This paper provides an economic analysis of the competition effects of UEFA's financial fair play regulations. It concludes that the restrictive effects of the break-even rule cannot be justified by a legitimate objective defense (according to European competition policy) because significant...

Ever since the pioneering work of Rottenberg (1956) and Neale (1964), the uncertainty of outcome hypothesis (UOH) has played a major role in the economic analysis of professional sport leagues. However, decades of empirical research have not been successful in establishing clear evidence for the...

The collective sale of football broadcasting rights constitutes a cartel, which, in the European Union, is only allowed if it complies with a number of conditions and obligations, inter alia, partial unbundling and the no-single-buyer rule. These regulations were defined with traditional...

This paper provides an economic analysis of the competition effects of UEFA's financial fair play regulations. It concludes that the restrictive effects of the break-even rule cannot be justified by a legitimate objective defense (according to European competition policy) because significant...

The collective sale of football broadcasting rights constitutes a cartel, which, in the European Union, is only allowed if it complies with a number of conditions and obligations, inter alia, partial unbundling and the no-single-buyer rule. These regulations were defined with traditional...

This analysis provides an overview of the main markets relevant to the EIF. It starts by discussing the general market environment, then looks at the main aspects of equity finance and the guarantee and SME securitisation markets. It also highlights important aspects of microfinance in Europe....

The vast majority of firms in Europe are micro firms. Still, we know little about their financing patterns. Our paper aims to close this gap. Based on a large European firm-level data set, we find that micro firms differ in their financing patterns from small and medium-sized companies. Our...

This European Small Business Finance Outlook (ESBFO) provides an overview of the main markets relevant to EIF (equity, guarantees, securitisation, microfinance). It is an update of the ESBFO December 2016. We start by discussing the general market environment, then look at the main aspects of...

This report discusses the activity of credit guarantee schemes (CGSs) in Western Europe and presents an analysis based on a novel survey, conducted by the European Investment Bank (EIB) Group1, among 18 credit guarantee organisations in 13 countries and 33 banks operating in 17 countries. The...

This EIF Working Paper investigates financing patterns of European SMEs by looking at a large number of different financing instruments and their complementary and substitutive effects, using the SAFE dataset collected in 2015. We develop an empirical taxonomy of SME financing patterns in...