In the Dutch health care system health insurers negotiate with hospitals about the pricing of hospital products in a managed competition framework. In this paper, we study these contract prices that became for the first time publicly available in 2016. The data show substantive price variation between hospitals for the same products, and within a hospital for the same product across insurers.

CPB Discussion Paper 378 | 29 March 2018

24 pages | pdf document, 2.9 MB

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The Dutch economy is gathering steam. The economic boom is the result of a favourable international economy, low interest rates, expansive budgetary policy and a persistently strong housing market. These last two factors distinguish the Netherlands from other countries. Positive domestic dynamics between increasing employment, higher disposable income levels, higher consumption and more investments will lead to a 3.2% economic growth in 2018 and 2.7% in 2019. Over the 2017–2019 period, the Dutch economy is projected to outperform that of the eurozone by 0.6 percentage points, in each of those years.

CEP 2018 | 22 March 2018

20 pages | pdf document, 3.2 MB

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Productivity growth is on the decline, in the OECD countries. In the Netherlands, structural growth is also slowing down. On the basis of this fact, the European Commission proposed that each EU Member State would install a national productivity board (NPB). The Council of the European Union has since adopted this proposal.

CPB Communication | 22 March 2018

6 pages | pdf document, 1 MB

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The long-term interest rate in the Euro area is an important exogenous input in CPB macro-econometric models to project the world economy and the Dutch economy, so it is important to have a reliable projection for it. However, there were concerns about the CPB practice of forecasting the long-term interest rate, especially over the inconsistency of long-term interest rate projections in the short and medium term. Therefore, this document compares the old CPB practice with several alternative forecasting methods for long-term interest rates, and evaluates these methods.

CPB Background Document | 22 March 2018

26 pages | pdf document, 1.3 MB

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The Dutch economy is gathering steam. The economic boom is the result of a favourable international economy, low interest rates, expansive budgetary policy and a persistently strong housing market. These last two factors distinguish the Netherlands from other countries. Positive domestic dynamics between increasing employment, higher disposable income levels, higher consumption and more investments will lead to a 3.2% economic growth in 2018 and 2.7% in 2019. Over the 2017–2019 period, the Dutch economy is projected to outperform that of the eurozone by 0.6 percentage points, in each of those years. 

CPB Policy Brief 2018/06 | 6 March 2018

20 pages | pdf document, 3.2 MB

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The existence of an urban wage growth premium is a well-established empirical fact. This article challenges the conventional view that faster wage growth for urban workers is caused by human capital spillovers.

CPB Discussion Paper 377 | 28 February 2018

36 pages | pdf document, 1.5 MB

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This article argues that the spatial scope of agglomeration economies is much more complex than is often assumed in the agglomeration literature. We provide insight into this issue by analyzing panel data on individual wages with a high level of spatial detail.

CPB Discussion Paper 376 | 28 February 2018

36 pages | pdf document, 4.2 MB

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The CPB World Trade Monitor (WTM) is an instrument for bringing together, aggregating, and summarizing worldwide monthly data on international trade and industrial production.

CPB Background Document | 23 February 2018

40 pages | pdf document, 1.5 MB

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The Netherlands witnessed major reforms in the taxation of (potential) secondary earners over the past decade. Using the inverse-optimal method of optimal taxation we recover the implicit social welfare weights of single- and dual-earner couples over time. The social welfare weights are grosso modo well-behaved before the reforms.

CPB Discussion Paper 375 | 15 February 2018

60 pages | pdf document, 3.6 MB

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This paper evaluates the quantitative effects of two teacher traineeships that were implemented in the Netherlands to address shortages of fully qualified teachers in secondary education. Applying a fuzzy regression discontinuity design, we estimate the effects of being selected to participate in one of the traineeships. We find no significant local average treatment effects of being selected on the probabilities of enrolling into academic teacher training, obtaining a full teaching qualification, and on working in education, although the point estimates are positive for the first two outcome variables.

