This paper shows that investment inhuman capital may be another reason for incentive wages in addition to "retain, recruit and motivate". It is shown under which circumstances firms pay wages in excess of the market clearing level in order to induce workers to invest. Investment in human capital...

The focus of this paper is on rent distribution under different labour market regimes. When workers determine human capital investment and wages freely, while the firm sets labour demand, the rent created is shared. Investment in human capital is then inefficiently low. When there are unemployed...

By distinguishing between discretionary and non-discretionary fiscal policy, this paper analyses the stability of fiscal rules for EMU countries before and after the Maastricht Treaty. Using both Instrumental Variables and GMM techniques, it turns out that discretionary fiscal policy has...

In this paper we recognize that reforms of the welfare state can be necessary from an economic point of view. We stress, however, that these reforms also have important social and political dimensions. The social dimensions are conceptualised by using Hofstede''s cultural characteristics. The...

Recent empirical work shows that ongoing international financial integration facilitatescross-country consumption risk sharing. While these studies employ absolute measures toaccount for a country''s integration in international capital markets, we devise a relativemeasure that captures the...

This paper analyses the way immigration can help to alleviate the burden ageing presents for the welfare states of most Western Economies. We develop a macroeconomic framework which deals with the impact of both ageing and immigration on economic growth. This is combined with a detailed model of...

Unprecedented growth in private cross-border asset trade and asymmetric internationalbalance sheets are well-documented stylized facts of financial integration. Moreover, weobserve that current accounts are no longer the number one determinant of external balances. Advancing the work of...

We model a three-pillar pension system and analyse in this context the impact of the financial crisis on the aggregate economy, using an overlapping generations model where individuals live for two periods. The system consists of (1) a PAYG pension system, (2) a Defined Benefit pension fund, and...

In this paper we document the growing dispersion of external and internal balances between countries in the North and South of the Euro area over the time period 1992 to 2007. We find a persistent divergence process that seems to have started with the introduction of the common currency and has...

We model a three-pillar pension system and analyse the impact of exogenous shocks on an open economy, using an overlapping generation model where individuals live for two periods. The three-pillar pension system consists of (1) a PAYG pension system, (2) a defined benefits pension fund, and (3)...