At a time when health and social care services in European countries are under pressure to contain or cut costs, informal carers are relied upon as the main providers of long-term care. However, still little is known about the availability of direct and indirect support for informal carers...

To analyse the impact of deregulation in community pharmacy on accessibility of medicines, quality of pharmacy services and costs.

We investigate bank loans’ specialness with a particular focus on the recent boom and bust cycle. We perform an empirical analysis using event study methodology on a sample of 253 large loan announcements for French borrowers between January 2000 and December 2009. We find a significant and...

Using a large sample of bank loan renegotiations by European firms, I show that renegotiation of financial contracts matters for shareholders and can increase their wealth. I find that amendments to financial covenants and to loan amounts increase borrower’s cumulative abnormal return by 10%...

The aim of this paper is to empirically investigate the determinants of creditor concentration in the use of bank loans by firms in a European cross-country framework. We analyze the influence of loan and borrower characteristics but also banking market structure and legal enforcement...

Reputation of financial institutions is crucial for their activity and performance. Participant banks often rely on lead bank’s reputation in making future syndicated loan participation and lending decisions. We apply ordered probit regression techniques to a sample of more than 4,600 loans to...

This paper explores the goals and implementation of reforms introducing choice of and competition among insurers providing statutory health coverage in Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland. In theory, health insurance competition can enhance efficiency in health care administration...