This paper studies the evolution of non-financial corporate debt among publicly listed companies in major advanced economies between 2010 and 2017. Since 2010, firms have started to rely more on corporate bond markets and have used part of their debt to increase their holdings of cash. In our...

Despite conventional macroeconomic theory is based on the idea that demand shocks can only have temporary effects on unemployment, several European economies display highly persistent unemployment dynamics. The theory of hysteresis challenges this view and pointsout that, under certain...

Productivity dispersion across countries has led to several studies on the determinants of firm level productivity and the role of macroeconomic policies in determining productivity. In this paper, we investigate the effect of fiscal consolidation on firm level productivity in 12 advanced...

As part of the wave of liberalisation sweeping most parts of the world, power sectors around the globe are coming under intense scrutiny, with some being restructured. This book presents six-country-case studies to examine the process and implementation experiences of power sector reform in...

The European Commission and its member states are wrestling with the problem of how to implement the scheduled liberalization of the postal sector while maintaining the service obligation. This book addresses some of these concerns. It is comprised of essays chosen from those presented at the...

This book explores the widening gap between the wage packets of skilled and unskilled workers that has become a pressing issue for all states in the globalized world economy. Comparing the experiences of more and less developed economies, chapters analyse the underlying causes and key social...