How much did fiscal policy contribute to euro area real GDP growth during the Great Recession? We estimate that discretionary fiscal measures have increased annualized quarterly real GDP growth during the crisis by up to 1.6 percentage points. We obtain our result by using an extended version of...

This paper exploits a unique cross-country, firm-level survey to study the responses of European firms to the sharp demand and credit contraction triggered by the global Great Recession of 2009. The analysis reveals that cost reduction — particularly labour cost reduction through the...

This paper sheds light on how recent financial tensions in the euro area were ultimately reflected in bank interest rate setting. We make two new contributions. First, we develop a theoretical model capturing banks financing and the rate setting choices. Banks in the model can finance themselves...

This paper is an event study focusing on the global effects of the euro debt crisis in 2010-2013. After identifying 18 key exogenous crisis events, I analyze the impact on equity returns, exchange rates and government bond yields in 12 advanced and 13 emerging countries. The main effect of euro...

Using firm-level data from a large-scale European survey among 20 countries, we analyse the determinants of firms using short-time work (STW). We show that firms are more likely to use STW in case of negative demand shocks. We show that STW schemes are more likely to be used by firms with high...

We evaluate forecasts for the euro area in data-rich and ‘data-lean’ environments by comparing three different approaches: a simple PMI model based on Purchasing Managers’ Indices (PMIs), a dynamic factor model with euro area data, and a dynamic factor model with data from the euro plus...

The unprecedented drop in international trade during the last quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of 2009 has mainly been analysed at the macroeconomic or sectoral level. However, exporters who are heterogeneous in terms of productivity, size or external financial dependence should be...

The purpose of this paper is to explain the relation between the Border Effect and industrial concentration. This is achieved by founding this relation on the Home Market Effect and testing the robustness of this foundation through an application to the European Single Market. A sectorial...

In this paper a semiparametric stochastic metafrontier approach is used to obtain insight into firm-level competitiveness in Europe. We differ from standard TFP studies at the firm level as we simultaneously allow for inefficiency, noise and do not impose a functional form on the input-output...