The rarity with which firms reduce nominal wages has been frequently observed, even in the face of considerable negative economic shocks. This paper uses a unique survey of fourteen European countries to ask firms directly about the incidence of wage cuts and to assess the relevance of a range...

Financing for working capital and investment is essential for the survival and growth of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). The recent financial crisis has provoked much debate in Ireland and Europe around the provision of bank financing to SMEs. This article provides empirical evidence, using...

This paper uses unique SME loan-level data complete with quarterly loan ratings assigned by the lend- ing institution over the period 2008-2010. This allows us to examine the evolution of loan performance throughout the period of economic and financial crisis. We document the shift in the...

This note provides an update on rates of job creation and destruction in the light of the dramatic slowdown in the economy. Firm-level data on employment changes has been collected by Forf´as for almost forty years and allows us to compare the current rates of job turnover to those in previous...

This paper analyses the effects of the recent euro area economic, financial and debt crisis on SMEs’ access to bank finance. We use a survey on access to finance of SMEs in the euro area carried out by the European Central Bank during 2009 and 2010 to examine the impact of macroeconomic...

The Prudential Capital Assessment Review (PCAR) 2011 uncovered significant potential losses in the Irish banking sector, leading to a considerable recapitalisation. This letter uses a large sample of the loan level data provided for PCAR 2011 to present descriptive statistics on the SME lending...

This paper investigates the wage-setting behaviour of Irish firms. We place particular emphasis on the use of flexible pay components and examine how these allow firms to deal with shocks requiring a reduction in costs without having to cut base wages. The results presented in this paper are...

This paper analyses the choices made by individual firms to enter the export market. It uses data on a sample of Irish firms over seventeen years to test whether sunk costs influence the decision to export. A probit specification tests the probability of exporting in the current period given...

The empirical finding that exporting firms are more productive on average than non-exporters has provoked a large theoretical literature based on models such as Melitz (2003), where more productive firms are more likely to overcome costs associated with trade. This paper provides a systematic...

One of the most famous and robust findings in international economics is that distance has a strong negative effect on trade. Bernard, Jensen, Redding, and Schott (2007) discuss how this can be decomposed into an effect due to the number of products and an effect due to average exports per...