This paper integrates institutionally determined wage rigidities into an otherwise standard Heckscher-Ohlin model of international trade. It accounts for differences in individual productivities and their implications for individual wage incomes and demand for education. Although preserving the...

This paper uses longitudinal micro-evidence from the European Community Household Panel to investigate the obesity phenomenon in nine EU countries from 1998 to 2001. The author documents cross-country prevalence, trends and cohort-age profiles of obesity among adults and analyses the...

This paper explores the connection between education and wage inequality in nine European countries. We exploit the quantile regression technique to calculate returns to lower secondary, upper secondary and tertiary education at different points of the wage distribution. We find that returns to...

Trends in life satisfaction are examined across 15 European countries employing a modified version of Kendall's Tau. Analyses show that GDP growth relative to growth in the preceding period is a significant determinant of the trends; the same holds for the growth in life expectancy while the...

Policy towards asylum seekers has been a controversial topic for more than a decade. Rising numbers of asylum applications have been met with ever-tougher policies to deter them. Following a period of policy harmonisation, the EU has reached a crucial stage in the development of a new Common...

Using 1994-98 International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS) microdata, this paper investigates the impact of employment protection laws on the incidence of temporary employment by demographic group. More stringent employment protection for regular jobs is predicted to increase the relative...