Dutch media often pay a lot of attention to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). They are considered to be the engine of the Dutch job industry and therefore deserve our attention. In this study we highlight the role the Dutch SMEs play in the Dutch economy. This study's first objective is...

Politicians and car owners are regularly concerned about the level of gasoline prices. Especially, Dutch gasoline prices seem to be high in an European perspective. This paper therefore analyses the developments of gasoline prices in the Netherlands and some other European countries from 1996 up...

The headline inflation rate is subject to unpredictable, temporary, sector-specific shocks. Therefore, various measures of core inflation have been proposed to isolate the underlying or permanent inflation component. In this paper, a number of criteria are used to evaluate several statistical...

This article discusses and advocates extension of the traditional price index to include asset prices. A price index which reflects current asset prices would be of great help to those preparing monetary policy for EMU, and is particularly relevant in the current situation of low inflation as...

In this paper the relationship between stock prices and house prices is analysed for six countries over the years 1976-2001. We find that both asset prices show a positive long-term relationship, which can partly be explained by common macro-economic factors such as credit, consumption and...