This paper studies the wage effects of the use of alcohol and tobacco. The analysis based on a recent survey in the Netherlands shows that for males the use of tobacco has a negative wage effect of about 10% while the use of alcohol has a positive wage effect of about the same size. The wages of...

We study the impact of early cannabis use on the school to work transition of young men. Our empirical approach accounts for common unobserved confounders that jointly affect selection into cannabis use and the transition from school to work using a multivariate mixed proportional hazard...

This paper studies the relationship between early mental health episodes and early homelessness, focusing on depression and anxiety amongst disadvantaged Australians. Using data from the Australian Journeys Home survey, we investigate whether the early onset of mental health conditions make a...

This paper uses information from a panel of Dutch firms to investigate the labor productivity effects of performance related pay (PRP). We find that PRP increases labor productivity at the firm level with about 9% and employment with about 5%. -- performance related pay ; labor productivity

Previous empirical studies on the effect of age on productivity and wages find contradicting results. Some studies find that if workers grow older there is an increasing gap between productivity and wages, i.e. wages increase with age while productivity does not or does not increase at the same...

Recent human capital theories predict that labor market frictions and product market competition influence firm-sponsored training. Using matched worker-firm data from Dutch manufacturing, our paper empirically assesses the validity of these predictions. We find that a decrease in labor market...

This paper is the first to provide evidence of efficient taxation of groups with heterogeneous levels of 'tax morale'. We set up an optimal income tax model where high tax morale implies a high subjective cost of evading taxes. The model predicts that 'nice guys finish last': groups with higher...

This paper presents an analysis of labour market dynamics, in particular of flows in the labour market and how they interact and affect the evolution of unemployment rates and participation rates, the two main indicators of labour market performance. Our analysis has two special features. First,...

This paper studies the educational consequences of language proficiency by investigating the relationship between dialect-speaking and academic performance of 5-6 year old children in the Netherlands. We find that dialect-speaking has a modestly negative effect on boys' language test scores. In...

Our paper revisits Okun's relationship between observed unemployment rates and output gaps. We include in the relationship the effect of labour market institutions as well as age and gender effects. Our empirical analysis is based on 20 OECD countries over the period 1985-2013. We find that the...