This paper is the first to study the behaviour of financial ratios in an emerging economy of Central Europe. Using the entire population of company accounts in Bulgaria we find that for the financial ratios we considered, adjustment towards a target takes place but the speed of adjustment is...

This paper estimates the effect of antidumping protection on the productivity of domestic import-competing firms. Two key results emerge. First, the productivity of the average firm receiving protection moderately improves, but this is never sufficient to close the productivity gap with firms...

In recent decades, the WTO has resulted in a worldwide reduction of tariffs and VERs. Instead a new type of trade policy has emerged in the form of antidumping measures. In principle their use should be limited to instances of unfair foreign imports. However, even without unfair pricing, a...

This paper analyses the economics of EU enlargement from three perspectives. First, we provide an institutional background and point out the importance of Agenda 2000. Second, we then analyse the implications for EU trade with Central and Easter European Countries (CEEC's) and in particular we...

This paper studies patterns of gross job creation and destruction in Bulgaria, Estonia and Romania. To this end a unique data set of more than 1600 Bulgarian, 350 Estonian and 3700 Romanian firms in various sectors and located in various regions is used. We find that gross job destruction...

De hoge (para)-fiscale druk in Belgi?wordt gezien als een belangrijke oorzaak van de hoge werkloosheidsgraad. Deze hoge werkloosheidsgraad gaat echter gepaard met een hoog aantal openstaande vacatures. Men kan zich dan ook de vraag stellen of verdere lastenverlagingen zullen bijdragen tot een...

In this paper, we analyze the effects of trade, concentration and ownership on the pricing behavior of firms in two transition countries, Bulgaria and Romania. We use an extensive dataset of more than 3000 firms and sector level information to estimate the effects of these three factors on the...

This paper estimates how anti-dumping (AD) protection affects the market power of firms. To this end, we use a rich panel data set of 1,666 EU producers that were involved in AD cases initiated in 1996 to estimate markups of price over marginal cost. Our findings indicate that markups in most...

This paper uses longitudinal data of more than 13,000 firms to analyze the effects of on-the-job training on firm level productivity and wages. Workers receiving training are on average more productive than workers not receiving training. This makes firms more productive. On-the-job training...