Early retirement is predominantly considered as the result of incentives set by social security and the tax system. But people seem to retire early even in the absence of such distortions as the Swiss example demonstrates. We look for determinants of early retirement, in particular the role of...

In this paper we focus on the timing of marriages of women, whose marriages are associated with bride wealth payments, which are transfers from (the family of) the groom to the bride's family. Unmarried daughters could therefore be considered assets who, at times of need, can be cashed in. We...

In the mid-1980s, several European countries, characterized by high levels of employment protection, introduced fixed-term contracts. Since then most accessions to employment have been through fixed-term contracts. This paper studies the duration pattern of fixed-term contracts and the...

The first period of the transition to a market economy was characterised by a high rate of job-change in many transition countries. This was no different for East Germany. This paper analyses the consequences of the transition process for East German workers in their old job. We quantify the...

This paper models unemployment durations for men and women in Finland using a nationally representative data set from 1997. We begin with a baseline model where durations are modelled using a single risk discrete time hazard model. These estimations are extended to a piecewise constant hazard...

In this paper we present an empirical structural job search model with endogenously determined search intensity. The model describes both the behaviour of unemployed job searchers and on-the-job search. We use data on various indicators (or search channels) for the intensity of search, like the...

This article aims to establish a connection between the political economy of the reform process in Sub-Saharan African countries and the intervention of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). It focuses on the impact of IMF conditionality on the internal factors of the government decision-making...

This paper provides new developments in job search theory, incorporating a duality in search strategies which compose the offer rate. Two strategies are modelled. A first one, called passive strategy, consists in searching exclusively in the spatial area of the public employment agency. The...

This paper studies the duration pattern of …xed-term contracts and the determinants of their conversion into permanent ones in Spain, where the share of …xed-term employment is the highest in Europe. We estimate a duration model for temporary employment, with competing risks of terminating...

This paper investigates whether cannabis use affects physical and mental health. To do so, information on prime aged individuals living in Amsterdam in 1994 is used. Dutch data offer a clear advantage in estimating the health impacts of cannabis use because the legal status of cannabis in the...