CPB Discussion papers 2006
n° 76 - December 2006
Alcohol Taxation and Regulation in the European Union
CNOSSEN Sijbren
This paper provides estimates of the external costs of harmful alcohol use in the European Union (EU) and confronts them with the alcohol excise duty collections per adult and per litre of pure alcohol in the various Member States. In all but one Member State, drinkers do not appear to pay their way. This reflects the EU's acquiescence in a formidable alcohol problem. Fifteen per cent of adults 'drink too much', while the extent of youth drinking has reached alarming proportions. The external costs should be internalised in price through an appropriate optimal alcohol excise duty, supplemented by regulatory measures aimed at specific problem groups. Further, a coordinated alcohol tax policy seems called for, which would, among others, raise the minimum duties on wine, beer and spirits, preferably in line with their relative alcohol content. A drawback of these measures is that they would reduce the welfare of moderate drinkers.
n° 75 - December 2006
Immigration, Integration and the Labour Market: Turkish Immigrants in Germany and the Netherlands
EUWALS Rob, DAGEVOS Jaco, GIJSBERTS Mérove, ROODENBURG Hans
On the basis of three micro datasets, the German Socio-Economic Panel 2002, the Dutch Social Position and Use of Provision Survey 2002 and the Dutch Labour Force Survey 2002, we investigate the labour market position of Turkish immigrants in Germany and the Netherlands. We compare labour market outcomes of Turkish immigrants, including both the first and second generation, and natives in both countries by using the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition method. We find that Turkish immigrants have lower employment rates, lower tenured job rates and lower job prestige scores than natives. In both countries, the lower level of education and the age composition of the Turkish immigrants partly explains the unfavourable labour market position. The standardized gap – the gap that remains after correction for the observed individual characteristics – in the employment and tenured job rate remains large for the Netherlands, while the standardized gap in the job prestige score remains large for Germany. Differences in past immigration policies between Germany and the Netherlands are likely to be important for explaining the labour market position of Turkish men in both countries.
n° 74 - December 2006
Schooling inequality and the rise of research
STRAATHOF Bas
During the last twenty years the share of researchers in the workforce has been rising in OECD countries. In the same period, the distribution of schooling has become more equal. This paper proposes that the rise in the proportion of researchers is caused by the decline in schooling inequality. In particular, comparative static analysis of a semi-endogenous growth model demonstrates that a rising proportion of researchers can be a steady state phenomenon when schooling inequality is declining over time. This outcome can be accompanied by a rise in the wages of high-skilled labor compared to low-skilled labor.
n° 73 - December 2006
Measuring the Effectiveness of Public Employment Service (PES) Workers. An Empirical Analysis Based on the Performance Outcomes of Regional Employment Offices
KONING Pierre
In this paper, we measure the effectiveness of the Dutch public employment service (PES) for various performance measures, ranging from outflow rates to the timeliness of the benefits allocation. Using unique administrative monthly data from local PES offices during 2004, we exploit the fact that the number of PES workers per job seeker varies substantially between offices. We find additional PES workers to significantly increase outflow rates for short term unemployed and unemployment insurance (UI) recipients. In contrast, no effects are obtained for the outflow rates of long term unemployed and social assistance (SA) recipients. We also find additional PES workers to reduce the inflow into the schemes, to improve the timeliness of UI benefits and to increase the number of vacancies that are registered by offices. Although the effectiveness of PES workers is limited, we conclude that changes in the number of PES workers per client are cost-effective - that is, the extra costs are compensated for by the resulting reduction in benefit expenses.
n° 072 - October 2006
EU accession and income growth, An empirical approach
LEJOUR Arjan, SOLANIC Vladimir, TANG Paul
The dynamic effects from EU membership are crucial for the new member states to catch up with the average income level in the old member states. To gauge the dynamic effects, we follow a two-step procedure in which a gravity equation for bilateral trade shows the trade effect of EU membership and a growth regression yields the income effect of trade. Shared EU membership is found to increase trade between two of its member states with about 34%. EU membership may contribute to trade by inducing countries to improve the quality of their institutions. Trade increases by another 22% if institutions improve, yielding a total trade increase of 56%. Improved openness increases income by 37.5% according to our estimates. Adding a small direct effect of improved institutions on income, the total income effect of EU membership is 39% for the ten new members. This implies that EU membership, or its effect on trade and institutions, could lead to large economic gains for the new member states, but does not bring them economically on par with the old member states.
