A widely spread belief among economists is that monetary policy has relatively short-lived effects on real variables such as unemployment. Previous studies indicate that monetary policy affects the output gap only at business cycle frequencies, but the effects on unemployment may well be more...

A widely spread belief among economists is that monetary policy has relatively short-lived effects on real variables such as unemployment. Previous studies indicate that monetary policy affects the output gap only at business cycle frequencies, but the effects on unemployment may well be more...

The low mobility of people in Europe is considered a problem for adjustment to asymmetric shocks and regional convergence in the European Monetary Union. We suggest a complement to the traditional migration theories, the insider advantages approach to explain why most Europeans prefer to stay....

Recent studies have documented extensive heterogeneity in firm performance within countries, and innovation has been found as an important determinant. This paper addresses the issue of innovation firm performance across countries. A growing number of national firm level studies on the...

We estimate peer effects for fourth graders in six European countries. The identification relies on variation across classes within schools. We argue that classes within primary schools are formed roughly randomly with respect to family background. Similar to previous studies, we find sizeable...

This paper incorporates the cost of adjustment between observed and optimal leverage in explaining the variation in firm?s equity or bank-debt financing investments. Using a dynamic adjustment approach identifies the determinants to capital structure between different financial systems. In...

This paper examines factors that may influence the estimates of the Value of a Statistical Life obtained from contingent valuation surveys that elicit the willingness to pay (WTP) for mortality risk reductions. We examine the importance of distributional assumptions, the choice of the welfare...