
Arthur van soestTilburg University | UVT · Department of Econometrics & Operations Research
Arthur van soest
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380
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Publications (380)
The Netherlands reformed its disability insurance (DI) scheme in 2006. Reintegration incentives for employers became stronger, access to DI benefits became more difficult, and benefits became less generous. Using administrative data on all individuals who fell sick shortly before and after the reform, we study the impact of the reform on labor part...
In this paper we analyze how stated choices for the amount of risk in pension assets of Dutch participants in DC pension products vary with their characteristics. We find strong evidence that this variation is in line with standard portfolio choice models. Heterogeneity in age, risk aversion, loss aversion, non-pension financial wealth, the relativ...
We study the effect of people’s temporal values (habits of attending to past or future events) on their health, labour market performance and happiness. Participants’ (N=1177) data were initially collected in 2016 and then again in a follow-up study in 2020-2021. We find that habitually more attending to the future is negatively associated with dis...
We investigated (1) what psychological (e.g., five big personality traits, self-esteem) and social-demographic factors contribute to the prevalence and intensity of drug use in the Netherlands and (2) the impact of taking illicit drugs on individuals’ (N=1170) health, labour market performance and financial wealth. First, analyses of various factor...
We study the effect of Dutch proficiency on immigrants’ labour market performance, savings and financial wealth in the Netherlands. Different from past research, we had participants (N=659) take a language proficiency test apart from self-reported assessments, and measured participants’ IQ, patience, saving intention, risk aversion, self-control, t...
We study pension planning and financial wealth of natives and immigrants (N=1177) in the Netherlands, in relation to their temporal values (past/future-focused), financial knowledge, IQ, and other individual characteristics. We find that, compared to natives, immigrants are less financially literate and rely more on the government for their retirem...
We examine the effects of a major pension reform in 2015 on the joint retirement decisions of working couples in the Netherlands. The reform abolished the partner allowance, a state pension supplement for a nonworking partner below the state pension age. At the same time, actuarially generous early retirement arrangements were made less attractive....
In this paper we investigate whether and to what extent inheritance expectations act as a driver of economic choices. We use survey data that are representative of the Dutch adult population with a specific module on subjective probabilities on receiving an inheritance and its amount in the next 10 years. We analyze whether the expected inheritance...
Using data on stated preferences on the decumulation of pension wealth after retirement, we estimate a stylized structural life-cycle model incorporating several behavioural features. In the stated choice questions, pension income is in the form of a constant annuity, a “high-low” annuity that falls from a higher to a lower level five years into re...
We investigate the importance of alternative motives for saving and spending patterns after retirement in the Netherlands and Australia. Using an online experimental survey, we elicit the impact on advised spending patterns and underlying saving motives of alternative retirement drawdown designs, ranging from complete flexibility in Australia to fu...
Het Nederlandse pensioenstelsel geniet internationaal onder experts een hoge waardering. Uit nieuw onderzoek onder de Nederlandse bevolking blijkt echter dat de tevredenheid met het pensioenstelsel geleidelijk afneemt. Echter, over onderliggende
onderdelen van het pensioenstelsel, zoals pensioeninkomen en pensioenleeftijd, tekent zich een groeiende...
Traditionally, election polls have asked for participants’ own voting intentions. In four elections, we previously found that we could improve predictions by asking participants how they thought their social circles would vote. A potential concern is that the social-circle question might predict results less well in elections with larger numbers of...
Using representative survey data on the Dutch population, we analyze households’ actual participation and stated preferences for crowdfunding involvement at the extensive and intensive margin, with emphasis on the relation with investing in socially responsible assets. We find that crowdfunding investors are higher educated and more future oriented...
We examine the effect of the partner allowance (PA) in the Dutch pension system on the retirement decisions of couples using administrative data. PA was paid to people who receive the public old-age pension with a partner younger than the state pension age (SPA) and with a low own income. PA worked as a financial incentive to retire earlier, especi...
We study the causal effect of training on job match quality using longitudinal data for a representative sample of the Dutch population. We construct an index of workers’ perceived job match quality from five survey questions on job satisfaction and on how a worker’s education and skills match with the job. Based on a dynamic linear panel data mode...
Traditionally, election polls have asked for participants’ own voting intentions. In Nature HumanBehaviour, we reported that we could improve predictions of the 2016 US and 2017 Frenchpresidential elections by asking participants how they thought their social circles would vote. Apotential concern is that the social circle question might predict le...