n° 071 - September 2006
The Impact of Competition on Productive Efficiency in European railways
Gertjan Driessen, Lijesen Mark and Machiel Mulder
This paper empirically explores the relationship between competition design and productive efficiency in the railway industry. We use Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to construct efficiency scores, and explain these scores, using variables reflecting institutional factors and competition design. Our results suggest that competitive tendering improves productive efficiency, which is in line with economic intuition as well as with expectations on the design of competition. We also find that free entry lowers productive efficiency. A possible explanation for this result is that free entry may disable railway operators to reap economies of density. Our final result is that more autonomy of management lowers productive efficiency. Most of the incumbent railway companies are state owned and do not face any competitive pressure. As a consequence, increased independence without sufficient competition and adequate regulation may deteriorate incentives for productive efficiency.
n° 070 - August 2006
Disability Insurance and Unemployment Insurance as Substitute Pathways. An Empirical Analysis Based on Employer Data
Pierre Koning and Daniël van Vuuren
In this paper, we estimate the degree of substitution between enrolment into Disability Insurance (DI) and Unemployment Insurance (UI) in the Netherlands. Starting in the 1990s many policy measures aimed at reducing DI enrolment, and increase labour force participation. We quantify whether these policy measures have led to a reduction in hidden unemployment in DI. A side effect of the reforms may be increased pressure on UI. Therefore, we simultaneously estimate reverse substitution, that is, hidden disability in UI. To this end, we employ a sample of firms in the Dutch AVO database from the period 1993-2002. Using instrumental variables in a bivariate Tobit specification, we identify the hidden components in both respective schemes. The estimation results indicate that about 3% of all dismissals took place through DI, which implies that about one quarter of the DI enrolments observed in our sample in fact consists of hidden unemployment. We find no evidence for reverse substitution of disabled persons ending up in UI.
n° 069 - August 2006
Hidden Unemployment in Disability Insurance in the Netherlands An Empirical Analysis Based on Employer Data
Pierre Koning and Daniël van Vuuren
In this paper, we construct and estimate a (semi-) structural model, so as to uncover the fraction of hidden unemployment in the Disability Insurance (DI) enrolment rate. For this purpose, we use longitudinal administrative data of Dutch employers for 1994-2003. We find the (average) fraction of hidden unemployment in DI enrolment to amount to about 11%. This corresponds to 2.6% of the ‘true’ unemployment insurance (UI) enrolment rate of employers. Over the years, we observe a strong decrease in this fraction, from 5.4% in 1995, to 0.7% in 2003. In addition, our estimates suggest that most of correlation that is observed between the UI and DI enrolment rates can be explained by substitution effects, and not by ‘true’ correlation between the schemes that is exogenous to the firm. In the model, the fraction of hidden unemployment in the DI scheme is (over-)identified from various restrictions imposed by the data. First, identification follows from exclusion restrictions obtained from the coefficient estimates of variables that are assumed to influence the UI enrolment rate only. For this purpose, we use information on the wage distribution of workers employed at the firms in our sample, and sectoral growth rates. Second, identification of substitution effects follows from the observed correlation between both enrolment rates.
n° 068 - July 2006
Higher education: Time for coordination on a European level?
Laura Thissen and Sjef Ederve
Education has always been regarded as a national matter. According to the subsidiarity principle power may only be shifted to a higher level of coordination when solid arguments exist that this will improve welfare. This paper aims at answering the question if these arguments exist. We find no support for economies of scale, i.e. larger countries do not necessarily provide higher quality education; nor do larger schools. Empirical evidence for human capital externalities through student mobility is scarce. Concluding, we find little support for European coordination of higher education. However, there is evidence that student mobility is a precursor for labour migration. Uniformizing the structure of higher education in the EU, and making educational programs more transparent, may therefore be defended from this perspective. Quality does matter for students, and student mobility is increasing. This may be beneficial to labour mobility.
