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This open access book is the first to provide an analysis of the Dutch paper industry over a period encompassing six centuries. Responding to a trend of renewed scholarly interest in paper industries and production, the book seeks to illuminate the factors behind this relatively small national industry’s centuries-long survival. Previous historical research has shown that sets of colonial, trade, merchant and family networks, tightly interwoven through a dense web of capital, were crucial for paper production and trade in early modern Europe. This book situates the Dutch paper industry within these overlapping contexts and their shifting dynamics over time, and historicizes the challenges and obstacles it had to overcome through four phases of capitalism: the rise of Dutch capitalism (1580–1815), Dutch monarchic liberalism (1815–1914), Fordism (1914–1980), and post-Fordism (1980 until now). Each chapter covers not only technological advancements in the industry, but its development alongside further determining dimensions, such as state-industry relations (industry policies), labour-capital relations (unions) and competition and cooperation, overall painting a picture of how the industry adapted to and endured changes in national and global networks surrounding the industry. This book will be of broad interest to scholars of economic and business history, as well as industrial history, political economy, and management studies.

This book examines paper and material aspects of the written word in early modern Europe. The contributors investigate the origins of paper production as well as manufacture, use, ownership, trade and preservation of books. This interdisciplinary volume brings together the research of paper experts, book historians, philologists, conservators and specialists in watermark analysis, paper trade, the history of collections and object biography.

Paper aim is to overview paper parks problem regarding Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). Ocean makes Earth habitable for humankind; careful management of ocean is a key feature of sustainable future. MPAs are a key instrument of ocean protection; MPAs effective management is essential to reduce environmental challenges. A 2017 WWF report highlighted that EU protected areas were at risk due to lack of proper implementation of EU laws by member states and the Commission legal actions. The Report showed the importance of both management plans and to involve all stakeholders in its developing process

After the global financial crisis, investment fell more substantially than it had in the wake of previous recessions. With investment seemingly recovering faster in the United States than in Europe, the fear of a lasting gap emerged in Europe. This detailed analysis compares the investment dynamics and capital accumulation in the United States and the European Union, focusing on 2013-2019. It uses data from Eurostat and EU KLEMS releases to highlight the gaps and variations in investment strategies across different countries and asset types. The working paper provides key insights into the investment rates, growth of real gross fixed capital formation, and accumulation of stocks. It reveals an investment gap primarily due to lower rates in tangible information and communication technology and intangible assets after the global financial crisis, particularly in larger EU Member States. In addition, the report provides an in-depth analysis of diverse asset types and their role in the investment dynamics. It uncovers the European Union’s strength in construction assets and its persistent gaps in information and communications technology and intangible assets, indicating a need to increase investments in these areas. Furthermore, the analysis discloses the heterogeneity within the European Union, with countries like Ireland, Czech Republic, and Sweden leading in investment rates, while others, including the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, and Spain, falling behind. This working paper is a tool for understanding the nuances of global investment trends and for formulating effective strategies to address identified gaps. It offers guidance and insights for policymakers, investors, and businesses operating in the global economic environment.

Using firm-level data from the EIB Investment Survey, this paper describes how firms in the European Union have been affected by recent trade-related shocks, such as disruptions to logistics or access to materials, and how they have responded to them. The responses of firms differ. They include diversification of trade partners and refocusing on domestic markets and suppliers. The paper looks at the differences between firms that help to explain these different reactions. It finds that younger, larger, more productive firms are more likely to respond actively to trade shocks and disruptions, especially through diversification of trade partners. Less productive and less innovative firms, meanwhile, are more likely to be discouraged from direct engagement in international trade.

The COVID-19 shock had a strong negative effect on aggregate economic performance, with the average firm taking a hit on sales revenues and financial performance. However, the effects varied from firm to firm. Were already-struggling firms hit hardest, threatening their very survival? Or did the COVID-19 shock disproportionately deter tomorrow’s superstars at the upper end of the distribution, thus sacrificing future growth potential? This paper investigates where the COVID-19 shock hit the firm growth distribution, using graphical techniques and quantile regressions to analyse the full distribution of firm growth rates. We investigate how the COVID-19 shock relates to growth outcomes for four dependent variables: growth of sales, value added, employment, and labour productivity. Our results confirm that COVID-19 policy support reached its intended recipients.

