This paper analyses the welfare effects of vertical integration of networks and trade in energy markets. Vertical integration reduces the effect of double marginalisation, thus increasing welfare. On the other hand, vertical integration hinders equal competition, rendering the vertically...

Global applied general equilibrium (AGE) models focus on the interactions between regional product markets. Many of these models are developed to represent trade flows and evaluate trade policies. Foreign direct investment (FDI) and foreign commercial presence are ignored in most of them,...

In the 1990s policy makers took various measures to stimulate competition. This memorandum investigates the question in which direction competition in the Dutch market sector has changed. Four competition indicators are used. These indicators are derived from a database of 87 000 firms as well...

We live in an uncertain world, yet a lot of research into the sustainability of welfare states is done in the context of certainty. There are good reasons why the analysis is mostly confined to a model of a certain world. <span style="color: #000000;">A full analysis of the sustainability of welfare states which includes...</span>

In the past, the European gas market was dominated by state-owned monopolists but since the start of the liberalisation, privatisation and re-regulation in the early 1990s, the market has fundamentally changed. Nevertheless, governments are still involved in the gas industry, not only in gas...

This paper examines the hypotheses presented by Oswald (1999) for the Netherlands. These are: I) Home-owners are less likely to move than renters, II) Unemployed home-owners are less likely to move than unemployed renters, III) Owners of houses are less likely to move to another job, because...

The study analyses the Dutch market for consumer magazines. Magazines share a number of characteristics with other information goods: they are experience goods, non-rival, have high fixed and low marginal cost, and content can be subsidised or sponsored by advertising. We develop a simple...

The key result of the tax competition literature is that governments set inefficiently low tax rates on income from internationally mobile production factors. Therefore, there is a case for coordination of EU capital income taxes, provided that capital is mobile within the EU. We measure how...

It is well-known that the probability of an unemployed person finding a job decreases over the unemployment spell. On the one hand, this results from duration dependence at the individual level: unemployed job seekers may become discouraged, loose their working skills and become stigmatised by...

This paper explores the economic consequences of the enlargement of the European Union with countries from Central and Eastern Europe. We focus on integration aspects that go beyond the reduction of formal trade barriers, namely accession to the internal market and free movement of labour. The...