(texte intégral du n° 68/2006)
n° 067 - July 2006
Tobacco Taxation in the European Union
Sijbren Cnossen
Later this year, the European Commission has to submit a report to the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament with its views on tobacco tax policy in the EU. A 2004 publication issued by the Commission expressed the beliefs that tobacco consumption should be controlled by increasing tobacco excises and that harmonisation should proceed on the basis of specific rates. This paper reviews and evaluates EU tobacco tax policies. It supports the move towards specific taxation, but notes that there are conceptual and empirical limits to excessively high tobacco taxes. Smokers appear to pay their way and cigarette smuggling is a growing menace to health and revenue objectives.
(texte intégral du n° 67/2006)
n° 066 - July 2006
The price of free advice
Machiel van Dijk, Michiel Bijlsma, Marc Pomp
What factors determine how well consumers make their actual choices with regard to financial products? This paper empirically evaluates two different choices consumers make when buying deferred annuities. One choice concerns the type of insurance policy, the other concerns the choice of insurance provider. For both choices we will analyse what factors explain the quality of the choice made. In particular, we will investigate the role of financial advice in the decision making process. By combining Dutch consumer survey data and data on quotations by Dutch life insurance companies, we obtain the following results. First, respondents who buy their policy directly from an insurer attain a significantly better match between their risk preferences and the type of policy chosen than respondents who purchase their policy through an insurance broker. Second, respondents who buy their policy through an insurance broker obtain a significantly lower pay-out than respondents who purchased their policy directly from an insurance company. These results raise doubts about the functioning of both the market for financial advice and the market for life insurances.
(texte intégral du n° 66/2006)
n° 065 - May 2006
Housing supply and the interaction of regional population and employment
Wouter Vermeulen, Jos Ommeren
Housing markets may significantly affect the relationship between regional population and employment, if housing supply is not fully accommodative to demand. We analyse the relationships between housing supply, regional population and employment empirically in a three-equation dynamic model. Annual regional panel data are used for the Netherlands, where a strong tradition of spatial planning exists. We find that net internal migration is strongly determined by housing supply, whereas employment growth has no statistically significant impact. Growth of the housing stock is only moderately affected by population and employment, possibly as a result of restrictive spatial policies. Employment adjusts substantially towards a long-run relationship with the regional population. The analysis further indicates that labour markets drive this long-run adjustment more than local consumer demand. Hence, people follow houses rather than jobs, and jobs follow people in the long run.
(texte intégral du n° 65/2006)
n° 064 - May 2006
Assessing the returns to studying abroad
Hessel Oosterbeek, Dinand Webbink
The market for higher education increasingly becomes an international market. Nowadays, the number of students studying abroad is substantial and increasing. Many governments stimulate students to study abroad by offering a wide range of grants. However, little is known on the returns to studying abroad. This paper explores the feasibility of a new approach for finding credible evidence on the returns to studying abroad. We use a sample of graduates who applied for a specific grant for studying abroad and compare the outcomes of graduates who received the grant with the outcomes of graduates who did not receive the grant. The ranking of the applicants by the selection committee has been used to create credible control groups. We find that the grant has increased the probability of studying abroad with 23 to 42%-points and the duration of the study with 7 to 9 months. An extension of the study with 7 to 9 months increases the probability of living abroad with 30 to 39%-points. Studying abroad is associated with higher wages. However, it is not clear whether these higher wages are caused by studying abroad.
(texte intégral du n° 64/2006)
n° 063 - March 2006
Households' Response to Wealth Changes. Do Gains or Losses make a Difference?
Robert Paul Berben, Kerstin bernoth, Mauro Mastrogiacomo
We estimate the excess impact of financial asset capital losses relative to gains on household active savings and durable goods consumption in the Netherlands. The sample period covers both the stock-market boom during the 90's, and the bear period afterwards. The results suggest that households react more to capital losses than to capital gains. Failing to take into account this asymmetry may seriously bias the estimates of the marginal propensity to consume out of wealth.
