In this study we investigate the determinants of financing obstacles using survey data on a sample of around 5000 firms from the euro area countries. This completely new survey – started at the end of 2009 - gives us the opportunity to test whether firm characteristics such as size, age,...

Societies provide institutions that are costly to use, but able to enforce long-run relationships. We study the optimal decision problem of using self-governance for risk sharing or governance through enforcement provided by these institutions. Third-party enforcement is modelled as a costly...

While Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) of both, the United States and the European Union, include labor issues in specific chapters, only US FTAs explicitly have “labor chapters,” while the EU FTAs have a general reference to labor rights through the human rights clause and otherwise refer to...

The Directives aim to provide legal tools protecting individuals against discrimination in the public and in the private sphere. The values the Directives aim to protect are therefore part of the core of the German legal system. The regime of legal regulations envisaged by the Directives have,...

This report has been requested by the European Commission from the OMAS Consortium (OMAS). It is based on a detailed analysis of (Monitoring and Assessment) documentation produced by OMAS from 1996 to 2001, in particular, summaries from the Country Assessment Reviews (CARs) in relation to the...