The use of advanced digital technologies such as 3D printing, advanced robotics, drones, big data analytics and artificial intelligence is spreading. These technologies have uncertain implications for labour demand. Affected workers may need to re-train to adapt to changing tasks or new jobs. At the same time, it is unclear whether or not advanced digital technologies encourage firms to invest in workforce re-training. Using firm-level data covering the 27 EU countries, the UK and the US, this paper shows that employers tend to reduce investment in training per employee, after adopting advanced digital technologies. It estimates, with a control function approach, firm-level production functions augmented with two factors: training per employee and digital technology use. We show that these are in fact substitutes in production, implying that an increase in the former negatively affects the marginal productivity of the latter, and that a decline in the cost of introducing advanced digital technologies reduces employers’ investment in training per employee. These findings point to challenges in realising high levels of firm-sponsored training for employees in increasingly digital economies.

The use of advanced digital technologies such as 3D printing, advanced robotics, drones, big data analytics and artificial intelligence is spreading. These technologies have uncertain implications for labour demand. Affected workers may need to re-train to adapt to changing tasks or new jobs. At the same time, it is unclear whether or not advanced digital technologies encourage firms to invest in workforce re-training. Using firm-level data covering the 27 EU countries, the UK and the US, this paper shows that employers tend to reduce investment in training per employee, after adopting advanced digital technologies. It estimates, with a control function approach, firm-level production functions augmented with two factors: training per employee and digital technology use. We show that these are in fact substitutes in production, implying that an increase in the former negatively affects the marginal productivity of the latter, and that a decline in the cost of introducing advanced digital technologies reduces employers’ investment in training per employee. These findings point to challenges in realising high levels of firm-sponsored training for employees in increasingly digital economies.

"The availability of talent and skills has been a significant investment obstacle for firms across the EU over the years, with several sources highlighting the persistence and prevalence of skill shortages. In this paper, we use the European Investment Bank’s Investment Survey (EIBIS) for the empirical analysis, which allows tracking corporate training investment on a yearly basis. To understand the reasons for firms’ decision to invest in their workforce, we examine transition patterns and employ dynamic panel data estimation. We also analyse the impact of COVID-19 on firms’ investment in workforce training and transitions in and out of training. Despite a slow upward trend in training investment observed in recent years supported by labour market recovery, differences across firms and countries have persisted. The pandemic risks aggravating these differences, through its uneven impact on labour markets and differences in corporate innovation, firm structure and resilience. While firm training can be an important element for firms and their workforce to adjust to the post-pandemic environment, asymmetries in training investment could make it harder for those already lagging. The paper concludes with a discussion of policy implications."

"Financial integration, broadly defined as the intensity of cross-border linkages between financial markets, has the potential to channel capital to where it is most productive, bringing many benefits. However, some financial integration is cyclical, increasing economic upswings and declining during down-turns. Of more long-term benefit is financial integration driven by structural factors such as the reductions in exchange rate risk and the increased regulatory or supervisory convergence associated with the establishment of a currency union, such as Europe’s Economic and Monetary Union. This paper presents a new indicator of de facto financial integration in the European Union. Analysing this indicator alongside different financial and macroeconomic variables makes it possible to separate the impact of cyclical boom-bust shocks from the influence structural factors. It shows that increasing structural financial integration tends to improve risk absorption and reduce income disparities among European countries. However, it also suggests that most of the movements in the indicator reflect business cycle dynamics, rather than structural integration. These results highlight the need to develop further policies to foster structural financial integration in the EU."

"Public debt levels are a very weak predictor of a country’s credit rating if a country’s other features are not taken into account. However, everything else equal, more public debt is associated with worse ratings. This paper explores the relationship between debt and sovereign creditworthiness through the debt thresholds associated with rating changes. It finds that the impact of an increase in public debt is non-linear and crucially depends on a country’s economic situation. Low levels of gross domestic product per capita are associated with a smaller range of possible ratings than higher levels. In countries with a higher gross domestic product per capita, a change in debt levels is thus more likely to result in a rating change. Overall, the non-linear relationship between debt and creditworthiness is substantial, and accounting for it improves the performance of sovereign credit rating models significantly."