(texte intégral du n° 63/2006)
n° 062 - March 2006
Optimal safety standards for dike-ring areas
Carel Eijgenraam
After the flood disaster in 1953 in the southwestern part of the Netherlands, Van Dantzig tried to solve the economic-decision problem concerning the optimal height of dikes. His formula with a fixed exceedance probability after each investment (Econometrica, 1956) is still in use today in cost benefit analysis of flood-protection measures. However, his solution is both incomplete and wrong. In the context of economic growth, not the exceedance probability but the expected yearly loss by flooding is the key variable in the real optimal safety strategy. Under some conditions, it is optimal to keep this expected loss within a constant interval. Therefore, when the potential damage increases by economic growth, the flooding probability has to decline in the course of time in order to keep the expected loss between the fixed boundaries. The paper gives the formulas for the optimal boundaries for a more complicated problem which is more in line with engineering experience. One condition is that the rate of return at the moment of investment (FYRR) has to be zero (or positive). Then the net present value (NPV) of a safety investment will be very positive or even infinite. Therefore, in case of economic growth the well known NPV criterion in cost benefit analysis of a single project is not a sufficient criterion for investing. An application of the model with the original figures for the dike ring Central Holland has been added as well as a recent application for dike ring areas along the river Rhine.
(texte intégral du n° 62/2006)
n° 061 - March 2006
Health plan pricing behaviour and managed competition
Rudy Douven, Erik Schut
In the Dutch social health insurance scheme, health plans operate in a managed competition framework. Essential features of this framework are risk adjustment, open enrolment and community rating. The objective is to study how health plans determine their community rated premiums. Using a panel data set for all health plans operating in the Dutch social health insurance market over the period 1996-2004, we estimate a premium model to determine which factors explain the price setting behaviour of health plans. Our empirical results indicate that competition did not play a major role in premium setting by health plans. We find that financial stability rather than profit maximisation offers the best explanation for health plan pricing behaviour. The forecast of next year's health-care expenditure by the government and the adjusted forecast by the insurers' association play a major role in health plans' pricing decisions. The introduction of a national health insurance scheme in 2006 urged all citizens to reconsider their health plan choice. The threat of losing customers had a profound impact on health plans' pricing behaviour. In sharp contrast to the period 1996-2005, in 2006 competition seems to play a dominant role in insurers' pricing decisions. Whether this will be a temporary or a lasting phenomenon is hard to predict.
(texte intégral du n° 61/2006)
n° 060 - March 2006
Team incentives in public organisations; An experimental study
Pierre Koning
Using a simple production game, we investigate whether public firms perform better when they increase the power of their workers’ incentive schemes. In a laboratory experiment, subjects choose between a ‘public firm’ and a ‘private firm’ with team and individual incentives, respectively. When exposed to individual incentives, workers in the public firm increase effort in one parametrisation, but show a decrease in another. One reason for the latter observation is that reciprocators self-select in the public firm, rendering cooperation profitable.
(texte intégral du n° 60/2006)
n° 059 - February 2006
Income Incentives to Labour Participation and Home Production. The Contribution of the Tax Credits in the Netherlands
Mauro Mastrogiacomo, Nicole Vockuilen-Bosch
We set up a reduced form model of labour-market participation for young women who have to balance their career with motherhood. The model accounts for the occurrence of future uncertain events, like child birth and early retirement, and includes time spent in home production; however it does not require the estimation of a dynamic programming model. We claim that the careful implementation of institutions can return optimal life patterns of participation without the need of a structural approach. The weaker theoretical framework is more than compensated by the rich spectrum in policy simulations that may be performed. As illustrations, we simulate the effect of two policy options regarding tax credits on the hazard rate out of work.
(texte intégral du n° 59/2006)
n° 058 - February 2006
Do innovation vouchers help SMEs to cross the bridge towards science?
Maarten Cornet, Bjorn Vroomen, Marc van der Steeg
The Dutch innovation voucher aims to stimulate the interaction between small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and public research institutes. This document provides an estimate of the effectiveness of the innovation voucher instrument, employing the fact that the vouchers were assigned randomly by means of a lottery. The main conclusion is that the innovation voucher instrument does stimulate SMEs to engage in many new assignments with public research institutes. Out of every ten vouchers, eight are used for a project that would not have been assigned without such a voucher, one is used for a project that would have been assigned anyhow, and one voucher is not used. An overall assessment of the innovation voucher also needs to take into account the value added of the additional assignments, however. No insights have yet been obtained here.
