I address four topics: how our capacities to monitor poverty in Europe have improved substantially over recent decades; how progress on EU poverty reduction has been disappointing and why this has been; conceptual and measurement issues; and the future direction of EU-level anti-poverty actions....

Outlier detection in high-dimensional datasets poses new challenges that have not been investigated in the literature. In this paper, we present an integrated methodology for the identification of outliers which is suitable for datasets with higher number of variables than observations. Our...

This paper provides evidence on the role of non-base wage components as a channel for firms to adjust labour costs in the event of adverse shocks. It uses data from a firm-level survey for 25 European countries that covers the period 2010–2013. We find that firms subject to nominal wage...

The retrospectively recalled calendar of activities in the European Community Household Panel is a prime resource for cross country analysis of unemployment experience. We investigate the reliability of these data and find that 26% of unemployed respondents misreported retrospectively their...

In face-to-face surveys interviewers play a crucial role in making contact with and gaining cooperation from sample units. While some analyses investigate the influence of interviewers on nonresponse, they are typically restricted to single-country studies. However, interviewer training,...

To analyze the effect of health on work, many studies use a simple self-assessed health measure based upon a question such as “do you have an impairment or health problem limiting the kind or amount of work you can do‘” A possible drawback of such a measure is the possibility that...

We examine the bilateral trade patterns of countries involved in significant trade liberalizations using detailed data on the value of trade flows by commodity. We find a striking relationship between a good's pre-liberalization share in trade and its growth subsequent to liberalization. The...

The paper provides a consistency analysis of the decisions taken by the Italian Competition Authority within the 1995-2003 period, concerning its control over mergers and acquisitions. An ample database was constructed using the tools of textual analysis. This data base was generated in a...

Firms have multiple options at the time of adjusting their wage bills. However, previous literature has mainly focused on base wages. We broaden the analysis beyond downward rigidity in base wages by investigating the use of other margins of labour cost adjustment at the firm level. Using data...