This paper analyses the role of banks in financing SMEs in Britain and Germany. It applies a sociological institutionalist approach to understand how banks construct and manage risk, relating to SME business. The empirical analysis is based on the results of a comparative survey of a sample of...

There is a widespread public perception that the provision of NAS undermines auditor independence. In order to protect auditor independence, the regulatory frameworks of many countries include regulations and guidelines which auditors are required to observe. This paper provides a comparative...

This paper presents a case study of the food delivery platform, Deliveroo, in Belgium in 2016-2018. The case offers insights on the nature of platform work, the workers who perform it, the preferences of workers, the strategy of the platforms, and the role of local regulations. Interestingly,...

This Working Paper brings together two parallel but complementary approaches to the impact of the platform economy on working conditions and social law. The first part of the study shows that the business models of some platforms is a combination of technological disruption and social evasion....

Working for labour platforms is still relatively rare, but the generally poor working conditions and the impact on the world of work are the subject of much debate. Although data are scarce, there is a general consensus that migrants are overrepresented in this type of work. Platforms may well...

This paper describes how stochastic population forecasts are used to inform and analyze policies related to government spending on the elderly, mainly in the context of the industrialized nations. The paper first presents methods for making probabilistic forecasts of demographic rates,...

Human resource management is one of the key factors in the productivity, growth and value of companies in which knowledge plays a key role. However, especially the shrinking of industrialized societies, in which the population is ageing rapidly, will dramatically influence the structure of the...

In an effort to increase the use of prenatal care by pregnant women and the utilization of medical care by children, eligibility for Medicaid was expanded dramatically for pregnant women and children during the 1980s and early 1990s. By lowering the costs of prenatal care, delivery, and child...

In standard cross-sectional wage regressions, married men appear to earn 10 to 20 percent more than comparable never-married men. One proposed explanation for this male marriage premium is that men may be selected into marriage on the basis of characteristics valued by employers as well as by...

Using Displaced Worker Survey data, this paper examines changes in the age distribution of displaced workers during the 1983–87 and 1993–97 periods. Older workers comprised a significantly larger fraction of displaced workers during the later period. Potential explanations for this...