Major events in the life of an elderly individual, such as retirement, a significant decrease in income, death of the spouse, disability, and a move to a nursing home, may affect the mental health status of the individual. For example, the individual may enter a prolonged depression. We...

We present a theoretical explanation of the gender wage gap which turns on the interaction between men and women in households. In equilibria where men are over-represented in fulltime work, we show that firms rationally choose to hire women only at strictly lower wages than men. The model...

Swiss policy makers created a unique link between unemployment benefits and Active Labor Market Programs (ALMPs) by making benefit payments conditional on program attendance after 7 months of unemployment duration. We evaluate the effect of Active Labor Market Programs and benefit entitlement on...

The development of the unemployment rate differs substantially between OECD countries. In recent years some countries experienced a mild increase, other countries had a stable unemployment rate, while there are also 'successful' countries in which the unemployment rate decreased a lot. A common...

Since the mid-1960's the Netherlands has had an immigration surplus, mainly because of manpower recruitment from Turkey and Morocco and immigration from the former Dutch colony of Surinam. Immigrants have a weak labor market position, which is related to their educational level and language...

This paper presents a test of the educational signaling hypothesis. If employers use education as a signal in the hiring process, they will rely more on education when less is otherwise known about applicants. We find that employers are more likely to lower educational standards when an...

Since the mid 1960s the Netherlands has an immigration surplus, mainly because of manpower recruitment from Turkey and Morocco and because of immigration from the former Dutch colony of Surinam. Immigrant workers have a weak labour market position, which is mainly related to their educational...

This paper investigates how in addition to personal characteristics the neighborhood affects the individual transition rate from welfare to work. We use a unique administrative database on welfare recipients in Rotterdam, the second largest city of The Netherlands. We find that the exit rate to...

We model how unemployment benefit sanctions - benefit reductions that are imposed if unemployed do not comply with job search guidelines - affect unemployment. In our analysis we find that not only micro effects concerning the behavior of individual unemployed workers are relevant, but also...