I develop an index for economic integration accounting for its gradual and bilateral nature: the Gradual And Bilateral Integration (GABI) index. The graduality captures differences in the depth and path of five stages in economic integration and is an improvement over the use of binary dummy...

This paper studies the importance of intangible barriers to trade in explaining variation in disaggregate international trade. The analysis is based on a sample of 55 countries for the year 2000. We explicitly focus on the importance of institutional and cultural dimensions of distance. Our...

This paper offers an explanation for why policy makers stick to inefficient policy decisions. I argue that repealing a policy is a bad signal to voters about the policy maker's competence if voters do not have complete knowledge about the effects of implemented policies. I derive the optimal...

We present a dynamic model of the interaction between interest groupsand policymakers, featuringendogenous interest group formation. We show that complicated dynamicpatterns in economicpolicies may arise once interest group formation is taken intoaccount.

Regions vary strongly according to the participation of firms in R&Dactivity.By linking data on R&D activity at thefirm level with GIS based data on economic, and other locationfeatures of zoneswe are able to investigate the impactof local factors on R&D involvement for various types of...

Institutional barriers to entry were removed to a considerable extent in 1996 in the Dutch retail sector. Three years before that the regulator decided to not take legal actions anymore against entrants violating institutional requirements. In the current analysis we investigate the effects of...

A major aim of recent empirical modelling of the business cycle isto identify the relative importance of aggregate supply and demandshocks. Supply or technology shocks are associated with permanent(structural) effects on economic activity whereas demand shocks arerelated to temporary (cyclical)...

In the Netherlands, the average exit rate out of welfare is dramatically low. Most welfare recipients have to comply with guidelines on job search effort that are imposed by the welfare agency. If they do not, then a sanction in the form of a temporary benefit reduction can be imposed. This...

Although the primary goals of post war housing policy in The Netherlands have beenaccomplished, the Dutch housing market remains highly regulated. This paper develops a staticpartial equilibrium model to investigate the effects of deregulation on the private marketprices and the allocation of...

In the Netherlands, students who want to become a medical specialist have toenrol in a training program which is in limited supply. During the search for aposition as trainee (or junior medical specialist), they may accept atemporary job as a medical assistant. We use a micro data set to...