Firms hiring fresh graduates face uncertainty on the future productivity of workers. Theory suggests that starting wages reflect this, with lower pay for greater uncertainty. We use the dispersion of exam grades within a field of education as an indicator of the unobserved heterogeneity that...

In a corporatist country, of which the Netherlands is an example, wages should not be distinguished by union membership status, but by the bargaining regime. Four bargaining regimes can be distinguished: (i) company level bargaining, (ii) industry level bargaining, (iii) mandatory extension of...

This study investigates the extent of labour market competition among nativeDutch workers and ethnicminorities, using national survey of the SEO and the Population statistics ofthe CBS. Firstly, the directeffect of immigrants on local labour markets is considered. It is shown thatethnic...

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...

Using two Dutch labour force surveys, employment assimilation of immigrants is examined. We observe marked differences between immigrants by source country. Non-western immigrants never reach parity with native Dutch. Even second generation immigrants never fully catch up. Caribbean immigrants,...

We apply a recently proposed method to disentangle unobserved heterogeneity from risk in returns to education. We replicate the original study on US men and extend to US women, UK men and German men. Most original results are not robust. A college education cannot universally be considered an...

How valuable are cognitive and social abilities for entrepreneurs’ incomes as compared to employees? We answer three questions: (1) To what extent does a composite measure of ability affect an entrepreneur's earnings relative to employees? (2) Do different cognitive abilities (e.g. math...