In 1611 the young Gustav Adolf Vasa ascended the throne of Sweden as Gustav II Adolf. Along with the throne, the king inherited a disastrous war with Denmark, which he ended by signing the onerous Peace of Knäred. The terms included the obligation for Sweden to pay a one million rixdaler...

Early Modern historians have long been fascinated by the mercantile world of the late medieval and early modern periods. The reason for their fascination can be ascribed to the wealth, cosmopolitism, social capital and political clout that many of these merchants (mostly men) projected onto...

This paper investigates the relation between social capital and crime. The analysis contributes to explaining why crime is so heterogeneous across space. By employing current and historical data for Dutch municipalities and by providing novel indicators to measure social capital, we find a link...

Explaining the growth of funded pension systems is a major project in political economy. Drawing on the financialization and growth models literatures, this is a case study of recent pension fund growth in the Netherlands. Newly digitized data show almost continuous net fund inflows since their...

Über bilaterale Entwicklungsbanken ist einer breiteren Öffentlichkeit in der Regel wenig bekannt. Dies gilt wohl für alle Länder, in denen es solche Finanzinstitute gibt. Besonders galt es aber 2008 für Österreich, als die Bundesregierung die Gesetzesinitiative zur Gründung der...

This paper studies the effect of urban trees on house prices in Amsterdam by utilizing a detailed data set of trees that were cut-down near the house. By using exogenous reasons the tree was cut-down such as disease or storm, unobserved heterogeneity can be dealt with, and a causal effect...

We combine data from the Amsterdam secondary-school match with register data and survey data to estimate the effects of not being assigned to one's first-ranked school on academic outcomes and on a wide range of other outcomes. For identification we use that secondaryschool assignment in...

Using rich administrative data from the Netherlands, we study the consequences of firm consolidation for workers. For workers at acquired firms, takeovers are associated with a 8.5% drop in employment at the consolidated firm and a 2.6% drop in total labor income. These effects are persistent...