Ruud Muffels

Poverty Dynamics in Eight Countries

Despite very different macroeconomic conditions, demographic structures and degrees of income inequality, favorable income changes among low-income families with children were widespread and strikingly similar across the eight countries in our study. In most European countries, the combination of modest inequality and extensive mobility among the poor enabled virtually all families to avoid relative income deprivation at least occasionally. However, even substantial mobility among the poor in the Unites States could not elevate the living standards of one in seven white and two in five black families to a level that was half that enjoyed by a typical American family.

The Impact of Young Children on Women's Labour Supply A Reassessment of Institutional Effects in Europe

The proportion of women who withdraw from paid employment when they have children differs considerably among the countries of the European Union (EU), and the variation has mostly been attributed to institutional factors. In this study, we reassess the institutional explanation, because earlier supportive evidence is threatened by two alternative macro-level explanations: the influence of the economic necessity to work and the influence of gender role values in society. Our main research question is whether and to what extent these alternative explanations alter the effect of public childcare arrangements on mothers’ labour supply. Using panel data from 13 countries of the EU, we find evidence in favour of the institutional and economic explanations. In countries with more generous provision of public childcare and in countries with a lower level of economic welfare, the impact of childbirth on female labour supply is less negative than in other countries. Economic welfare appears to suppress rather than rival the institutional effect. More egalitarian gender role values in a country increase mothers’ labour supply, yet these values do not alter the institutional effect. Our results underpin the importance of publicly supported arrangements for enhancing female labour supply.

Money does not buy happiness : Or does it? A reassessment based on the combined effects of wealth, income and consumption

The paper uses household economic panel data from five countries—Australia, Britain, Germany, Hungary and The Netherlands—to provide a reassessment of the impact of economic well-being on happiness. The main conclusion is that happiness is considerably more affected by economic circumstances than previously believed. In all five countries wealth affects life satisfaction more than income. In the countries for which consumption data are available (Britain and Hungary), non-durable consumption expenditures also prove at least as important to happiness as income.

Long-running German panel survey shows that personal and economic choices, not just genes, matter for happiness

Psychologists and economists take contradictory approaches to research on what psychologists call happiness or subjective well-being, and economists call subjective utility. A direct test of the most widely accepted psychological theory, set-point theory, shows it to be flawed. Results are then given, using the economists’ newer “choice approach”—an approach also favored by positive psychologists—which yields substantial payoffs in explaining long-term changes in happiness. Data come from the German Socio-Economic Panel (1984–2008), a unique 25-y prospective longitudinal survey. This dataset enables direct tests of theories explaining long-term happiness.

A comparison of poverty in seven European countries and regions using subjective and relative measures

This paper presents comparative results on poverty in seven countries and regions of the European Community: Belgium, The Netherlands, Luxembourg, Lorraine, Ireland, Catalonia and Greece. The data are obtained from comparable socio-economic surveys in each country. Subjective as well as relative poverty lines are used. The results indicate that the subjective poverty lines are plausible in a comparative context, although the levels of the subjective standards are rather generous. The estimated equivalence scales are much flatter than the one recommended by the OECD. The extent of poverty is much greater in the “peripheral” EC-countries than in the “central” ones. Though similar factors are found to be associated with poverty in all countries, there are also important differences in the characteristics of the poor across countries. The impact of social security transfers on poverty appears to be much smaller in the southern countries Greece and Catalonia, than in the Benelux and Lorraine.

