J.C. van Ours

The efficiency of the dutch labour market in matching unemployment and vacancies

SummaryA matching function specifies the relationship between the flow of filled job vacancies and the stocks of unemployed and job vacancies. This paper specifies and estimates the matching function of the Dutch labour market. It appears that this matching function is best described by a Cobb-Douglas function with constant returns to scale and coefficients of 0.4 on unemployment and 0.6 on vacancies. The matching function shifted at the end of the sixties and remained quite stable afterwards. This indicates that with a higher level of unemployment and lower level of job vacancies the Dutch labour market today is as efficient in generating a flow of filled vacancies as it was in the seventies.

Union growth in The Netherlands 1961–1989

An empirical analysis is presented of union growth in The Netherlands over the past decades. The analysis shows that the effect of changes in the industrial structure is very small. It appears that union growth is influenced by wage growth and by unemployment. If real wages increase more than labour productivity or if unemployment declines union membership increases.

Cannabis, Cocaine and the Wages of Prime Age Males

This paper uses a dataset collected among inhabitants of Amsterdam, to study whether wages of prime age male workers are affected by the use of cannabis and cocaine. The analysis shows that cocaine use and infrequent cannabis use do not affect wages. Frequent cannabis use has a negative wage effect. The age of onset is also important. The earlier current cannabis users have started to use cannabis the larger the negative impact on their wage.

Welfare losses due to low employment rates: an exploratory analysis for The Netherlands

This article aims at measuring the individual and national welfare losses due to low employment rates. The calculations are made from a microeconomic point of view and based on assumptions of the human capital theory. Welfare losses are measured as the hypothetical loss of production resulting from one additional year of interruption or postponement of the working career. Depreciation of human capital due to non-use in the interruption period and foregone experience are taken into account. The welfare losses are estimated for individual cases with specific characteristics with respect to age, educational level and length of interruption spell and multiplication factors are used to calculate the national welfare losses.

Regional differences in the efficiency of the Dutch labour market

The Dutch labour market of the last few decades has been characterised by a sharp increase of unemployment in the beginning of the eighties, reaching its highest level in 1983. After 1983 unemployment declined but at the moment it is still quite high. Although the development of unemployment was similar all over the country, there were regional differences. In the northern part of The Netherlands unemployment hardly decreased at all after 1983, while in the eastern and southern parts the decline was larger than in the western part. There are also substantial differences in the regional unemployment rate. In 1988 the unemployment rate in the region Groningen was 11% while in for example Utrecht it was only 5%; while the Dutch average was 6.7% (see Table 1 below).