How do we explain the poor employment performance in Western Europe since about the mid-1970s? This question is in fact twofold : what initiated the dramatic rise in unemployment, and what mechanisms have make it continue for so long. My attempts to answer these questions form the basis for a...

This paper analyzes the interplay between economic incentives and social norms in a public finance context. We assume that to live off one's own work is a social norm, and that the larger the population fraction adhering to this norm, the more intensely it is felt by the individual.

This paper discusses how ICT and emerging electronic commerce in consumer products influence the relative efficiency in production of households and firms, resulting in changes in the division of tasks between these two types of agents.