CPB Discussion Paper 374 | 14 February 2018

34 pages | pdf document, 1.6 MB

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Exploiting a rich data set on the Dutch market for assistance in daily housekeeping activities (ADHA), we find that larger providers obtain a higher price than do small providers. However, compared to other studies on market power in care markets this price difference is considered small to moderate.

CPB Discussion Paper 373 | 8 February 2018

24 pages | pdf document, 480.6 KB

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How effective are unconventional monetary policies? Through which mechanisms do they work? This discussion paper contains a detailed presentation of the new scientific evidence we reported in the policy brief, and adds to the relatively scarce literature in this field.

CPB Discussion Paper 371 | 6 February 2018

36 pages | pdf document, 583 KB

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In this paper we investigate whether the targeted longer-term refinancing operations (TLTRO) and the asset purchase program (APP) led to lower interest rates on new corporate credit, and whether the signalling channel and the capital relief channel played any role in the transmission of these ECB policies.

CPB Discussion Paper 372 | 6 February 2018

22 pages | pdf document, 383.8 KB

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According to economic theory, taxation drives a wedge between private and public benefits, which distorts labour supply, consumption and investment and leads to loss of welfare.

CPB Discussion Paper 370 | 24 January 2018

26 pages | pdf document, 1.3 MB

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According to the Melitz (2003) model, potential exporters have to be sufficiently productive to overcome the entry costs of foreign markets. Once firms pass this productivity threshold, they all export. However, empirical evidence indicates that a substantial share of high-productive firms do not export.

CPB Discussion Paper 369 | 18 January 2018

50 pages | pdf document, 2.4 MB

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Since 2006, the Dutch population has faced two different cost-sharing schemes in health insurance for curative care: a mandatory rebate of 255 euros in 2006 and 2007, and since 2008 a mandatory deductible. Using administrative data for the entire Dutch population, we compare the effect of both cost-sharing schemes on healthcare consumption between 2006 and 2013.

CPB Discussion Paper 367 | 7 December 2017

60 pages | pdf document, 1.5 MB

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CPB Communication | 27 November 2017

40 pages | pdf document, 379.4 KB

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We study the effect of the reduction in the VAT rate on services by hairdressers from 17.5 to 6 percent in the Netherlands in January 2000.

CPB Discussion Paper 368 | 22 November 2017

42 pages | pdf document, 1.7 MB

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Recent literature documents the pervasiveness of job polarization in the labor markets of the developed world. However, relatively little is known about polarization on a sub-national level.

CPB Discussion Paper 358 | 8 November 2017

50 pages | pdf document, 2.1 MB

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We study the effect of a policy change in co-payments on the use of long-term home care in The Netherlands. The change increased co-payments for persons with considerable household financial assets. For identification we apply a difference-in-difference analysis with matched treatment and control groups.

CPB Discussion Paper 363 | 3 November 2017

44 pages | pdf document, 2.9 MB

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In health care systems with a competitive health insurance market, governments or other sponsors (e.g. employers) often subsidize premiums to encourage enrolment. These subsidies are typically independent of plan choice leaving the absolute premium differences in place so as not to distort consumer choice of plan.

CPB Discussion Paper 366 | 12 October 2017

46 pages | pdf document, 2 MB

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We study the impact of a mandatory activation program for young welfare recipients in the Netherlands. Introduced at the end of 2009, the goal of the program was to prevent so-called NEETs (individuals not in employment, education or training).

CPB Discussion Paper 365 | 11 October 2017

56 pages | pdf document, 2 MB

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This analysis is based on the measures in the financial appendix to the Coalition Agreement, as submitted to CPB on 29 September. Chapter 10 lists the measures included in the analysis.

CPB Communication | 10 October 2017

42 pages | pdf document, 1.7 MB

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In CBA practices around the world, benefits are valued regardless of to whom they accrue. This disregards basic economic principles, like declining marginal utility of income, or inequality aversion. This paper argues that if redistribution matters, net benefits must be aggregated using a distributionally weighted CBA.

CPB Discussion Paper 364 | 10 October 2017

24 pages | pdf document, 1.4 MB

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