We analyze the determinants of female labor market participation for different age-groups in the European Union. We show that female participation is positively affected by tertiary education at any age. But upper secondary education increases participation only up to an age of 40 while after...

Foreign aid’s effectiveness in promoting economic growth remains mired in controversy.We examine the impact of the volatility of aid on economic growth, controlling for the level of aid. A four-year panel analysis is conducted encompassing 155 countries over the period 1966-2001. We find that...

We analyze the interaction between bank rescues, financial fragility and sovereign debt discounts. We construct a model that contains balance sheet constrained financial intermediaries financing both capital expenditure of intermediate goods producers and government deficits. The financial...

This discussion paper resulted in a publication in the <A href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-0351.2011.00425.x/abstract;jsessionid=F64011DF99B22B6E2BF33FDA1C47DE9C.f04t03">'Economics of Transition'</A>, 2011, 19(4), 639-666.<P> Whether fiscal policy is sustainable depends on a government's future revenue and expenditure streams, both of which are highly uncertain. In commodity-rich countries, this problem is...</p></a>

We investigate the effectiveness of `Keynesian' fiscal stimuli when government deficits and debt rollovers are (possibly partially) financed by balance sheet constrained financial intermediaries. Because financial intermediaries operate under a leverage constraint, deficit financing of fiscal...

The ING Illiquid Assets Back-up Facility announced January 2009 was a SWAP-based insurance to reduce ING’s exposure to Alt-A related risk. Did the deal involve state aid? Usingmarketprices to evaluate the SWAP directly is impossible because markets for Alt-A based CDOs had collapsed. We...

This study analyses the relation between perceived health status and intertemporal choice. We use data from experiments with real monetary rewards conduEted among students in South Africa to estimate risk and time preferences. These experimental data, based on muitiple price lists developed by...

CoCo’s (contingent convertible capital) are designed to convert from debt to equity when banks need it most. Using a Diamond-Dybvig model cast in a global games framework, we show that while the CoCo conversion of the issuing bank may bring the bank back into compliance with capital...

This discussion paper resulted in a publication in <A href="http://wber.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2014/08/25/wber.lhu005.abstract?sid=a3f17f9e-0c3c-403b-87cc-14b5eebc2752">'The World Bank Economic Review'</A>, forthcoming.<P> Support for economic reforms has often shown puzzling dynamics: there are many examples of reforms that started off successfully but nevertheless lost public support, and vice versa. We show that...</p></a>

This discussion paper resulted in a publication in <A HREF="http://www.dovepress.com/condom-use-risk-perception-and-hiv-knowledge-a-comparison-across-sexes-peer-reviewed-article-HIV">'HIV/AIDS - Research and Palliative Care'</A>, 2013, 5, 283-293.<P> We analyze how HIV-knowledge influences condom use across the sexes. The empirical work is based on a household survey conducted among 1,979 households of a representative group of...</p></a>