Diese Dissertation besteht aus fünf Aufsätzen aus den Bereichen Arbeitsmarkt- und Bildungsökonomie. Das Ziel der Dissertation ist es, ein Verständnis für die Faktoren zu entwickeln, die individuelle Bildungsziele und individuelles Arbeitsangebot determinieren. Die Hauptmotivation dieser...

Each week, the Dutch Postcode Lottery (PCL) randomly selects a postal code, and distributes cash and a new BMWto lottery participants in that code. We study the effects of these shocks on lottery winners and their neighbors.Consistent with the life-cycle hypothesis, the effects on winners’...

This paper studies the relevance of social interactions among the unemployed. Identification is based on a salient and selective extension of the potential duration of unemployment benefits. If social interactions are important, this policy change affects entitled individuals not only directly,...

This paper provides an analysis of the social consequences of people seeking to keep up with the Joneses. All individuals attempt to reach a higher rank than the Joneses, including the Joneses themselves. This attitude gives rise to an equilibrium in which all individuals have equal utilities...

This paper aims at opening the black box of peer effects in adolescent weight gain. Using Add Health data on secondary schools in the U.S., we investigate whether these partly flow through the eating habits channel. Adolescents are assumed to interact through a friendship social network. We...

This paper focuses on the dynamic aspects of individual behavior affected by its social embedding, either at large (society-wide norms or averages) or at a local neighborhood. The emphasis is on how initial conditions can affect the long run outcome and to derive, discuss and apply the...

This article reviews the recent literature on the econometric analysis of games where multiple solutions are possible. Multiplicity does not necessarily preclude the estimation of a particular model (and in certain cases even improves its identification), but ignoring it can lead to...