Feeling socially integrated and being satisfied with one's social life are important indicators for happiness and well-being of individuals and for the strength of local communities. The effect of the living environment on social networks and the importance of local social contacts in the...

The topic of neighbourhood-based social interactions has gained attention in the last decades in the light of urban policies that aim to deal with problems regarding social segregation and exclusion, quality of life and liveability in urban areas. Social interactions are expected to play an...

This paper provides quasi-experimental evidence of the health benefits of a largescale, nationwide programme of home energy-efficiency retrofits in the Netherlands, exploiting individual medicine use from insurers' records. We demonstrate that these home upgrades improve children's health, as...

Energy efficiency improvements in low income housing are increasingly used as a policy instrument to alleviate poverty. Our paper shows that this may come at the expense of reduced environmental benefits. We follow 125,000 Dutch low-income households during eight years and exploit a...