This paper assesses the role of energy audits in promoting energy-efficiency measures in SMEs. It benefits from the data collected within the European Investment Bank Surveys in 2017 and 2018, involving information about energy audits and energy-efficiency investments of some 12,500 signatures...

This paper investigates the links between alternative growth phases of firms and barriers to financing and investment using firm-level information for a representative sample of EU companies. We propose a novel classification of corporates: high growth (HGEs), stable and declining enterprises....

This study illustrates how information from micro-level and survey-based databases can be used, along with macroeconomic indicators, to provide a better understanding of corporates' investment obstacles. We investigate impediments to corporate investment across the EU. We use a novel dataset...

This paper reviews the recent economic literature on skill mismatch and skill shortages with a focus on Europe. The review starts with a conceptual overview of skill mismatch and skill shortages and how to measure them. An issue discussed in the first section is the measurement of job...

Energy audits are key to increase investments in energy efficiency, as they allow to overcome the 'information gap'- one of the biggest obstacles to this type of investment. However, on average only 30% of SMEs said to have carried out an energy audit between 2015 and 2018. This paper assesses...

In Romania, the share of firms carrying out investment is amongst the lowest in the European Union. This is despite strong economic growth in recent years and persistent needs for upgrading the capital stock in the country. This paper draws on information from two surveys - the EIB Investment...

Using a representative sample of European firms, this paper studies whether and to what extent financing constraints affect employers' decisions to invest in employee training. It combines survey data on investment activities with administrative data on financial statements to develop an index...

We look at the impact of intermediated funding provided by the European Investment Bank (EIB) on the performance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the 28 member countries of the European Union between 2008 and 2014. We use a combination of propensity score matching and...

Using a new survey, we show that the dispersion of marginal products across firms in the European Union is about twice as large as that in the United States. Reducing it to the US level would increase EU GDP by more than 30 percent. Alternatively, removing barriers between industries and...

Using large scale EIB Investment Survey evidence for 2016 covering 8,900 non-financial firms from all size and age classes across all sectors and all EU Member States, we identify different innovation profiles based on a firm's R&D investment and/or innovation activities. We find that "basic"...