In this paper we document the wage structure and labor mobility in the Netherlands in the period 1999-2003. We explain the importance of wage-setting institutions in the Netherlands and the main actors. The analyses are based on administrative sources allowing for comparisons between and within...

This paper examines the relationship between entrepreneurship (as measured by fluctuations in the business ownership rate) and unemployment in Japan for the period between 1972 and 2002. We find that, although Japan’s unemployment rate has been influenced by specific exogenous shocks, the...

This discussion paper resulted in a publication in 'Industrial and Corporate Change' (2010). Volume 19, issue 4, pages 1109-1139.<P> Entrepreneurs exit their business due to selection mechanisms experienced in the market place. Next to this well known ex-post decision to exit, entrepreneurs select...</p>

We test a new model where the entrepreneurial decision is described as a process of successive engagement levels, i.e., as an entrepreneurial ladder. Five levels are distinguished using nearly 12,000 observations from the 2004 “Flash Eurobarometer survey on Entrepreneurship” covering the 25...

This discussion paper resulted in a publication in <A HREF="http://people.few.eur.nl/vanderzwan/articles/Regional%20Studies%20Ladder%20Europe%20US.pdf">'Regional Studies'</A>, 2013, Volume 47, issue 5, pages 803-825.<P> We investigate which countries have the highest potential to achieve entrepreneurial progress. This progress is defined using an entrepreneurial ladder with five successive steps:...</p></a>

In this paper, we exploit a cohort discontinuity in the stringency of the 1993 Dutch disability reforms to obtain causal estimates of the effects of decreased generosity of disability insurance (DI) on behavior of existing DI recipients. We find evidence of substantial "social support...

See also the publication in <I>Small Business Economics</I> (2013), 40(3), 651-670.<P> Job satisfaction of self-employed and paid-employed workers is analyzed using the European Community Household Panel for the EU-15 covering the years 1994-2001. We distinguish between two types of job satisfaction, i.e....</p></i>

This paper demonstrates gender differences in risk aversion and ambiguity aversion. It also contributes to a growing literature relating economic preference parameters to psychological measures by asking whether variations in preference parameters among persons, and in particular across genders,...

This paper explores the interface between personality psychology and economics. We examine the predictive power of personality and the stability of personality traits over the life cycle. We develop simple analytical frameworks for interpreting the evidence in personality psychology and suggest...

Despite indications that people skills are important for understanding individual labor-market outcomes and have become more important over the last decades, there is little analysis by economists. This paper shows that people skills are important determinants of labor-market outcomes, including...