Hessel Oosterbeek

Cultural Differences In Ultimatum Game Experiments: Evidence From A Meta-Analysis

This paper reports the results of a meta-analysis of 32 papers with results from ultimatum game experiments. We find that on average the proposer offers 40% of the pie to the responder. This share is independent of the size of the pie and of the use of the strategy method. On average 16% of the offers is rejected. This rejection rate is lower for larger pie sizes and tends to decrease with the share offered. Responders are less willing to accept low offers when the strategy method is employed. As the studies come from different countries, meta-analysis provides an alternative way to investigate whether bargaining behavior in ultimatum games differs across countries. We find differences in proposer and in responder behavior across (groups of) countries. These differences tend to follow geographical lines rather than the cultural classifications provided by Hofstede (1991), and by Huntington (1996) and Inglehart (2000) respectively.

Education, allocation and earnings in the Netherlands: 0verschooling?

Abstract This paper documents the increased participation in higher education in the Netherlands and its consequences for the relation between levels of education and job levels. Undereducation has been reduced, overeducation has been increased. This does not imply private or social inefficiency, as even years of “overeducation” earn a positive rate of return. A general specification of the earnings function is derived from allocation models of the labor market. It contains the human capital specification and the job competition specification as special cases, and proves superior to both.

Overeducation and Mismatch in the Labor Market

This paper surveys the economics literature on overeducation. The original motivation to study this topic were reports that the strong increase in the number of college graduates in the early 1970s in the US led to a decrease in the returns to college education. We argue that Duncan and Hoffman’s augmented wage equation – the workhorse model in the overeducation literature – in which wages are regressed on years of overschooling, years of required schooling and years of underschooling is at best loosely related to this original motivation. We discuss measurement and estimation issues and give an overview of the main empirical findings in this literature. Finally we given an appraisal of the economic lessons learned.

The effect of financial rewards on students' achievement: Evidence from a randomized experiment

This Paper reports a randomized field experiment in which first year economics and business students at the University of Amsterdam could earn financial rewards for passing all first year requirements before the start of their second academic year. Participants were assigned to a high reward group, a low reward group or a no reward (control) group. Overall, the passing rate and the numbers of collected credit point are not significantly different across the three groups. The same is true for the reported amounts of study time. We find, however, some evidence of heterogenous treatment effects. In particular, students with high maths skills and students with higher educated fathers have higher passing rates and collect more credit points when assigned to (higher) reward groups. While reported study time for these groups is not affected by treatment status, these students claim that they have studied harder as a consequence of the rewards.

Public and private sector wages in the Netherlands

Abstract There is much debate in the Netherlands about underpayment of public sector workers relative to private sector workers. In this paper we analyze the wage structures in both sectors, using an endogenous switching regression model. Unlike previous Dutch studies, we find that the earnings prospects of public sector workers are better in the public sector than in the private sector. For private sector workers we find the exact opposite; their earnings prospects are better in the private sector. Moreover the allocation over sectors points to comparative advantages.

The Impact of Gender Diversity on the Performance of Business Teams: Evidence from a Field Experiment

This paper reports on a field experiment conducted to estimate the impact of the share of women in business teams on their performance. Teams consisting of undergraduate students in business studies start up a venture as part of their curriculum. We manipulated the gender composition of teams and assigned students randomly to teams, conditional on their gender. We find that teams with an equal gender mix perform better than male-dominated teams in terms of sales and profits. We explore various mechanisms suggested in the literature to explain this positive effect of gender diversity on performance (including complementarities, learning, monitoring, and conflicts) but find no support for them.

The demand and supply of work-related training: Evidence from four countries

This paper documents aspects of demand for and supply of training in Canada, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the United States. The first part presents descriptive information about the initiation, financing, provision and methods of work-related training. In all four countries, firms provide financial support for training which is initiated by the worker or which is given outside the firm. This suggests that firms pay for general training. In Switzerland employees occupy a more prominent position in initiating and financing training than their counterparts in the United States and the other countries. The second part of the paper exploits information from workers who wanted to receive training but did not do so to disentangle demand and supply factors in training. Results indicate that different training levels by level of formal schooling can be attributed to worker preferences.

The Causal Effect of Class Size on Scholastic Achievement: Distinguishing the Pure Class Size Effect from the Effect of Changes in Class Composition

As in many other countries the causal effect of class size on pupils’ schoolperformance is an important issue in the ongoing educational debate in theNetherlands. In 1997 the Dutch government committed to undertake a majorinvestment to reduce average class size in primary schools. Although opinionleaders and politicians were easily persuaded that this is a good investment,this measure is not backed by convincing empirical evidence pertaining to theDutch situation. In the process of policy preparation one study was publishedsupporting the reduction of class size, but as we will show in this paper theresults of this study should be questioned.Traditionally, the studyof theeffect of classsizeon schoolperformancehasbeen dominated by educational researchers. Only recently economists enteredthisfield.AnotableearlyexceptionistheinfluentialsurveyarticlebyHanushek(1986)who,afterreviewingalargenumberofstudies,concludesthatthereisnopositive effect of schooling expenditures on pupils’school performance.The key methodological problem to assess the causal effect of class size onpupils’school performance, is that assignment of pupils to classes of differentsizes need not be random. Consequently, differences in performance between

Evaluating the Effect of Tax Deductions on Training

Dutch employers can claim an extra tax deduction when they train employees older than age 40. This discontinuity in a firm’s training cost is exploited to identify the tax deductions effects on training participation and of training participation on wages. The results show that the training rate of workers just above age 40 is 15%–20% higher than that of workers just below age 40. This difference mainly results from the postponement of training and is not a stimulating effect of the measure. The two‐stage least squares estimate of the wage effect of training is not statistically different from zero.

Quasi-Experimental Estimates of the Effect of Class Size on Achievement in Norway

Using a comprehensive administrative database we exploit independent quasi-experimental methods to estimate the effect of class size on student achievement in Norway. The first method is based on a maximum class size rule in the spirit Angrist and Lavy (1999). The second method exploits population variation as first proposed by Hoxby (2000). The results of both methods (and of variations on these methods) are very similar and cannot reject that the class size effect is equal to zero. The estimates are very precise; we can rule out effects as small as 1.5 percent of a standard deviation for a one student change in class size during three years in a row.