This report presents the conclusions from a seminar on families and childcare services held in Ankara, Turkey, on 5 June 2008. The seminar was organised by the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound), in cooperation with the Turkish Ministry of Labour...

We compute public sector performance (PSP) and efficiency (PSE) indicators, comprising a composite and seven sub-indicators, for 23 industrialised countries. The first four sub-indicators are u0093opportunityu0094 indicators that take into account administrative, education and health outcomes...

A central puzzle in international finance is that real exchange rates are volatile and, in stark contradiction to effcient risk-sharing, negatively correlated with cross-country consumption ratios. This paper shows that incomplete asset markets and a low price elasticity of tradables can account...

The paper extends the standard intertemporal model of the current account to include two important stylised facts: (1) the persistence of current account positions and (2) the relevance of the fiscal balance. Specifically, the paper derives a closed form solution for consumption in the presence...

We live in a service economy, but the extent of development of service employment differs across developed countries. This paper assesses the role of structural factors and institutions in explaining the common patterns and main differences in the recent expansion of service employment in OECD...

The collapse of the communist regime in Central and South-Eastern Europe gave way to sweeping economic and socio-political changes, marked by the conversion of centrally planned state economies into market economies, political liberalisation and democratisation, as well as to integration into...

The main objectives of the evaluation are: (i) to be accountable and to provide the relevant external co-operation services of the EC and the wider public with an overall independent assessment of the EC’s past and current co-operation relations with Nepal; and (ii) to identify key lessons in...

The paper examines the determinants of location choices of French multinational firms in eastern and western Europe. The sample includes 1,843 location choices in 19 countries over the years 1980-1999. The results suggest there might be important differences between the two regions of Europe...

Foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows to the Baltic countries were driven by different factors. Initially the process of privatisation and low labour costs attracted investment into public utilities and manufacturing. Later, taking advantage of the Baltic geographical location, further FDI...