We investigate retirement decisions of the self-employed in the Netherlands using administrative data focusing on individuals around 65, the state pension age, after which each Dutch resident receives the Old Age State Pension annuity. Since the eligibility age and the magnitude of this state pension are known well in advance, we expect to find no...
Many recent pension reforms require individuals to make more decisions on supplementary savings, investment choices, etc. Governments and the pension industry try to assist individuals through pension communication but little is known about the effectiveness of such policies. This paper uses Dutch longitudinal data to analyse the causal links betwe...
We analyse the effects of retirement of one partner on time devoted to home production by both partners in a couple. Using longitudinal data on couples in Germany, we control for fixed household specific effects and allow for endogeneity of retirement using both a regression discontinuity approach and variation in the early and full retirement age...
This paper employs sequence analysis to study the labour market trajectories of the self-employed. Using Dutch administrative data on more than 50,000 individuals including 13,000 with self-employment experience between 1989 and 2017, we find seven different clusters with distinct life-cycle patterns of several types of self-employment, wage employ...
Evidence from different sources shows that spouses’ retirement decisions are correlated. Retirement policies affecting individuals in couples are therefore also likely to affect behavior of their spouses. It is therefore important to account for joint features in modeling retirement. This paper studies a structural collective model of labor supply...
We analyze revealed and stated household preferences for socially responsible investments (SRI). Using a questionnaire specifically designed for this purpose and administered to a Dutch representative household panel, we investigate the actual and latent demand for SRI products. Respondents reported whether they owned SRI products, the reason behin...
In defined contribution pensions, capital is invested during the working years and during retirement, the capital is gradually withdrawn. Defined contribution pensions therefore require choices how much to contribute to the pension system, how much to drawdown, how to invest the capital, and which risks to insure in the pension system. Because adeq...
We examine the effect of retirement on healthcare utilization in China using longitudinal data. We use a nonparametric fuzzy regression discontinuity design, exploiting the statutory retirement age in urban China as a source of exogenous variation in retirement. In contrast to previous results for developed countries, we find that in China retireme...
The paper evaluates the predictive validity of stated intentions for actual behaviour. In the context of the 2017 Dutch parliamentary election, we compare how well polls based on probabilistic and deterministic questions line up with subsequent votes. Our empirical strategy is built around a randomized experiment in a representative panel. Responde...
Using panel data on the age group 50–70 in 15 European countries, we analyze the effects of providing informal care to parents, parents-in-law, stepparents, and grandparents on employment status and work hours. We account for fixed individual effects and test for endogeneity of caregiving using moments exploiting standard instruments (e.g., parenta...
Although research on the fertility response to childhood mortality is widespread in demographic literature, very few studies focused on the two-way causal relationships between infant mortality and fertility. Understanding the nature of such relationships is important in order to design effective policies to reduce child mortality and improve famil...
Benchmark model, icddr,b area: Estimated covariance structure of mother specific unobserved heterogeneity terms.
(DOC)
Parameter estimates based on logistic regression model in icddr,b area, n = 31,968.
(DOC)
Parameter estimates based on logistic regression model in comparison area, n = 32,366.
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Parameter estimates based on benchmark model in icddr,b area, n = 31,968.
(DOC)
Logistic model, comparison area: Estimated covariance structure of mother specific unobserved heterogeneity terms.
(DOC)
Logistic model, icddr,b area: Estimated covariance structure of mother specific unobserved heterogeneity terms.
(DOC)
Background
Physical activity (PA) is important for maintaining health, but there are fundamental unanswered questions on how best it should be measured.
Methods
We measured PA in the Netherlands (n=748), the USA (n=540) and England (n=254), both by a 7 day wrist-worn accelerometer and by self-reports. The self-reports included a global self-report...
The 2007 Italian pension reform allowed transferring future severance pay contributions into a pension fund. Although this was accompanied by an information campaign advising employees to make the transfer, only a minority of them did so. We analyze the heterogeneity in employees’ choices using micro panel data from the Bank of Italy household surv...
Purpose
Using administrative data from the Spanish Social Security Administration, the purpose of this paper is to analyse the nature and stability of job matches starting during the economic boom in 2005 and during the recession in 2009.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors compare the individual, job, and firm characteristics in the two sam...
