We investigate experimentally the economic effects of wage taxation to finance unemployment benefits for a closed economy and an international economy. The main findings are the following. (i) There is clear evidence of a vicious circle in the dynamic interaction between the wage tax and...

This discussion paper resulted in an article in the <I>International Game Theory Review</I> (2008), 10, 257-278.<P> This contribution deals with the fundamental critique in Dinar et al. (1992, Theory and Decision 32) on the use of Game theory in water management: People are reluctant to monetary transfers...</p></i>

Donor agencies and recipient governments want to assess the effectiveness of aid-supported sector policies. Unfortunately, existing methods for impact evaluation are designed for the evaluation of homogeneous interventions (‘projects’) where those with and without ‘treatment’ can be...

This paper analyzes the impact of a leading entrepreneurship education program on college students’ entrepreneurship competencies and intentions using an instrumental variables approach in a difference-in-differences framework. We exploit that the program was offered to students at one...

The effects of a policy measure often reach the consumer only after one or more intermediatesteps, for instance because the measure lowers the cost of an input for an industry producinga consumer good. This paper is concerned with the question how to measure such indirect effectscorrectly under...

This paper uses the Kaldor-Hicks compensation principle to compute the present value (PV) of a non-marginal future event. Three theoretical results stand out: First, decreasing returns to capital create a wedge between the PV of future generations' willingness to pay (WTP) and the PV of their...

The Ramsey rule for the consumption rate of discount assumes a transfer of money of a (representative) agent at one point in time to the same agent at another point in time. Climate policy (implicitly) transfers money not just over time but also between agents. I propose three alternative...

This model of policy evaluation has been developed to identify factors that cause policy outcomes to diverge from the intended results. In this model the explanatory factors may be inherent to the conceptual and institutional framework to which policy makers adhere, or they may be ‘real...

Local policy makers seek ways to deal with abandoned industrial heritage in their jurisdictions. Much is demolished, but in some cases considerable investments are made to preserve the cultural aspects of industrial sites. The renewal plans are usually designed to stimulate urban renewal in the...

This discussion paper resulted in a publication in the <A href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0014292112001493">'European Economic Review'</A> 2013, 58, 31-57.<P> In this paper, we use a recent policy change in the Netherlands to study how changes in search requirements for the older unemployed affect their transition rates to employment, early retirement...</p></a>