Using two Dutch labour force surveys, employment assimilation of immigrants is examined. We observe marked differences between immigrants by source country. Non-western immigrants never reach parity with native Dutch. Even second generation immigrants never fully catch up. Caribbean immigrants,...

We use data on refugees admitted to the Netherlands that include registration of education in their homeland by immigration officers. Such data are seldom available. We investigate the quality and reliability of the registrations and then use them to assess effects on refugees’ economic...

We extend the Altonji and Card (1991) framework for analysing the impact of immigrants on natives’ wages from two to three labour types and estimate reduced form wage equations for The Netherlands, United Kingdom and Norway. We find very small effects on natives’ wages and no dominant robust...

While uncertainty abounds in almost any decision on investment in schooling, it is mostly ignored in research and virtually absent in labour economics text books. This paper documents the scope for risk, discusses the tough disentanglement of heterogeneity and risk, surveys the analytical...

The paper provides a theoretical foundation for the empirical regularities observed in estimations of wage consequences of overeducation and undereducation. Workers with more education than required for their jobs are observed to suffer wage penalties relative to workers with the same education...

We analyse postwar Dutch migration to New Zealand. We document that history, reflect on analytical and econometric modelling and then combine a sample of Dutch migrants in New Zealand with a representative sample of Dutch in The Netherlands to estimate wage equations simultaneously with the...

There is no robust empirical support for the effect of financial incentives on the decision to work in self-employment rather than as a wage earner. In the literature, this is seen as a puzzle. We offer a focus on the opportunity cost, i.e. the wages given up as an employee. Information on...

We use two large Dutch datasets to estimate the Risk Augmented Mincer equation and test for risk compensation in expected earnings. We replicate earlier findings of a positive premium for risk and a negative premium for skew and add confirmation of the key results if we control for individual...

Firms hiring fresh graduates face uncertainty on the future productivity of workers. Intuitively, one expects starting wages to reflect this. Formal analysis supports the intuition. We use the dispersion of exam grades within a field of education as an indicator of the heterogeneity that...

We develop a simple human capital model for optimum schooling length when earnings are stochastic, and highlight the pivotal role of risk attitudes and the schooling gradient of earnings risk. We use Spanish data to document the gradient and to estimate individual response to earnings risk in...