This paper empirically investigates the differences in the motives of raising privatisation proceeds for a panel of EU countries from 1990 to 2000. More specifically, we test whether privatisations can be mainly interpreted (a) as ingredients of a larger reform package of economic liberalisation...

In this paper we test for risk compensation in wages using Danish panel data. With the conviction that the type of education is as important as the education length, we use a very detailed description of the type of education reached by the Danish population to calculate different measures of...

We use data from Spain to test for an effect of earnings risk and skewness on individual wages. We carry out separate estimation for men, women, public and private sector employees. In accordance with previous evidence for the US we show the existence of a riskreturn trade-off across occupations...

We extend the Altonji and Card (1991) framework for analysing the impact of immigrants on natives? wages from two to three labour types and estimate reduced form wage equations for The Netherlands, United Kingdom and Norway. We find very small effects on natives? wages and no dominant robust...

We develop a simple human capital model for optimum schooling length when earnings are stochastic, and highlight the pivotal role of risk attitudes and the schooling gradient of earnings risk. We use Spanish data to document the gradient and to estimate individual response to earnings risk in...

In the Netherlands auditors can be trained in a part-time educational track in which students combine working and studying or in a full-time educational track. The former training is relatively firm-specific whereas the latter training is relatively general. Applying human capital theory, we...

Utility theory suggests that foreseeable risk should increase the compensation for work. This paper expands on this notion: on basis of utility theory, people should care not only about risk but also about the skewness in the distribution of the compensation paid. In particular, because the...

While there is an extensive literature on tax evasion a further aspect of cheating on the state, namely benefit fraud, has gained relatively modest attention in the economic literature. This paper seeks to fill this gap. We explore differences between benefit fraud and tax evasion due to...

We survey the literature on the Risk Augmented Mincer equation that seeks to estimate the compensation for uncertainty in the future wage to be earned after completing an education. There is wide empirical support for the predicted positive effect of wage variance and the negative effect of wage...

We analyse a unique data set that combines reservation wage and actually paid wage for a large sample of Dutch recent higher education graduates. On average, accepted wages are almost 8% higher than reservation wages, but there is no fixed proportionality. We find that the difference between...