Social transfers vary enormously across the EU, as has been demonstrated in earlier research. This paper analyses the comparative effects of cash transfers on inequality and poverty, using consistent household data. The analysis shows that the distributional impact of these transfers is greater...

This paper considers education investment and public education subsidies in closed and open economies with an extortionary government. The extortionary government in a closed economy has incentives to subsidize education in order to overcome a hold-up problem of time consistent taxation, similar...

The paper studies the demand for foreign graduates at the firm level. Using a unique dataset on recruitment policies of firms in four European countries, the determinants of demand for internationally mobile high-skilled employees are established. I investigate the number, origin, skills, and...

This paper investigates whether and in what sense the west German wage structure has been 'rigid' in the 1990s. To test the hypothesis that a rigid wage structure has been responsible for rising low-skilled unemployment, I propose a methodology which makes less restrictive identifying...