In this paper we analyse the consequences of replacing government subsidies with a graduate tax (GT) or income contingent loan (ICL) system for the financing of higher education. Both these systems are directed towards solving capital and insurance market failures. We constructed an empirically...

Early school-leaving is considered to be one of the major problems in Dutch education. In order to reduce the number of dropouts in the school year 2006-2007 the Dutch government has offered a financial incentive scheme to 14 out of 39 regions. This scheme provides a reward of 2000 euro per...

This paper reviews arguments for government interference in the education sector and discusses the effectiveness of commonly used policy instruments. There are both efficiency and equity reasons for government intervention. Particular attention is paid to education spillovers (an efficiency...

Fiscal equalization through the allocation of central government grants may have adverse distributional implications if these grants capitalize into house values. We investigate the impact of changes in grants induced by a reform of the Dutch grant system. Since this reform was implemented...

We explore the impact of central government grants on local house prices in England using a panel data set of local authorities (LAs) from 2001 to 2008. Electoral targeting of grants to LAs by the incumbent national government provides an exogenous source of variation in grants that we exploit...

This paper empirically explores the relationship between competition design and productive efficiency in the railway industry. We use Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to construct efficiency scores, and explain these scores, using variables reflecting institutional factors and competition...

This report develops a roadmap for reliability policy in network industries. Based on economic theory, we analyse the relationship between reliability and various types of government policy: privatisation, liberalisation, regulation, unbundling, and 'commitment policy'. We let government...

This paper assesses how the system of Dutch collective arrangements redistributes between the rich and the poor. It incorporates the full life cycle in the measurements, rather than only the annual effects, and includes a larger part of the arrangements than is usually the case. The...

In this report, we investigate whether policies that stimulate enrolment in S&E-studies are effective at increasing R&D-activity. Scarcity of science and engineering (S&E) graduates could potentially call for government intervention, because of the role of S&E's in R&D, and because R&D in turn...

A shortage of teachers in primary and secondary schools in the Netherlands is expected in the near future as a large part of the current workforce will retire. Recently, the Dutch government has decided to increase wages of teachers. This paper qualitatively assesses the impact of three...