How does global aging affect the convergence in global economic development? Both the developing and developed world will be characterized for the coming decades by aging populations. Changes in the age distribution of a population are an important determinant of economic performance as they...

We test whether households that face prospective home equity losses during a house price downturn use divorce to shed debt. We study the Dutch context, where qualifying homeowners can buy into a mortgage guarantee scheme that insures the lender against borrower default and transfers the risk to...

This paper formulates a simple skill and education model to explain how better access to higher education leads to stronger assortative mating on skills of parents and more polarized skill and earnings distributions of children. Swedish data show that in the second half of the 20th century more...

The emergence of the housewife in the Netherlands over the period 1812-1922 was strongly influenced by the social norm that women should withdraw from the labour market on the eve of marriage. Adherence to this norm is most clearly reflected in the emergence of the housewife among the lower...

We study the effect of marriage on the stability of formal partnerships exploiting same-sex marriage legalization in the Netherlands as a natural experiment. Same-sex marriage legalization allowed registered partnerships to be transformed into marriage. Since registered partnerships and...

We study the effect of an Iranian educational policy implemented in 2012 that restricted access to higher education for women in 30% of Iran's public universities, mostly in sciences and engineering. To analyze the effect of the policy, we use a triple difference strategy across gender, cohorts...

We study the effect of marriage on the stability of formal partnerships exploiting same-sex marriage legalization in the Netherlands as a natural experiment. Same-sex marriage legalization allowed registered partnerships to be transformed into marriage. Since registered partnerships and...

This paper analyzes the impact of the Indian Ocean Tsunami in 2004 and the Nias earthquake in 2005 on population dynamic across regions in Aceh and North Sumatera. We find no evidence that the disasters affected the regularity of size-distribution of the regions. The estimates of a population...

We investigate how early life circumstances - - childhood health and socioeconomic status (SES) - - are associated with labor market outcomes over an individual's entire life cycle. A life cycle approach provides insights not only into which labor market outcomes are associated with adverse...

In this paper the efficient allocation of natural recreational areasis analysed. Natural recreational areas have the features of publicgoods. We present the efficient allocation of this non-excludablepublic good in a rational general equilibrium model withheterogeneous agents. This allows us to...