The pool of early retirees is characterized by a large heterogeneity along several criteria. The present paper focuses on the key distinction between those in forced early retirement and those who retire early by individual choice. We start by estimating a retirement probit model for older...

In this paper we investigate whether unemployment traps exist and are significant in the transition from unemployment into employment in Belgium. In order to assess them, we use panel data sample selection models. Specifically, we estimate a parametric random effects models composed by a wage...

On the basis of aggregate data for the early nineties, we analyse the determinants of unemployment duration for laid-off male workers in Wallonia (Belgium). Our results demonstrate that if ranking in recruitment occurs, the standard Mixed Proportional Hazard specification can be too restrictive,...

This paper posits that the provision of family friendly practices is, on balance, costly to firms and valuable to workers. As a consequence, we anticipate the emergence of a hedonic equilibrium in which workers provided with such practices face an implicit reduction in their earnings. Using...

This paper investigates one of the most important financial issues arising from a secession or a country partitioning namely the sharing of the national public debt. Extending Dr?ze's distributive neutrality condition, we use the generational accounting technique and propose a dynamic...

In this paper we analyse with the PISA data on literacy achievement of fifteen-year-old pupils in six member countries of the OECD, whether the fact of having many siblings affects the individual educational outcome. The hypothesis that we test is whether parents? resources matter for...

Using a rich and comparable micro-data set, we analyse international differences in gender pay gaps in the private sector for a sample of five European economies: Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, Italy and Spain. Using different methods, we examine how wage structure, differences in the distribution...

This paper extends Hall's (1988) methodology to analyse imperfections in both the product and the labour market for firms in the Belgian manufacturing industry over the period 1988- 1995. We investigate the heterogeneity in price-cost mark-up and workers' bargaining power parameters among 18...

The unemployment rise in EU countries has been particularly strong for low-skilled workers. This observation has often been explained in terms of biased technical change and relative wage rigidities. More attention has been paid recently to an alternative mechanism, the crowding-out of...

Using a unique harmonized matched employer-employee dataset (European Structure of Earnings Survey, 1995), we study the impact of the regime of collective bargaining on wages in the manufacturing sector of three countries that are characterized by a multi-level system of bargaining: Belgium,...