The intensity of the Euro-crisis was reflected by significant increases of sovereign bond yields in the troubled countries. This has launched a hot debate whether this increase can solely be attributed to fundamental factors like e.g. rescue programmes, rising budget deficits, deteriorating...

This study tests for a break in the persistence of EMU government bond yield spreads examining data from France, Italy and Spain and using German interest rates as a kind of benchmark. The results reported here provide evidence for breaks between 2006 and 2008. The persistence of the yield...

There is a growing consensus that part of the surge in government bond spreads during the EMU debt crisis can be explained by wake-up-call contagion. Evidence on pure contagion however is very mixed and there are no insights into the dynamics of these effects. As a contribution to fill this gap,...

The aim of this paper is to investigate the role of the extended parental leave in the return to work for mothers of newborn children. Parental leaves have been introduced in the last 30 years in all European countries in order to extend the period of job-protection, allowing both parents to...