Karen van der Wiel
| Date of Ph.D. defense: | 4 December 2009 | |
| Title of thesis: | Essays on Expectations, Power and Social Security | |
| ISBN: | 978 90 5668 240 8 | |
| Promotor: | Prof.dr. Arthur van Soest | |
| Copromotor: | Dr. Frederic Vermeulen |
Abstract:
'Essays on Expectations, Power and Social Security' is a collection of four separate studies. The research methodology in all four chapters involves microeconometric techniques; the statistical analysis of individual or household data.
Chapters two and three - 'On Expectations' - apply these techniques to individual expectations concerning the future of old age social security (AOW) in The Netherlands. First, Karen analyzes how publicity about the AOW influences these expectations. She finds that particularly the individuals who are generally less-informed change their expectations more in periods with a lot of publicity about the old age social security system. Second, she assesses whether there is a link between someone's expectations and whether someone contributes voluntarily to a pension product. Karen concludes that this is in fact the case. Given that most individuals assigned high probabilities to a future increase in the AOW-eligibility age, this means that the Dutch public is already prepared for the increase from 65 to 67 years that the Dutch government recently decided upon.
In chapters four and five - 'On Power' - Karen analyzes data on household consumption, labor supply and wages. Chapter four proposes a non-cooperative, theoretical model on how couples jointly decide on what to buy and how much to work. Applying this model to what households in the U.S. Consumer Expenditures Survey spend on children, she finds that in the majority of households the wife is the 'Dictator' in that she decides what to buy. Chapter five assesses wage rates of Dutch employees in the context of a specific type of employment protection: the term of notice, which is the period that an employer has to take into account before a worker can be fired. Karen finds that if an extra month is added to the term of notice, this increases wages by three percent. She explains this by the improved bargaining position of better protected employees.
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