Imagine an impoverished region that becomes eligible for a generous transfer programme (the treatment). Imagine difference-in-differences analysis (DiD)-a before-and-after comparison of the income-level handicap-shows that the handicap has risen. Most observers would conclude to the policy's...

The rising cost of old-age dependency in Europe and elsewhere invariably leads to reforms aimed at raising the effective age or retirement. But do older individuals have the health/cognitive capacity to work longer? Following Cutler et al. (2012), this paper asks how much older individuals could...

The arguments for refinancing the European Union’s (EU) higher education via higher tuition fees largely rest on preserving the profitability of the educational investment and offering deferred and income-contingent payments. Using income survey datasets on Belgium, Germany and the United...

Population aging in Europe calls for an overall rise in the age of retirement. However, most observers agree that the latter should be differentiated to account for different individuals' heterogeneous health when they grow older. This paper explores the relevance of this idea using the European...

A common problem with differences-in-differences (DD) estimates is the failure of the parallel-trend assumption. To cope with this, most authors include polynomial (linear, quadratic…) trends among the regressors, and estimate the treatment effect as a once-in-a-time trend shift. In practice...

Imagine a region suffering from a widening income gap that becomes eligible for a generous transfer programme (the treatment). Imagine difference-in-differences analysis (DD) - a before-and-after comparison of the income-level difference - shows that the handicap has risen. Most observers would...

This paper uses Belgian firm-level data, covering the 1998-2006 period, to assess the impact on TFP growth of key labour force structural changes: ageing, feminisation and rise of educational attainment. Based on a Hellerstein-Neumark analytical framework, our work shows that an ageing workforce...