Using administrative data from Spain, we compare the pattern and the determinants of individual unemployment durations and the stability of jobs found after unemployment before and during the recent crisis. We find particularly strong effects of the crisis on the hazards in the beginning of the unemployment spell. The groups hit hardest by the cris...
Externalities in leisure are considered an important reason for partners’ joint retirement. This study quantifies the extent to which partners actually spend more leisure time “together” at retirement. Exploiting legal retirement age in France, we identify the effect of retirement on partners’ hours of leisure, distinguishing leisure hours spent to...
This paper presents a structural model of the labor supply and child care choices of partnered mothers with pre-school aged children. The father’s time-use decisions are taken as given. The main goal is to analyze the sensitivity of maternal time use to the price of child care, taxes, benefits and child care subsidies. To account for non-convexitie...
Which banks did not recover from the financial crisis, and why? We document that pre-crisis high performing U.S. banks were not able to recover and to restore their performance up to eight years after the onset of the crisis. We demonstrate that their (risky) business models which allowed them to outperform their peers in the run up to the crisis w...
We analyse unique Dutch survey data on the public's opinions on what are demanding occupations, on whether it is justified that someone with a demanding occupation can retire earlier, and on the willingness to contribute to an earlier retirement scheme for such occupations through higher taxes. We find that the Dutch think that workers in physicall...
To meet the challenges of an ageing population, eligibility ages for state pensions have increased, early retirement arrangements have been abolished, and a substantial part of the risk and responsibility for an adequate standard of living after retirement has been shifted from the government, employers and pension funds to individuals and private...
For many people all over Europe, there is an understanding and an expectation that in old age they will be taken care of by the state. High social security contributions throughout the three or four decades of a working life are rationalised by the prospect of a straightforward transition out of the labour force when the time comes. While this was...
To understand how to raise labor force participation of older workers, it is necessary to understand demand, supply, and institutional factors. Labor supply and retirement decisions of older workers are at the core of microeconomic research and many countries have recently reformed their pension systems to make early retirement financially less att...
The expectations of economic agents play a crucial role in almost any inter-temporal economic model. Using 2009–12 panel data for a representative sample of the Dutch population, we analyze consumers’ income and pension expectations. We focus on heterogeneity across socioeconomic groups and associations with how consumers perceive the economic and...
We model consumption and labor supply behavior of a couple in a non-cooperative setting. Using minimal assumptions, we prove that demand for public goods is characterized by three regimes. It is either determined by the preferences of one of the partners only (Husband Dictatorship or Wife Dictatorship), or by both spouses’ preferences, in which cas...
This paper reports on an analysis of neonatal mortality from communicable and non-communicable diseases in Bangladesh. The competing-risks model employed incorporated both observed and unobserved heterogeneity and allowed the two heterogeneity terms to be correlated. The data used came from the Health and Demographic Surveillance System, Matlab. Th...
This paper reports on an analysis of neonatal mortality from communicable and non-communicable diseases in Bangladesh. The competing-risks model employed incorporated both observed and unobserved heterogeneity and allowed the two heterogeneity terms to be correlated. The data used came from the Health and Demographic Surveillance System, Matlab. Th...
Earlier studies suggest that income taxation may affect not only labour supply but also domestic work. Here we investigate the impact of income taxation on partners’ labour supply and housework, using data for France that taxes incomes of married couples jointly. We estimate a household utility model in which the marginal utilities of leisure and h...
Using administrative records data from Spanish Social Security, we analyse the pattern and the determinants of individual unemployment benefit spell durations. We compare a period of expansion (2005-2007) and the recent recession (2009-2011), allowing us to determine the impact of the current crisis. In line with the duality that characterizes the...
This paper constructs a two-country (Home and Foreign) general equilibrium model of Schumpeterian growth without scale effects. The scale effects property is removed by introducing two distinct specifications in the knowledge production function: the permanent effect on growth (PEG) specification, which allows policy effects on long-run growth; and...
. Comparing assessments on a subjective scale across countries or socio-economic groups is often hampered by differences in response scales across groups. Anchoring vignettes help to correct for such differences, either in parametric models (the compound hierarchical ordered probit (CHOPIT) model and extensions) or non-parametrically, comparing ran...
Externalities in leisure are an important determinant of partners’ retirement strategies. This is the first study that quantifies the extent to which partners actually spend more leisure time 'together' upon retirement. Exploiting the law on retirement age in France, we apply a regression discontinuity approach to identify the effect of retirement...
