We test whether households that face prospective home equity losses during a house price downturn use divorce to shed debt. We study the Dutch context, where qualifying homeowners can buy into a mortgage guarantee scheme that insures the lender against borrower default and transfers the risk to...

We investigate the determinants of trust in one’s pension fund and the effect of trust on the decision to ensure additional pension savings. Our analysis is based on exogenous shocks arising from pension cuts and indexation, and on how these are perceived. These instruments allow identifying...

We analyze the transmission of an interest rate shock to households in the context of a stress-test module. We examin standard mitigants, such as delays due to a future interest-rate-reset-date, tax deduction of the interest paid on mortgages, the amortization of different mortgage types and...

This paper tests whether disregarding home-improvements biases the housing wealth effect, the marginal propensity to consume out of housing wealth. The housing wealth effect is decomposed in its endogenous and exogenous component by filtering out previously stated expectations of house prices...

This paper studies the employment and wage effects of contract staggering, i.e., the staggered nature in which wages adjust to changes in the economic environment. Our analysis is based on a large matched employers employees dataset merged to collective agreements in the Netherlands, a country...

We examined the mortgage interest tax relief (MIR) system in the Netherlands and reforms to this system, based on answers to direct questions in survey data for the period 2010-2012. As well as tracking individuals over time and at strategic moments in the process of the policy reform, this...

This paper studies the saving response of households to shocks in the capital position of their pension fund. Using survey panel data matched to supervisory data of Dutch occupational pension funds for a period that involved three major economic crises, we provide evidence of an increase in...

The Dutch government modified twice the taxation of intergenerational transfers aimed at mortgage down-payments and prepayments. We identify the causal effects of the tax exemption on prepayments and inter vivos transfers separately by exploiting changes in the policy design. Subsequent policy...

Survey data show that many respondents save for retirement in unconventional retirement accounts, such as investments in real estate. In countries where retirement savings are not mandatory for self-employed, representatives of this group often report this as an argument against making...

Using loan level data on mortgage loans originated by Dutch banks during 1996 to 2015, we analyse the determinants of the incidence of non-performance. We find that both the originating loan-to-value ratio (OLTV) and the debt-service-to-income ratio (DSTI) are significantly positively associated...