We study how furlough affects household financial distress during the COVID-19 pandemic. Furlough increases the probability of late housing and bill payments by 30% and 9%, respectively. The effects exist for individuals who rent their home, but not mortgagees who can mitigate financial distress...

We study the role of firms in the political economy of trade agreements. Using detailed information from lobbying reports filed under the Lobbying Disclosure Act, we find that virtually all firms that lobby on free trade agreements (FTAs) support their ratification. Moreover, relative to...

We study the relationship between a key early intervention policy designed to support families with children up to the age of four and the rate at which children are taken into social care. The gradual build-up of over 3,600 Sure Start Children's Centres (SSCC), operated by Local Authorities...

We analyze the long-term effects of firm break-up and ownership change on corporate performance. Our analysis is based on a unique data set for a large number of Czech firms spanning the period 1996-2005. We employ a propensity score matching procedure to deal with endogeneity problems. Our...

The issue of internal security has become increasingly complex over the past decades. As there is an increasing overlap between private and public provision of security, the question of how to allocate responsibility for security between the public sphere (state) and the private sphere has...

This paper investigates the degree of persistence of the private debt-to-GDP ratio in 43 OECE countries by estimating the fractional integration parameter of each series. Almost all of them are found to be highly persistent, with orders of integration around or above 1. The only exception is...

We study how the introduction of private-label brands (PLs) affects retailers’ prices, demand, and profits, explicitly accounting for assortment adjustments of national brands (NBs) in retail stores. Using a detailed dataset on the U.S. beef market, we find that, when PLs are added to the...

Public disability insurance (DI) programs in many countries face pressure to reduce their generosity in order to remain sustainable. In this paper, we investigate the welfare effects of giving a larger role to private insurance markets in the face of public DI cuts. Exploiting a unique reform...