The aim of this paper is to investigate the role of the extended parental leave in the return to work for mothers of newborn children. Parental leaves have been introduced in the last 30 years in all European countries in order to extend the period of job-protection, allowing both parents to...

Empirical work on regional growth under spatial spillovers uses two workhorse models: the spatial Solow model and Verdoorn's model. This paper contrasts these two views on regional growth processes and demonstrates that in a spatial setting the speed of convergence is heterogenous in both...

This paper examines the impact of floods on firms' capital accumulation, employment growth and productivity by using a difference-in-difference approach and considering firms' asset structure. We find evidence that companies in flooding regions show higher growth of total assets and employment...

There are two main options for companies to serve foreign markets: exports and foreign direct investment (FDI). Based on the Helpman, Melitz and Yeaple (2004) model for two host countries this paper derives a clear theoretical prediction for the decision between both strategies. A bivariate...

An analysis of the effects of natural hazards on society does not solely depend on a region's topographic or climatic exposure to natural processes, but the region's institutional resilience to natural processes that ultimately determines whether natural processes result in a natural hazard or...

This study utilizes a panel data set from 14 European countries over the period 1990-2004 to estimate a dynamic model specification for gasoline and diesel demand. Previous studies estimating gasoline consumption per total passenger cars ignore the recent increase in the number of diesel cars in...

Fertility and the provision of long-term care are connected by an aspect that has not received attention so far: both are time consuming activities that can be produced within the household or bought at the market and are, thus, connected through the intertemporal budget constraint of the...