This empirical paper seeks to determine the relative contribution of the business cycle and structural factors to the development of part-time employment in the EU-15 countries over the 1980s and 1990s, exploiting a panel of EU countries. In the short-run, the business cycle is found to exert a...

We present a quarterly narrative database of important labour market reforms in selected euro area economies in between 1995 and 2018 covering 60 events. We provide legal adoption and implementation dates of major reforms to employment protection legislation and unemployment benefits. Estimates...

Using new quarterly narrative evidence, this paper examines the macroeconomic impact of reforms of unemployment benefits (UB) and employment protection legislation (EPL) in the euro area from a Bayesian narrative panel VAR. The approach complements existing micro-econometric evidence by aligning...

This paper studies the role of wage moderation and labour and product market regulation for employment creation. To this end, labour demand estimates are presented for the five largest euro area countries at the aggregate level and for three macro sectors: manufacturing, construction and...

This paper assesses the relative importance of perceived obstacles to hiring workers on a permanent basis faced by EU firms and studies how they depend on firm's characteristics. Findings suggest that the main obstacles to hiring in Europe are high uncertainty, shortage of skilled labour, high...

We examine job flows in the 1990s for a sample of 13 European countries. By using a dataset of continuing firms that covers all sectors, we find firm characteristics to be important determinants of job flows, with smaller and younger firms within services typically having a larger degree of job...

What determines a country's ability to compete in international markets? What fosters the global competitiveness of its firms? And in the European context, have key elements of the EU strategy such as EMU and enlargement helped or hindered domestic firms' competitiveness in local and global...

In this paper we test whether a reallocation of government budget items can enhance long-term GDP growth in a set of European countries. We apply modern panel data techniques to the period 1970-2006, and we use three alternative dependent variables in a growth regression: economic growth, total...

This paper analyses the effects in terms of size and volatility of government revenue and spending on growth in OECD and EU countries. The results of the paper suggest that both variables are detrimental to growth. In particular, looking more closely at the effect of each component of government...

This paper provides estimates of price-marginal cost ratios or markups for 50 sectors in 8 euro area countries and the US over the period 1981-2004. The estimates are obtained applying the methodology developed by Roeger (1995) on the EU KLEMS March 2007 database. Five stylized facts are...