News Archive

This paper by Ulrich Hege (Toulouse School of Economics) and Pierre Mella Barral (TBS Business School) examines two prominent approaches to design efficient mechanisms for debt renegotiation with dispersed bondholders: debt exchange offers that promise enhanced liquidation rights to a restricted number of tendering bondholders (favored under U.S. law), and collective action clauses that allow to alter core bond terms after a majority vote (favored under U.K. law).

In a new EconPol working paper, Andreas Backhaus and Mikkel Barslund (Centre for European Policy Studies) find that women of later working age who become grandmothers are more likely to leave the labour market than women without grandchildren. Male labour supply, however, does not significantly adjust in response to grandparenthood. The probability of women aged between 55 and 64 continuing to participate in the labour market can fall from an average of 45% to 15% after the arrival of grandchildren, according to the research.

In this working paper, António Afonso (ISEG – Lisbon School of Economics and Management, Universidade de Lisboa; REM – Research in Economics and Mathematics, UECE) and Frederico Silva Leal (ISEG – Lisbon School of Economics and Management, Universidade de Lisboa; Portuguese Economy Ministry) estimate short- and long-run elasticities of private consumption for fiscal instruments. They find that positive tax revenue elasticities indicate that consumers have a Ricardian behaviour, while social benefits appear to have a non-Keynesian effect on private consumption.

The second CEPS-EconPol lunch debate will be held at CEPS in Brussels on Wednesday 2 October. Per Eckefeldt (European Commission, Brussels), Tito Boeri (Bocconi University, Milan), Benjamin Bittschi (IHS, Vienna; EconPol Europe) and Felix Wellschmied (Universidad Carlos III, Madrid; EconPol Europe) will join CEPS’ Head of Economic Policy Cinzia Alcidi to discuss the topic ‘Pension Reform in Europe: Recent Experience and Challenges Ahead’.

Bank loans continue to be the main source of external financing for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), in both the Netherlands and other European countries. Businesses are using those loans for expansion, innovation or as working capital.  But Dutch SMEs are applying for fewer bank loans, and those applications are often rejected by the banks. How does SME bank financing in the Netherlands relate to other European countries, and what are the reasons for the differences?