This paper studies the relation between macroeconomic fluctuations and corporate defaults while conditioning on industry affiliation and an extensive set of firm-specific factors. Using a multiperiod logit approach on a panel data set for all incorporated Swedish businesses over 1990-2002, we...

This paper takes the view that a major contributing factor to the financial crisis of 2008 was a failure to correctly assess and price the risk of default. In order to analyse default risk in the macroeconomy, a simple general equilibrium model with banks and financial intermediation is...

Throughout Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), there is a widespread failure of enterprise debtors to make scheduled payments of principal and interest to creditors, who in turn have strong incentives not to declare bankruptcy. In such circumstances, the price mechanism does not properly guide the...

This paper presents a simple model capturing differences between debt and equity finance to examine how financial structure matters for macroeconomic volatility. Debt finance is relatively cheap in the sense that debt holders need to verify relatively few profitability states, but debt finance...

We examine the validity of a macroeconomic version of the Modigliani-Miller theorem. For this purpose, we develop a general equilibrium model with two production sectors, risk-averse households and financial intermediation by banks. Banks are funded by deposits and (outside) equity and monitor...

This paper investigates whether cannabis use affects physical and mental health. To do so, information on prime aged individuals living in Amsterdam in 1994 is used. Dutch data offer a clear advantage in estimating the health impacts of cannabis use because the legal status of cannabis in the...

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...

In housing markets with asymmetric information list prices may signal unobserved properties of the house or the seller. Asymmetric information is the starting point of many models for the housing market. In this paper, we estimate the causal effect of list-price reductions to test for the...