Using data for 91 large banks from 45 countries, this paper finds few differences in the extent, type, and pricing of SME loans across foreign, private, and government-owned banks, even though different bank ownership types apply different lending technologies and have different organizational...

The productivity slowdown in Europe since the mid-1990s is a reason for concern. Labour market rigidity, hampering innovation, may be a cause of the slowdown. In the paper this argument is placed in a broader perspective. Labour force participation is an important factor in explaining...

We provide an up-to-date overview of the literature on the desirabil- ity of central bank transparency from an economic viewpoint. Since the move towards more transparency, a lot of research on its e¤ects has been carried out. First, we show how the theoretical literature has evolved, by...

Abstract This paper selectively surveys some of the more prominent laboratory experimental studies on asset market behavior. The strands of literature considered are market microstructure, pari-mutuel betting markets, characteristics of participants, the effect of information release, and...

Abstract: We summarize and review the literature on two types of economic experiments. First we discuss the use of experimental laboratories to testbed market solutions to issues in environmental policy. We concentrate on experiments with one and two-sided markets, and applications in the domain...