We use unique Dutch survey data to analyze the general public’s opinions on what are demanding occupations, to what extent it is justified that someone with a demanding occupation can retire earlier, and on the willingness to contribute to the earlier retirement schemes of such occupations. Panel data models on vignette characters with different jo...
The expectations of economic agents play a crucial role in almost any inter-temporal economic model. A period of economic crisis may make consumer expectations more pes- simistic and affect their saving or retirement plans and decisions. Using 2009-2012 panel data for a representative sample of the Dutch population, we analyze consumers’ per- cepti...
We develop a panel data model of expectations of a continuous outcome variable elicited on a percentage-chance scale. The model explains the location and dispersion of the subjective distributions by socio-economic covariates and unobserved factors. Moreover, it accounts explicitly for non-response, non-informative focal answers, and recall and rou...
This paper investigates the relationship between subjective expectations regarding the replacement rate of income at retirement and several measures of pension satisfaction. We use panel data on Dutch employees, analyzed with fixed effects models, allowing for correlation between unobserved heterogeneity in satisfaction and optimism or pessimism in...
In this paper we analyze individual and household consumption expen-diture patterns and time use patterns in the Netherlands using three waves of panel data collected in the LISS Panel, containing detailed retrospective information on time use in the past seven days and consumption expen-ditures in the past month. We discuss the extent to which var...
Recent economic research on international comparisons of subjective well-being suffers from several important biases due to the potential incomparability of response scales within and across countries. In this paper we concentrate on self-reported satisfaction with income in two countries: The Netherlands and the US. The comparability problem is ad...
In the traditional retirement scenario, individuals work full-time until a given age and then stop working abruptly. In the alternative partial retirement scenario, individuals work part-time for several years before they stop working. For the individual, partial retirement provides a smooth transition to full-retirement where they gradually adjust...
In the traditional retirement scenario, individuals work full-time until a given age and then stop working abruptly. In the alternative partial retirement scenario, individuals work part-time for several years before they stop working. For the individual, partial retirement provides a smooth transition to full-retirement where they gradually adjust...
We analyze expectations of the Dutch population ages 25 and older concerning future generosity of state and occupational pensions, the main pillars of the Dutch pension system. We use rotating panel data with monthly observations from 2006 until 2012 on individuals’ subjective expectations concerning changes between now and ten or twenty years from...
This paper analyses the determinants of satisfaction with daily activities among retirees aged 65 years or older in eleven European countries. We use data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe on self-assessed satisfaction with daily activities and anchoring vignettes to correct for potential differences in responses scales acr...
Many firms rely on choice experiment-based models to evaluate future marketing actions under various market conditions. This research investigates choice complexity (i.e., number of alternatives, number of attributes, and utility similarity between the most attractive alternatives) and individual differences in decision time as key factors that aff...
This paper introduces a static structural model of hours of market labor supply, time spent on child care and other domestic work, and bought in child care for married or cohabiting mothers with pre-school age children. The father's behavior is taken as given. The main goal is to analyze the sensitivity of hours of market work, parental child care,...
We jointly analyze infant mortality, birth spacing, and total fertility of children in a rural area in Bangladesh, using longitudinal data from the Health and Demographic Surveillance System (HDSS) in Matlab. To distinguish causal mechanisms from unobserved heterogeneity and reverse causality, we use dynamic panel data techniques. We compare the re...
Analyzing the effect of family planning on child survival remains an important issue but is not straightforward because of several mechanisms linking family planning, birth intervals, total fertility, and child survival. This study uses a dynamic model jointly explaining infant mortality, whether contraceptives are used after each birth, and birth...
Reducing neonatal mortality is a particularly important issue in Bangladesh. We employ a competing risks model incorporating both observed and unobserved heterogeneity and allowing the heterogeneity terms for various causes to be correlated. Data come from the Health and Demographic Surveillance System (HDSS), Matlab. The results confirm the genera...
Comparing assessments of health, job satisfaction, etc. on a subjective scale across countries or socio-economic groups is often hampered by differences in response scales across groups. Anchoring vignettes help to correct for such differences, either in parametric models (CHOPIT and extensions) or nonparametrically, comparing rankings of vignette...
In the scant literature on partners' joint retirement decisions one of the explanations for joint retirement is externalities in leisure. In this study, we investigate how retirement affects the hours of leisure together of individuals in a couple. Exploiting the law on retirement age in France, we use a regression discontinuity approach to identif...