Rob Alessie - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Rob Alessie

Review of Income and Wealth, 2012

Recent economic research on international comparisons of subjective well-being suffers from sever... more 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 U.S. The comparability problem is addressed by using anchoring vignettes. We find that in the raw data, Americans appear decidedly less satisfied with their income than the Dutch. It turns out however that after response scale adjustment based on vignettes the distribution of satisfaction in the two countries is essentially identical. In addition, we find that the within-country cross-sectional effect of income on satisfaction-a key parameter in the recent debate in the economic literature-is significantly underestimated especially in the US-when differences in response scales are not taken into account.

Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 2001

During the last decade or so, several researchers have formulated innovative new survey questions... more During the last decade or so, several researchers have formulated innovative new survey questions, the answers to which aid our understanding of individual savings decisions. This article briefly reviews a number of these innovations and how they are used in empirical research on saving. We pay attention to the measurement of time discounting, expectations (about both economic variables and longevity),

Labour Economics, 1999

We draw on three different Dutch data sets: longitudinal wealth data from the SocioEconomic Panel... more We draw on three different Dutch data sets: longitudinal wealth data from the SocioEconomic Panel, consumption and income data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey, and subjective data from the CentER data-panel to study the saving behavior of the elderly. We measure savings as first differences of wealth, by subtracting consumption from income, and by using self-reported data. The analysis from these different angles can shed light on whether the elderly decumulate after retirement. We find some evidence of decumulation, but only at an advanced age. We also find that precautionary savings, bequest motives, and health are among the reasons why some elderly do not decumulate in the pattern predicted by the life-cycle model.

European Economic Review, 1997

In this paper we use data from a panel of Dutch households to investigate the behavior of savings... more In this paper we use data from a panel of Dutch households to investigate the behavior of savings. As in Campbell (1987), we examine whether the pattern of savings is consistent with the predictions of the rational expectations-permanent income model We consider one important prediction of the model: whether savings anticipate future income changes. We test the predictions of the permanent income model in several ways. First we propose some informal tests that exploit directly the information on expected future income changes available in the data. We then perform a test of the model by setting up a vector autoregression (VAR) in terms of savings and incotne changes and by using Euler equations expressed in terms of savings. The empirical evidence shows that in all the specifications used in this paper, the permanent income model is rejected. Contrary to the evidence from U.S. macro data, we do not find that the 'excess sensitivity' of consumption to income is responsible for the rejection of the model.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2022

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2014

Economic research shows that candidates have a higher chance of getting (re-)elected when they ha... more Economic research shows that candidates have a higher chance of getting (re-)elected when they have the luck that the world economy does well even though this is beyond their control and unrelated to their competence. Psychological research demonstrates that candidates increase their chances if they have the right looks, a facial characteristic that is also unrelated to a politician's actual policies. We combine these two strands of literature by assessing the relative strength of luck and looks. Moreover, we take the moderating effect of the electoral system into account. Using a sample of 196 elections for 44 countries between 1979-1999, results show that looks matter only in majority systems whereas luck ceases to be relevant at all. Economic competence does matter in representative systems. These results hold after controlling for the interaction of luck, looks and competence with variables that proxy for the crosscountry variation in the well-informedness of voters.

Background: Previous studies on the persistence of child and adolescent mental healthcare do not ... more Background: Previous studies on the persistence of child and adolescent mental healthcare do not consider the role of time-invariant individual characteristics. Estimating persistence of healthcare using standard linear models yields biased estimates due to unobserved heterogeneity and the autoregressive structure of the model. This study provides estimates of the persistence of child and adolescent mental healthcare taking these statistical issues into account. Methods: We use registry data of more than 80,000 Dutch children and adolescents between 2000 and 2012 from the Psychiatric Case Registry Northern Netherlands (PCR-NN). In order to account for autocorrelation due to the presence of a lagged dependent variable and to distinguish between persistence caused by time-invariant individual characteristics and a direct care effect we use Arellano-Bond estimation. In further analyses we assess the robustness of our results to policy reforms, different definitions of care and diagnosi...

