The EU Delegations are playing a more important role in political analysis and policy shaping, thanks to their leadership in drafting the new Human Rights Country Strategies, are better able to carry out human rights diplomacy, thanks to their improved standing through the Lisbon Treaty changes,...

The time series of various economic variables often exhibit asymmetry: decreases in the values tend to be sharp and fast, whereas increases usually occur slowly and gradually. We detect signs of an analogous asymmetry in firms’ wage setting behaviour on the basis of managerial surveys, with...

This paper examines the degree of price rigidity in Belgian consumer prices, using a large database. As to the observed degree of rigidity, the results reveal a substantial amount of heterogeneity, not only across but also within product categories. While prices turn out to be perfectly flexible...

We estimate the effect of demand and price uncertainty on firms’ investment decisions from a panel of manufacturing firms. Uncertainty measures are derived from firms’ subjective qualitative expectations. They are close to their theoretical counterparts, the variances of future demand and...

This paper analyses euro area non-financial corporations (NFC) money demand, both from a macro and a microeconomic point of view. At a macro level, money holdings are modelled as a function of real gross added value, the price level, the long-term interest rate on bank lending to non-financial...

In this paper we analyse household holdings of the broad monetary aggregate M3 in the euro area from 1991 until 2009. We develop four models, two in nominal, two in real terms, with satisfactory economic and statistical properties. The main determinants are a transactions variable, wealth...

Survey results in 15 European countries for almost 15,000 firms reveal that Belgian firms react more than the average European firm to adverse shocks by reducing permanent and temporary employment. On the basis of a firm-level analysis, this paper confirms that the different reaction to shocks...

This paper presents the main findings of a survey conducted on a sample of Portuguese firms. The main aim was to identify some relevant characteristics about the dynamics of prices and wages in Portugal. The most important conclusions are: i) changes to wages are more synchronized than changes...

We model the impact of bank mergers on loan competition, banks' reserve holdings and aggregate liquidity. Banks compete in a differentiated loan market, hold reserves against liquidity shocks, and refinance in the interbank market. A merger creates an internal money market that induces financial...