(texte intégral du n° 58/2006)
n° 057 - February 2006
Compensation of regional unemployment in housing markets
Wouter Vermeulen, Jos van Ommeren
Why are regional unemployment differentials in Europe so persistent if, as the wage curve literature demonstrates, there is no compensation in labour markets? We hypothesise that workers in high-unemployment regions are compensated in housing markets. Modelling regional unemployment differentials as a consequence of centralised wage bargaining, we show that clearing of land markets may undo the incentive for workers to migrate to low-unemployment regions in general equilibrium. The compensating differentials hypothesis is tested on city-level data for several countries. Controlling for variation in income and amenities, housing is found to be about 3 percent less expensive on average in cities where unemployment is 10 percent up. An analysis of housing demand survey data, which takes account of housing heterogeneity, yields a similar negative relationship. The magnitude of the income effect generated by this compensating differential is consistent with a -0.10 wage curve elasticity. Workers in regions with high unemployment and low per capita income are therefore not necessarily worse off, and regional support programs should take this into account.
(texte intégral du n° 57/2006)
n° 056 - February 2006
Consumer price sensitivity in health insurance
Marc Pomp
This CPB Discussion Paper presents new estimates for the price elasticity of the residual demand for health insurance. This elasticity measures the loss in market share of a health insurer as a consequence of a unilateral increase in price, assuming other firms keep their prices constant. The main findings are as follows: the price elasticity of residual demand for social health insurance by enrollees was very low during the period 1996-2002. We find small but significant effects of the price of basic insurance but no robust effect of the price of supplementary insurance. Young enrollees are more price sensitive than older enrollees. However, these findings are conditional on the limited variation in price observed in our data. At larger price differentials, the elasticity may well be higher. This Discussion Paper is based on joint work of Machiel van Dijk, Marc Pomp, Rudy Douven (all three at CPB), Trea Laske-Aldershof, Erik Schut (both Erasmus University), Willem de Boer and Anne de Boo (Vektis). We would like to thank Marieke Smit (Vektis) for her help in getting this project off the ground. We would also like to thank Katie Carman (Tilburg University) for her comments on a previous draft of this paper.
(texte intégral du n° 56/2006)
n° 055 - January 2006
Models and methods for economic policy; 60 years of evolution at CPB
F.J.H. Don - J.P. Verbruggen
The Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis (CPB) has been involved in econometric model building since its foundation in 1945. During the 60 years of model building and use reviewed in this Discussion Paper, CPB's models have evolved significantly. Over this period, a shift of emphasis can be observed from econometrics and empiricism to economic theory. New questions from policymakers and new features in the national economy have guided research, while new developments in econometrics and economic theory were taken on board wherever they helped to improve the quality and scope of the analysis. Although considerable progress has been achieved in several spheres, the models continue to be riddled with some long-standing limitations and weaknesses which the model users should take into account.
(texte intégral du n° 55/2006)
n° 054 - January 2006
Solving large scale normalised rational expectations models
O. van 't Veer
This paper discusses a new approach to solving models containing rational expectations. Instead of solving the model for each period consecutively as in the Fair-Taylor method, the method in this paper uses the idea of the Stacked-Time method to solve the model for all periods simultaneously. The novelty of the method presented here is, that it is applied to a small subset of model variables only, the so called feedback variables, that an approximate Jacobian is used and that a subperiod method is introduced. This leads to significantly smaller Jacobians and less calculations for solving a model. The feedback variables are determined by an ordering algorithm. The paper describes the modification to Newton's method by describing an Extended Feedback Jacobian, introducing an approximate 'Shift' Jacobian to reduce calculation time and a subperiod method to reduce storage space for the Jacobian matrix. The method has been implemented at the CPB and used for its GAMMA model. This paper also reports the results of some experiments with Multimod mark III. These experiments show faster convergence than the Fair-Taylor method and significantly smaller matrices than the Stacked-Time method.
(texte intégral du n° 54/2005)
n° 053 - January 2006
Testing consumers' asymmetric reaction to wealth changes
M. Mastrogiacomo
This study contains several tests to show that individuals overreact to negative wealth changes, relative to positive wealth changes. This asymmetry, that is found using micro data, suggests that economists should not treat symmetrically the relation between economic variables (consumption for instance) and wealth in their models when wealth decreases. We find that this asymmetry increases with age and picks at retirement.
(texte intégral du n° 53/2005)
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