From the autumn of 2014, a new performance pay scheme was introduced for school teachers in England and Wales. It makes pay progression for all teachers dependent upon their performance as evaluated by their line managers by means of performance appraisals. This paper reports the results of a...

This paper explores the effects of bank credit on firm growth before and after the recent financial crisis, taking into account different structural characteristics of banking sectors and domestic economies. Panel quantile analysis is used on a sample of 2075 euro area firms in 2005- 2011. The...

In 2014 several groupings of developing countries agreed to set up a series of new multilateral development finance institutions. These include the BRICS-sponsored New Development Bank, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the Silk Road Fund. This paper examines the role these new...

Background depression in mothers during pregnancy and in the postnatal period has been recognized to have wide-ranging adverse impacts on offspring. Our study examines some of the outcomes and long-term economic implications experienced by offspring who have been exposed to perinatal depression....

Despite ubiquitous discussions of robots’ potential impact, there is almost no systematic empirical evidence on their economic effects. In this paper we analyze for the first time the economic impact of industrial robots, using new data on a panel of industries in 17 countries from 1993-2007....

During the past few decades a number of European countries lifted the regulations that restricted the opening hours of shops on Sunday. In this paper we examine the impact of Sunday trade deregulation on employment, expenditure, prices and market structure using a difference-in-difference...

A variety of empirical and theoretical trade papers have suggested and documented a positive impact of trade on the productivity of firms. However, there is less consensus about the underlying mechanism at work. While trade papers focus on access to export markets, other papers stress the...