"We study the returns on education in Europe in a comparative perspective. We extend the model of de la Fuente [(2003). Human Capital in a Global and Knowledgebased Economy. part II: Assessment at the EU Country Level. Report for the European Commission], by estimating the values of the relevant...

This paper provides new evidence on the dynamics of equity risk premia in euro area stock markets across country and industry portfolios. We develop and estimate a conditional intertemporal CAPM where returns on aggregate euro area, country and industry portfolios depend on the market risk as...

This paper analyses the impact that firms financial position has on investment decisions using panel data from a large sample of non-financial corporations(around 120,000 firms) in six euro area countries(Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain). The results indicate that...

In the past decades self-employment has gained in importance in the majority of EU Member States. In particular the proportion of small and one-person businesses shows an increasing trend. In contrast to the classical research into business start-ups, which usually focuses on sustainability in...

Disability insurance - the insurance against the loss of the ability to work - is a substantial part of social security expenditures in many countries. The benefit recipiency rates in disability insurance vary strikingly across European countries and the US. This paper investigates the extent...

In recent years the availability of new industry-level data allowed to evaluate the impact of labour market policies more consistently than previous standard cross-country studies. In this paper an industry-level panel is exploited to evaluate the impact of Employment Protection Legislation...

This paper considers the education of the labour force based on an analysis of trends in and the relationships between job polarization and skills mismatch. Both job polarization and skills mismatch have become topics of increasing interest, but relationships between the two have been relatively...

The interest for household production has grown since the release of the new System of National Accounts in 2008. In this paper we analyse how accounting for own-use production may affect labour statistics. Traditional headcount ratios may not be very informative when employment rates consider...

Few works more than Esping-Andersen's 'Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism' have drawn researchers' attention on institutional features that characterize the diverse typologies of welfare regimes; yet the impact of the different institutional settings on income distribution has mostly been taken...