This discussion paper resulted in an article in the 'American Economic Review' (2006). Volume 96, issue 2, pages 270-274.<P> Empirical studies of labor markets show that social contacts are an important source of job-related information [Ioannides and Loury (2004)]. At the same time, wage...</p>

In the Netherlands, students who want to become a medical specialist have toenrol in a training program which is in limited supply. During the search for aposition as trainee (or "junior medical specialist"), they may accept atemporary job as a medical assistant. We use a micro data set to...

We show how small initial wealth differences between low skilled black and white workers can generate large differences in their labor-market outcomes. This even occurs in the absence of a taste for discrimination against blacks or exogenous differences in the distance to jobs. Because of the...

Randomized experiments provide policy relevant treatment effects if there areno spillovers between participants and nonparticipants. We show that thisassumption is violated for a Danish activation program for unemployed workers.Using a difference-in-difference model we show that the...

We analyse a model of equilibrium directed search in a large labour market. Each worker, observing the wages posted at all vacancies, makes a fixed, finite number of applications, a. We allow for the possibility of ex post competition should more than one vacancy want to hire the same worker....

This paper identifies and estimates the impact of early retirement on the probability to die within five years, using administrative micro panel data covering the entire population of the Netherlands. Among the older workers we focus on, a group of civil servants became eligible for retirement...

A large number of exact inferential procedures in statistics and econometrics involve the sampling distribution of ratios of random variables. If the denominator variable is positive, then tail probabilities of the ratio can be expressed as those of a suitably defined difference of random...

This discussion paper resulted in a publication in <I>Econometric Reviews</I>. Vol. 33(1-4), 3-35.<P> We discuss Bayesian inferential procedures within the family of instrumental variables regression models and focus on two issues: existence conditions for posterior moments of the parameters of interest...</p></i>