We study risk behavior of Danish self-employed entrepreneurs, whose income risk may be driven by both exogenous factors and effort choice (moral hazard). Partial insurance is available through voluntary unemployment insurance (UI). Additional incentives to sign insurance contracts stem from a...

We estimate and explain the impact of early retirement of husbands on their wives’ probability to retire within one year, using administrative micro panel data that cover the whole Dutch population. We employ an instrumental variable approach in which the retirement choice of husbands is...

Since the early nineties, the Dutch tax system allows for a tax-favored form of risk free savings through employer-sponsored savings plans (ESSPs). Under some conditions and up to a certain amount, the contributions to this planare tax-deductible, and the returns as well as the withdrawals are...

This paper uses micro data from four OECD countries (the United States, Spain, Italy, and the Netherlands), to assess the determinants of household debt holding and to investigate whether or not credit constraints are important for household debt holding. We extend the existing literature in...

This paper identifies and estimates the impact of early retirement on the probability to die within five years, using administrative micro panel data covering the entire population of the Netherlands. Among the older workers we focus on, a group of civil servants became eligible for retirement...

Availability of (partial) insurance mechanisms is arguably important for the decision of (riskaverse) workers to start up a risky entrepreneurial venture. Using administrative data from Denmark, where unemployment insurance (UI) is available to both wage earners and self-employed on a voluntary...

This discussion paper led to a publication in <A href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jae.1071/full"><I>Journal of Applied Econometrics</I></A>, 24(6), 993-1023.Parents’ transfer motives are important for understanding, e.g., macroeconomics, income (re)distribution, savings, and public finance. Using data from six biennial waves of the Health and Retirement...</i></a>

This discussion paper resulted in a publication in the <A href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0014292112001493">'European Economic Review'</A> 2013, 58, 31-57.<P> In this paper, we use a recent policy change in the Netherlands to study how changes in search requirements for the older unemployed affect their transition rates to employment, early retirement...</p></a>

Who is wealthy? This paper presents empirical estimates of household movements into and out of the top percents of the wealth distribution over individual life cycles. There are life-cycle motives and precautionary motives for wealth accumulation. The opportunities to accumulate wealth create...

This paper uses panel data from the pan-European SHARE survey to study labor market behavior of older male self-employed vis-a-vis wage employed workers. We find the self-employed to work longer hours, to be more flexible in their hours allocation, and to retire later in all countries. We relate...