When treatment effects of active labour market programmes are heterogeneous in an observable way across the population, the allocation of the unemployed into different programmes becomes a particularly important issue. In this paper, we present a statistical model designed to improve the present...

In this paper, we consider fiscal competition between jurisdictions. Capital taxes are used to finance a public input and two public goods, one which benefits mobile skilled workers and one which benefits immobile unskilled workers. We derive the jurisdictions' reaction functions for different...

Unlike many other contracts, employment contracts are subject to various external administrative procedures governing separations, ranging from compulsory severance payments and advance notice periods (usually seniority based), to collective layoff procedures (usually depending on the firm's...

We provide new results regarding the identification of peer effects. We consider an extended version of the linear-in-means model where each individual has his own specific reference group. Interactions are thus structured through a social network. We assume that correlated unobservables are...

We use data from over 20,000 firms in 60 countries to identify constraints on the growth of firms. We interpret managers' answers to survey questions on the extent to which various aspects of their external environment inhibit the performance of their firm as measuring the shadow cost of...

We present a theorem helpful in estimating the mean and variance of a linear function with arbitrary multivariate randomness in its coefficients and variables. We derive a generalized decomposition result from two random linear functions in which the result can be applied to most models using...

Major events in the life of an elderly individual, such as retirement, a significant decrease in income, death of the spouse, disability, and a move to a nursing home, may affect the mental health status of the individual. For example, the individual may enter a prolonged depression. We...

We examine the determinants of low income transitions using first-order Markov models that control for initial conditions effects (those found to be poor in the base year may be a nonrandom sample) and for attrition (panel retention may also be non-random). Our econometric model is a form of...

Using the currency demand and DYMIMIC approaches estimates are presented about the size of the shadow economy in 22 Transition and 21 OECD countries. Over 2001/2002 in 21 OECD countries is the average size of the shadow economy (in percent of official GDP) 16.7% of "official" GDP and of 22...

In the early 1990s, the Dutch social partners agreed upon transforming the generous and actuarially unfair PAYG early retirement schemes into less generous and actuarially fair capital funded schemes. The starting dates of the transitional arrangements varied by industry sector. In this study,...