Abstract: With the emergence of the Great Recession unemployment insurance (UI) is once again at the heart of the policy debate. In this paper, we review the recent theoretical and empirical evidence on the labor market effects of UI design. We also discuss policy issues related to UI design,...

We present a theoretical and empirical analysis of different types of active labor market policies (ALMP).In our empirical analysis we use data on 20 OECD countries covering the time period 1985-1999.We find that labor market training is the most effective program to bring down...

We present an empirical analysis of job reallocation and labor 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...

Workplace accidents are an important economic phenomenon. Yet, the pro-cyclical fl uctuations in workplace accidents are not well understood. They could be related to fluctuations in effort and working hours, but workplace accidents may also be affected by reporting behavior. Our paper uses...

In this paper we use individual level data from the Australian National Drug Strategy Household Survey to study the relationship between initiation into cannabis use and educational attainment. Using instrumental variable estimation and bivariate duration analysis we find that those initiating...

Pianists who achieve high scores in the Queen Elizabeth musical competition are rewarded by subsequent success.It is not clear whether this is caused by the score itself or because those who have high scores are better pianists anyway. Since the timing and the order of appearance are good...

This paper studies the wage effects of the use of alcohol and tobacco.The analysis based on a recent survey in the Netherlands shows that for males the use of tobacco has a negative wage effect of about 10% while the use of alcohol has a positive wage effect of about the same size.The wages of...