Is There a Trade-off Between Economic Efficiency and a Generous Welfare State? A Comparison of Best Cases of The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism

A crucial debate in policy-making as well as academiccircles is whether there is a trade-off betweeneconomic efficiency and the size/generosity of thewelfare state. One way to contribute to this debate isto compare the performance of ‘best cases’ ofdifferent types of state. Arguably, in the decade1985’94, the US, West Germany and the Netherlands were ‘best cases best economic performers’ in whatEsping-Andersen (1990) calls “the three worlds ofwelfare capitalism”. The US is a liberalwelfare-capitalist state, West Germany a corporatiststate, and the Netherlands is social democratic in itstax-transfer system, although not its labor marketpolicies. These three countries had rates of economicgrowth per capita as high or higher than other richcountries of their `type’, and the lowest rates ofunemployment.At a normative or ideological level the three types ofstate have the same goals but prioritise themdifferently. The liberal state prioritises economicgrowth and efficiency, avoids work disincentives, andtargets welfare benefits only to those in greatestneed. The corporatist state aims to give priority tosocial stability, especially household incomestability, and social integration. The socialdemocratic welfare state claims high priority forminimising poverty, inequality and unemployment.Using ten years of panel data for each country, weassess indicators of their short (one year), medium(five year) and longer term (ten year) performance inachieving economic and welfare goals. Overall, in thistime period, the Netherlands achieved the bestperformance on the welfare goals to which it gavepriority, and equalled the other two states on most ofthe goals to which they gave priority. This resultsupports the view that there is no necessary trade-offbetween economic efficiency and a generous welfarestate.The three panel studies are the American Panel Studyof Income Dynamics (PSID), the German Socio-EconomicPanel (GSOEP) and the Dutch Socio-Economic Panel(SEP). They all have samples of over 15,000 and arethe only national panels to have run for tenconsecutive years or more, so making it possible toassess the longer term performance ofwelfare-capitalist states.

Longitudinal Poverty and Income Inequality a Comparative Panel Study for the Netherlands, Germany and the UK

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Who Benefits from a Job Change: The Dwarfs or the Giants?

ABSTRACT In this paper, we use panel data from the UK and Germany to investigate the effect of employer changes and in-firm job changes on year-to-year wage mobility of male full-time workers. Following segmentation theories and the job search theory, we study whether this effect differs for the low- and high-wage workers. As wage growth is endogenous to the decision of changing jobs, a two-stage Heckman selection approach is used. Specifically, we first estimate a random-effects multinomial logit model for the selection into a job transition and then a fixed-effects panel regression model for the wage growth. The findings suggest that both external and in-firm job changes result into substantial wage gains for the low-paid workers but not for the medium- or high-paid workers. However, the wage gain of low-paid workers due to an in-firm job change is only observed in the UK and is less pronounced than their gain by an external job change. In the German labour market, the later effect is insignificant. The results indicate that low-paid workers profit more from a voluntary change of employer in the coordinated German labour market and from a voluntary in-firm change in the liberal British labour market.

Childbirth and Cohort Effects on Mothers' Labour Supply: A Comparative Study Using Life History Data for Germany, the Netherlands and Great Britain

The negative effect of childbirth on mothers’ labour supply is well documented, though most studies examine only the short-term effects. This study uses retrospective life history data for Germany, the Netherlands and Great Britain to investigate the long-term effects of childbirth on mothers’ labour supply for successive birth cohorts. Probit estimates with correction for selection into motherhood and the number of births show strong drops in participation before first childbirths and strong recovery after the birth of the last child, especially in Great Britain. Younger cohorts display a less sharp decline in participation around childbirth and a faster increase in participation in the 20 years after childbirth, especially in the Netherlands. However, mothers’ participation rates do not return to pre-birth levels in any of the countries studied here. Labour market conditions and institutional public support seem to contribute to explaining the cross-country variation in participation after childbirth.

Flexibility and security: national social models in transitional labour markets

Aggregate and individual data are used to test the association between employment performance and different ways of reconciling flexibility and security in European labour markets. Particular use is made of statistics on individuals’ labour market transitions as revealed by national labour force surveys. The article compares the performance of three basic forms of labour market institutions: the uncoordinated liberal, or neoliberal one; flexisecurity; and the traditional welfare state model of labour security. The findings confirm the importance of coordinated collective bargaining and of values and trust.