JEL classification

Evaluation of the « work bonus » measure: impact on wages and employment [01/07/2024]

The "work bonus" measure is designed to stimulate labour supply and fight employment traps. Our evaluation shows that the work bonus has a non-negligible positive effect on retention. On the other hand, the measure has no effect on the evolution of the number of hours of work and slows the growth of gross wages.

Analysis of the effect of the "first recruitments" measure on the survival of young businesses employing salaried staff [05/03/2021]

The "first recruitments"measure aims to promote employment while supporting small businesses and start-ups. The analysis shows that the measure has a positive but modest impact on the probability of survival of young businesses. Furthermore, the reinforcement in 2016 does not appear to have generated any additional benefit. On the one hand, these results imply that the strengthening of the measure does not address a genuine need on the part of the recipients. On the other hand, the reinforcement may have encouraged more employers to undertake a risky business activity.

Removing youth sub-minimum wage rates in Belgium: did it affect youth employment? [16/03/2018]

Between April 2013 and January 2015, youth sub-minimum wage rates were repealed in Belgium. We identify the impact of the reform by comparing outcomes before and after the withdrawal, across eligible and ineligible categories of young workers, and across abolishing and not abolishing joint committees. Our results show that the reform had a small positive impact on wages and on retention rates and a comparable but negative impact on accession rates.

Reële herwaardering van de lonen via een puntenstelsel - Winnaars en verliezers bij recent gepensioneerden met een werknemerspensioen [19/09/2017]

The Commission for Pension Reform 2020-2040 proposed an adjusted pension system which calculates pensions based on collected points. An important aspect of that system implied that past wages should be adjusted on the basis of the average wage increase. This Working Paper investigates who will be the winners and the losers when this adjustment mechanism is introduced by means of a points system in the salaried workers' scheme, and why. We show that people with low pensions, low-skilled workers, tenants and women nowadays have certain career features which make sure that they gain more often from such an operation than people with high pensions, highly skilled workers, owners and men. This also underlines the importance of minimum schemes in the impact of such a reform.

Een macro-economische evaluatie van de werkgeversbijdrage-verminderingen in 1995-2000 [25/09/2003]

This paper assesses to which extent the policy of reducing employers’ social security contributions has increased market sector employment in 1995-2000. The analytical framework is a macroeconometric labour market model of the market sector that models added value, the employment of labour and capital, the setting of wages and prices, the matching of supply and demand on the labour market, and the dynamics that tie short-run behaviour to the steady state. The real wage cost depends on the wage gap, labour productivity, the replacement rate of unemployment benefits to the take home wage, and tensions on the labour market. The model comes in two versions. The ‘right-to-manage’ version links the wage cost to the unemployment rate; the ‘job-search’ version ties the wage cost to the unemployment-vacancy-ratio.

Un nouveau modèle macro-économétrique du marché du travail : estimation, simulation de base et simulations de politiques d’emploi
Een nieuw macro-econometrisch arbeidsmarktmodel: schatting, basissimulatie en arbeidsmarktbeleids-simulaties [20/09/2003]

Consequences of taxing labour in a small open economy [01/12/1989]