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2019

Job mobility is inherently risky as workers have limited ex ante information about many dimension... more Job mobility is inherently risky as workers have limited ex ante information about many dimensions of outside jobs. Heterogeneity in risk preferences may therefore be an important determinant of turnover. This study examines theoretically and empirically the relation between risk aversion and job mobility. We elicit risk preferences using controlled (incentivized) experiments with field subjects from the LISS, a representative Dutch longitudinal survey. Because the data includes detailed information on labor market behavior, the data allows us to examine the relation between experimentally measured risk preferences and actual job mobility. The findings show that risk averse workers are less likely to move to other jobs. In line with the theoretical predictions, the negative relation between risk aversion and mobility is larger if the worker holds a permanent contract, is in a good job match and when labor market conditions are worse. These results are generally confirmed using non-experimental indicators of risk aversion. However, the findings on on-the-job search behavior are more ambiguous. Risk averse temporary workers search less intensively, whereas risk averse workers in stable positions search more actively for other jobs. Overall, the evidence indicates that the negative relation between risk aversion and job mobility is driven by the job acceptance decision rather than the search effort decision.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2003

Geochimica Et Cosmochimica Acta, 2008

This paper estimates a model of female time allocation and non-durable consumption in an intertem... more This paper estimates a model of female time allocation and non-durable consumption in an intertemporal utility maximization framework. We are using rather extensive but relatively unexploited series of repeated cross sections from the Dutch B.O. consumer expenditure survey from Statistics Netherlands (1978-2000). As male labor supply is known to respond rather inelastically to wage changes - perhaps due to restrictions

The World Bank Economic Review, 1992

One of the major features of structural adjustment is an attempt to reallocate labor--and hence o... more One of the major features of structural adjustment is an attempt to reallocate labor--and hence output--through changes in relative prices, This article assesses how price changes affect the working patterns of young people in rural Cote d'Ivoire. The analysis is based on a model of the labor supply of rural households and on the construction of composite price indexes. The data come from the Cote d'Ivoire Living Standards Survey for 1985 and 1986. The panel aspect of the data allows the work choice made in one year to depend on the individual's choice in the previous year. Results indicate that the price of agricultural output generally is a positive incentive on the decision to participate in the labor force. However, this result depends heavily on the employment and education of the individual in the previous period. Those not already working are less likely to respond to favorable movements in the prices of cash crops by entering the work force. Coauthors are Paul Baker, Richard Blundell, Christopher Heady, and Costas Meghir. Copyright 1992 by Oxford University Press.

Oxford Economic Papers, 2013

We quantified the relative importance of the precautionary motive in determining savings. Existin... more We quantified the relative importance of the precautionary motive in determining savings. Existing empirical evidence suggests that the impact of precautionary savings is small if one uses a subjective measure of uncertainty about next year income. However, other studies use an 'objective' method to proxy for income uncertainty by exploiting life-cycle income variation. These studies find a large impact of precautionary savings. These contradictory results may be either suggestive of methodological shortcomings or the result of institutional differences between countries. We refined the subjective method by taking into account the uncertainty as perceived by the second income earner. We then apply the 'objective' and 'subjective' method to the same dataset and obtain similar results: the subjective and objective methods suggest that precautionary savings account for approximately 30% of savings. Obtaining converging results does not necessarily determine the empirical relevance of precautionary savings if studies from different countries are compared.

European Economic Review, 1997

We provide a theoretical framework to analyse the response of life time maximizing consumers to i... more We provide a theoretical framework to analyse the response of life time maximizing consumers to intertemporal prices of non-durable goods and durable goods when the borrowing limit depends on the market value of the stock of durables owned by the consumer. We use pseudo panel data on purchases of non-durables and durable goods (cars) and demographic characteristics from the UK Family Expenditure Survey, as well as estimates of the durable stock constructed using the UK National Travel Survey, to ...

