Based on household surveys from 2004 and 2014 we show how payment patterns in the Netherlands have changed. This data is unique because it covers a long time span and includes detailed information on payment behaviour per point-of-sale (POS). In this period the usage of the debit card has...

Using two large-scale surveys among households, we examine the drivers of trust in banks, insurance companies, BigTechs, and other people in the United States and the Netherlands, and analyse whether the COVID-19 pandemic has affected public trust. Our results suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic...

Using a survey among more than 2,000 consumers in the Netherlands, we examine the drivers of trust in the financial sector supervisor. Trust in De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB) declined sharply during the financial crisis and has not yet completely recovered. Our results suggest that consumers’...

Consumers have been switching from cash to electronic means of paying and have become increasingly fond of online shopping. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated these trends. What these trends imply for the pain of paying that consumers experience has barely been studied. As pain of paying can...

Does the general public know what central banks do? Is this kind of knowledge relevant? Using a survey of Dutch households, we investigate these questions for the case of the European Central Bank (ECB). Our findings suggest that knowledge on the ECB's objectives is far from perfect. Both a weak...

Trust in the European Central Bank (ECB) is vital. Although it is important to study its level, drivers and effects especially in turbulent times, little is known about trust in the ECB during the COVID-19 pandemic. We use the pilot data from the ECB Consumer Expectations Survey during 2020-2021...

We compare the structure of the financial sectors of the EU27, Japan and the United States, looking at a set of 23 indicators. We find a large variation within the European Union in the structure of the financial sector. Using principal components analysis, we identify robust groups of EU...

The financial crisis has exposed the need to devise stronger and broader international and regional safety nets in order to deal with economic and financial shocks and allow for countries to adjust. The euro area has developed several such mechanisms over the last couple of years through a...

type="main" <p>We study optimal risk adjustment in imperfectly competitive health insurance markets when high-risk consumers are less likely to switch insurer than low-risk consumers. Insurers then have an incentive to select even if risk adjustment perfectly corrects for cost differences. To...</p>

We study how the possibility of renegotiation affects optimal bail-out policies for countries under asymmetric information on a country's cost of reforms. To that end, we solve the Bellman equation describing the optimal bail-out mechanism in a multiple-period principal-agent model with adverse...