J28, J62 </AbstractSection> Copyright Gielen; licensee Springer. 2013

It is puzzling that people feel quite unhappy when they become unemployed, while at the same time active labor market policies are needed to bring unemployed back to work more quickly. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, we investigate whether there is indeed such a puzzle. First,...

We present an empirical analysis of job reallocation and labour mobility using matched worker-firm data for the Netherlands to investigate how firms adjust their workforce over the cycle. Our data cover the period 1993-2002. We find that cyclical adjustments of the workforce occur mainly through...

In a dynamic labor market worker-firm matches dissolve frequently causing workers to separate and firms to look for replacements. A separation may be initiated by the worker (a quit) or the firm (a layoff), or may result from a joint decision. A dissolution of a worker-firm match may be...

This paper uses information from a panel of Dutch firms to investigate the labour productivity effects of performance related pay (PRP). We find that PRP increases labour productivity at the firm level with about 9%.

We relate differences in problem drinking symptoms within pairs of identical twins to their respective differences in years of schooling. Isolating in this way the influences of family background and genes, we find that an increase in schooling attainment results in a significantly lower...