Review of Income and Wealth, 2012

Recent economic research on international comparisons of subjective well-being suffers from sever... more 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 U.S. The comparability problem is addressed by using anchoring vignettes. We find that in the raw data, Americans appear decidedly less satisfied with their income than the Dutch. It turns out however that after response scale adjustment based on vignettes the distribution of satisfaction in the two countries is essentially identical. In addition, we find that the within-country cross-sectional effect of income on satisfaction-a key parameter in the recent debate in the economic literature-is significantly underestimated especially in the US-when differences in response scales are not taken into account.

Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 2001

During the last decade or so, several researchers have formulated innovative new survey questions... more During the last decade or so, several researchers have formulated innovative new survey questions, the answers to which aid our understanding of individual savings decisions. This article briefly reviews a number of these innovations and how they are used in empirical research on saving. We pay attention to the measurement of time discounting, expectations (about both economic variables and longevity),

Labour Economics, 1999

We draw on three different Dutch data sets: longitudinal wealth data from the SocioEconomic Panel... more We draw on three different Dutch data sets: longitudinal wealth data from the SocioEconomic Panel, consumption and income data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey, and subjective data from the CentER data-panel to study the saving behavior of the elderly. We measure savings as first differences of wealth, by subtracting consumption from income, and by using self-reported data. The analysis from these different angles can shed light on whether the elderly decumulate after retirement. We find some evidence of decumulation, but only at an advanced age. We also find that precautionary savings, bequest motives, and health are among the reasons why some elderly do not decumulate in the pattern predicted by the life-cycle model.

European Economic Review, 1997

In this paper we use data from a panel of Dutch households to investigate the behavior of savings... more In this paper we use data from a panel of Dutch households to investigate the behavior of savings. As in Campbell (1987), we examine whether the pattern of savings is consistent with the predictions of the rational expectations-permanent income model We consider one important prediction of the model: whether savings anticipate future income changes. We test the predictions of the permanent income model in several ways. First we propose some informal tests that exploit directly the information on expected future income changes available in the data. We then perform a test of the model by setting up a vector autoregression (VAR) in terms of savings and incotne changes and by using Euler equations expressed in terms of savings. The empirical evidence shows that in all the specifications used in this paper, the permanent income model is rejected. Contrary to the evidence from U.S. macro data, we do not find that the 'excess sensitivity' of consumption to income is responsible for the rejection of the model.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2022

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2014

Economic research shows that candidates have a higher chance of getting (re-)elected when they ha... more Economic research shows that candidates have a higher chance of getting (re-)elected when they have the luck that the world economy does well even though this is beyond their control and unrelated to their competence. Psychological research demonstrates that candidates increase their chances if they have the right looks, a facial characteristic that is also unrelated to a politician's actual policies. We combine these two strands of literature by assessing the relative strength of luck and looks. Moreover, we take the moderating effect of the electoral system into account. Using a sample of 196 elections for 44 countries between 1979-1999, results show that looks matter only in majority systems whereas luck ceases to be relevant at all. Economic competence does matter in representative systems. These results hold after controlling for the interaction of luck, looks and competence with variables that proxy for the crosscountry variation in the well-informedness of voters.

Background: Previous studies on the persistence of child and adolescent mental healthcare do not ... more Background: Previous studies on the persistence of child and adolescent mental healthcare do not consider the role of time-invariant individual characteristics. Estimating persistence of healthcare using standard linear models yields biased estimates due to unobserved heterogeneity and the autoregressive structure of the model. This study provides estimates of the persistence of child and adolescent mental healthcare taking these statistical issues into account. Methods: We use registry data of more than 80,000 Dutch children and adolescents between 2000 and 2012 from the Psychiatric Case Registry Northern Netherlands (PCR-NN). In order to account for autocorrelation due to the presence of a lagged dependent variable and to distinguish between persistence caused by time-invariant individual characteristics and a direct care effect we use Arellano-Bond estimation. In further analyses we assess the robustness of our results to policy reforms, different definitions of care and diagnosi...

