The emergence of the housewife in the Netherlands over the period 1812-1922 was strongly influenced by the social norm that women should withdraw from the labour market on the eve of marriage. Adherence to this norm is most clearly reflected in the emergence of the housewife among the lower...

In this paper we focus on the timing of marriages of women, whose marriages are associated with bride wealth payments, which are transfers from (the family of) the groom to the bride's family. Unmarried daughters could therefore be considered assets who, at times of need, can be cashed in. We...

If partners derive utility from joint leisure time, it is expected that they will coordinate their work schedules in order to increase the amount of joint leisure. In order to control for differences in constraints and selection effects, this paper uses a new matching procedure, providing...

This study examines if couples time their work hours and how this work timing influences child care demand and the time that spouses jointly spend on leisure, household chores and child care. By using a innovative matching strategy, this studies identifies the timing of work hours that cannot be...

This paper estimates the health returns to education, using data on identical twins. I adopt a twin-differences strategy in order to obtain estimates that are not biased by unobserved family background and genetic traits that may affect both education and health. I further investigate to what...

This is the first study to analyze effects of in utero exposure to the severe Dutch Hunger Winter famine (1944/45) on labor market outcomes and hospitalization. This famine is clearly demarcated in time and space. It was not anticipated. Nutritional conditions were stable before and after the...

Impact evaluations of development programmes usually focus on a comparison of participants with a control group. However, if the programme generates externalities for non-participants such an approach will capture only part of the programme’s impact. Based on a unique large-scale quantitative...

The number of households with two or more cars is steadily increasing over time. The reason is that ownership of a single car imposes restrictions on car use when there are multiple license holders in a household. If such restrictions are severe, the benefits of multiple-car ownership may exceed...

We present an equilibrium-search model with heterogenous workers who search for a job in one of two sectors and who lose part of their skills during unemployment. We show that an import tariff increase the wage and the employment prospects in the protected sector. This results in a labor market...

What determines remittances – altruism or enlightened self-interest - and do remittances trigger additional migration? These two questions are examined empirically in Egypt, Turkey and Morocco for households with family members living abroad. Results show, first, that one cannot clearly...