This paper explores the determinants of deviations of ex-post budget outcomes from first-release outcomes published towards the end of the year of budget implementation. The predictive content of the first-release outcomes is important, because these figures are an input for the next budget and...

To increase their transition from welfare to work, benefit recipients in the municipality of Rotterdam were exposed to various financial incentives, including both carrots to sticks. Once their benefit spell exceeded one year, welfare recipients were entitled to a reemployment bonus if they...

We briefly review the theoretical and empirical consequences of discretionary fiscal policy changes, after which we provide our own estimates for the EU countries. A fiscal expansion raises output and consumption and reduces the trade balance. Moreover, the stimulating effect of higher...

This paper investigates the effect of parental separation on homelessness. Previous studies are limited in their ability to isolate this effect and can only provide descriptive evidence that parental separations relate to reductions in housing quality and stability. Using a unique dataset of...

Our paper studies the effects of dialect-speaking on job characteristics of Dutch workers, in particular on their hourly wages. The unconditional difference in median hourly wages between standard Dutch speakers and dialect speakers is about 10.6% for males and 6.7% for females. If we take into...

The 1986 US Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) was directed at tackling the problem of growing unauthorized migration through legalization of unauthorized immigrants, increasing border security and sanctioning employers who hired unauthorized immigrants. Our paper investigates how the...