance of the European business services. It uses detailed panel data for 13 EU countries over the period 2000-2005. We apply parametric and nonparametric methods to estimate the productivity...

This paper uses the exogenous variation caused by the Dutch tax reform of 2001 to investigate how married women react to financial incentives.<font face="CMR10" size="3"><font face="CMR10" size="3">Among OECD countries, the Netherlands has average female labor force participation, but by far the highest rate of part-time work. Our main conclusion is...</font></font>

The paper focuses on the relationship between competition and quality in the Dutch hospital sector. We analyse the period of 2004-2008, in which a healthcare reform took place in the Netherlands, introducing competition in the healthcare sector. The increased attention to hospital quality and...

The Market Abuse Directive came into effect on 1 October 2005. One of its purposes is to reduce illegal insider trading and leakage of information prior to official releases by increasing penalties. This paper investigates the effects of the Market Abuse Directive through an event study...

Access regulation has been designed for PSTN and the liberalization of the PSTN market. This paper explores the effects of the regulation on consumers’ adoption of a new technology in the form of VoIP. It also discusses the link between access regulation and the incentives to invest in VoIP.