The aim of this paper is to discuss the relevance of «making work pay» policies from within. We first discuss the various justifications of the motto and then connect them to the existing variety of implementation experiences in Europe. We compare the classical organization of arguments behind...

This paper proposes an ex ante evaluation of the effects of new labor contracts such as the ""Contrat Nouvelle Embauche"" (CNE) introduced in France in 2005. The lessons we draw are of sufficiently general interest to be applicable to other countries or reforms of employment protection laws....

This paper offers a comprehensive comparison of the structure of banking and financial markets in the euro area. Based on this, several hypotheses about the role of banks in monetary policy transmission are developed. Many of the predictions that have been proposed for the U.S. are deemed...

This paper aims at providing some empirical evidence about the impact of monetary policy on bank lending at the microeconomic level. We estimate a model close to that proposed by Kashyap and Stein (2000) using a panel data set comprising 312 banks observed quarterly over the period 1993-2000. We...

This paper offers a comprehensive comparison of the structure of banking and financial markets in the euro area. Based on this, several hypotheses about the role of banks in monetary policy transmission are developed. Many of the predictions that have been proposed for the U.S. are deemed...

Based upon a large fraction of the price records used for computing the French CPI, we document consumer price rigidity in France. We first provide a methodological discussion of issues involved in estimating average price duration with micro-data. The average duration of prices in the sectors...