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2019

Job mobility is inherently risky as workers have limited ex ante information about many dimension... more Job mobility is inherently risky as workers have limited ex ante information about many dimensions of outside jobs. Heterogeneity in risk preferences may therefore be an important determinant of turnover. This study examines theoretically and empirically the relation between risk aversion and job mobility. We elicit risk preferences using controlled (incentivized) experiments with field subjects from the LISS, a representative Dutch longitudinal survey. Because the data includes detailed information on labor market behavior, the data allows us to examine the relation between experimentally measured risk preferences and actual job mobility. The findings show that risk averse workers are less likely to move to other jobs. In line with the theoretical predictions, the negative relation between risk aversion and mobility is larger if the worker holds a permanent contract, is in a good job match and when labor market conditions are worse. These results are generally confirmed using non-experimental indicators of risk aversion. However, the findings on on-the-job search behavior are more ambiguous. Risk averse temporary workers search less intensively, whereas risk averse workers in stable positions search more actively for other jobs. Overall, the evidence indicates that the negative relation between risk aversion and job mobility is driven by the job acceptance decision rather than the search effort decision.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2003

Geochimica Et Cosmochimica Acta, 2008

This paper estimates a model of female time allocation and non-durable consumption in an intertem... more This paper estimates a model of female time allocation and non-durable consumption in an intertemporal utility maximization framework. We are using rather extensive but relatively unexploited series of repeated cross sections from the Dutch B.O. consumer expenditure survey from Statistics Netherlands (1978-2000). As male labor supply is known to respond rather inelastically to wage changes - perhaps due to restrictions

The World Bank Economic Review, 1992

One of the major features of structural adjustment is an attempt to reallocate labor--and hence o... more One of the major features of structural adjustment is an attempt to reallocate labor--and hence output--through changes in relative prices, This article assesses how price changes affect the working patterns of young people in rural Cote d'Ivoire. The analysis is based on a model of the labor supply of rural households and on the construction of composite price indexes. The data come from the Cote d'Ivoire Living Standards Survey for 1985 and 1986. The panel aspect of the data allows the work choice made in one year to depend on the individual's choice in the previous year. Results indicate that the price of agricultural output generally is a positive incentive on the decision to participate in the labor force. However, this result depends heavily on the employment and education of the individual in the previous period. Those not already working are less likely to respond to favorable movements in the prices of cash crops by entering the work force. Coauthors are Paul Baker, Richard Blundell, Christopher Heady, and Costas Meghir. Copyright 1992 by Oxford University Press.

Oxford Economic Papers, 2013

We quantified the relative importance of the precautionary motive in determining savings. Existin... more We quantified the relative importance of the precautionary motive in determining savings. Existing empirical evidence suggests that the impact of precautionary savings is small if one uses a subjective measure of uncertainty about next year income. However, other studies use an 'objective' method to proxy for income uncertainty by exploiting life-cycle income variation. These studies find a large impact of precautionary savings. These contradictory results may be either suggestive of methodological shortcomings or the result of institutional differences between countries. We refined the subjective method by taking into account the uncertainty as perceived by the second income earner. We then apply the 'objective' and 'subjective' method to the same dataset and obtain similar results: the subjective and objective methods suggest that precautionary savings account for approximately 30% of savings. Obtaining converging results does not necessarily determine the empirical relevance of precautionary savings if studies from different countries are compared.

European Economic Review, 1997

We provide a theoretical framework to analyse the response of life time maximizing consumers to i... more We provide a theoretical framework to analyse the response of life time maximizing consumers to intertemporal prices of non-durable goods and durable goods when the borrowing limit depends on the market value of the stock of durables owned by the consumer. We use pseudo panel data on purchases of non-durables and durable goods (cars) and demographic characteristics from the UK Family Expenditure Survey, as well as estimates of the durable stock constructed using the UK National Travel Survey, to ...