Small businesses may be expected to be more likely to fail because they are more volatile, have less power in negotiations with financial and social partners, are more credit-rationed by credit managers, are less likely to benefit from their experience or 'learning effects', compared to large...

While leveraged buy-outs or "LBO" can create financial and economic value, they may also lead to over-indebtedness for target companies. The financial crisis that followed the burst of the speculative subprime bubble in 2007 revealed and exacerbated the risk of over-indebtedness that affects...

During 1982–83 and 2003–04, two waves of decentralization in France devolved more powers to the three levels of subnational governments (SNGs): the municipalities, the departments, and the regions. This new institutional framework has enabled SNGs to enjoy a greater degree of autonomous...

The financial crisis of 2007/8 has had a significant impact on the place of social policy objectives in a highly liberalised Common Market. As laws have been reformed over the years since the failure of Lehman Brothers set in motion a domino effect among high risk investment banks and financial...

We estimate the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on business failures among small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) in seventeen countries using a large representative firm-level database. We use a simple model of firm cost minimization and measure each firm’s liquidity shortfall during and...