We use data from the 1996 wave of the European Community Household Panel to present and compare the weekly number of hours mothers of children less than 16 years of age reported looking after children in nine European countries in 1996. In addition, we explore to what extent cross-country...

Since the 2008 Lehman bankruptcy, it is clearly shown that global economic and financial crises present major challenges to private households, requiring from them, a high level of shock absorption capacity. According to the old adage, "Do not put all the eggs in one basket", resilience depends,...

This study questions the popular stereotype that women are more risk averse than men in their financial investment decisions. The analysis is based on micro-level data from large-scale surveys of private households in five European countries. In our analysis of investment decisions, we directly...

This paper examines what determines the correlation between prices and turnover in European housing markets. Using a panel vector autoregressive model, we find that there is a particularly strong feedback mechanism between prices and turnover. Momentum effects are another important reason why...

We adopt an unobserved components time series model to extract financial cycles for the United States and the five largest euro area countries over the period 1970 to 2014. We find that credit, the credit-to-GDP ratio and house prices have medium-term cycles which share a few common statistical...

In this paper, the process of productivity convergence is investigated for the enlarged European Union using regional (NUTS-2) data. The Solow model extended by human capital is employed as a workhorse. Alternative strategies are proposed to control for spatial effects. All specifications...

We investigate hysteresis and persistence behaviour in the course of unemployment in EU countries and US states by means of first and second generation panel unit root tests. While the former tests assume independent cross sections, the latter control for dependencies. The first generation tests...

We examine real business cycle convergence for 41 euro area regions and 48 US states. Results obtained by a panel model with spatial correlation indicate that the relevance of common business cycle factors is rather stable over the past two decades in the euro area and the US. Ongoing business...