"Many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa have liberalised their foreign exchange markets and capital accounts, and have moved to more flexible exchange rates, in recent decades. In this context, the interaction between non-resident investors and export structures centred on primary commodities create a risk of destabilising exchange rate dynamics and further complications for macroeconomic management. This paper presents detailed insights into the micro-characteristics of several African Lower and Lower-Middle Income Countries' foreign exchange markets and the implications of these characteristics for macroeconomic management. It draws on interviews with foreign exchange experts in central banks, banks, non-bank financial institutions, and research institutions in Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Sierra Leone, Uganda, and Zambia, as well as the City of London. The results show that whilst most of these countries have functioning foreign exchange interbank markets, these markets are often characterised by low, volatile and “lumpy” liquidity. These liquidity dynamics and uncertainty about future foreign exchange flows can lead to foreign exchange hoarding by market participants, further depriving the market of liquidity. Those with access to foreign exchange liquidity can gain significant market power and the potential to affect price dynamics, which has meant that central banks in these countries have remained key agents in foreign exchange markets, to manage scarce and volatile liquidity patterns. Overall, the results show the difficulties of moving towards floating exchange rates, for African countries characterised by concentrated export structures, low trust in their currencies, and shallow domestic financial markets."

Past research suggests that economic crisis lead to a reallocation of resources from less productive to more productive firms, with many firms taking action to boost their own productivity. This paper uses data from the EIB Investment Survey and the ORBIS database to analyse how the COVID-19 crisis affected the level of employment and digitalisation efforts of European firms. Moreover, it examines how these changes relate to the pre-crisis performance of firms, in terms of productivity, digitalisation and growth. It finds that firms were less likely to reduce their number of employees, both in the short and in the long term, if they exhibited higher productivity or higher growth, or were in highly digitalised sectors. It also finds that firms were more likely to increase their use of digital technologies during the crisis if they were already relatively advanced users of digital technologies.

During the COVID-19 crisis, the European corporate ecosystem avoided major disruptions, and corporate bankruptcy rates even declined. This outcome mostly resulted from the strength of support from monetary, financial supervisory and fiscal policies. Using the 2021 vintage of the EIB Investment Survey (EIBIS) matched with balance sheet data on firms' profits and losses, this paper investigates what has driven the allocation of fiscal policy support and the impact of this support during the investment recovery. It finds that support was largely directed towards firms that were most affected by the crisis in terms of lost sales, and was not tilted firms already weak before the crisis. It also shows that the firms that benefitted from this support tend to be more optimistic in their investment plans, especially with regard to digital technologies.

When firms suffer losses from extreme weather events, such as storms, foods, droughts or landslides, it has implications for their investment plans and the finance their need. This paper investigates the investment and financing decisions of firms that experience monetary losses due to such extreme weather events. It looks at firms in 41 economies, mainly emerging and developing markets, using data from the EBRD-EIB-World Bank Enterprise Survey. It finds that firms hit by extreme weather are more likely to invest in long-term assets, in a way that fits with the need to either replenish damaged capital or to adapt to climate change. In addition, they are more likely to integrate climate-friendly measures in their production processes. Although these firms have higher needs for bank credit, they are not more likely to be credit constrained than the average firm. Nonetheless, they face higher loan rejection rates and have, on average, more debt than otherwise comparable firms. This suggests that climate change has the potential to erode the quality of firm balance sheets over time.

"Despite the efforts of policy makers to tackle recessions as they happen, there is ample evidence that major economic downturns produce lasting negative effects on real GDP, pointing to the existence of “economic scarring”. This paper takes a fresh look at economic scarring in 26 OECD countries, including 14 EU member states, since 1970 and examines the role played by fiscal policy in limiting these impacts. It finds that higher current expenditure does not mitigate the lasting impact of major economic downturns on real GDP. By contrast, more government investment could help to do so, but this is generally less favoured as a policy response. As a result, scarring effects are significant, confronting governments with higher debt levels, which in turn weigh on the room for manoeuvre in subsequent downturns. In sum, fiscal policy makers face two difficulties in the event of a major economic downturn: adopting the right type of fiscal expansion, and finding the right time to pivot from short-term stabilisation to fiscal consolidation, while protecting investment."

"The last three decades have witnessed substantial changes in the foreign exchange markets in Africa, with moves towards liberalisation and flexible exchange rate regimes. This has increased the influence of financial market conditions and heightened the risk of exchange rate volatility and large and sudden exchange rate movements. This paper investigates the determinants of nominal exchange rates, their volatility, and crash risk in African lower and lower-middle income countries. It combines macro-panel estimations for 15 such countries with insights from interviews with market participants. It shows the importance of these countries' distinctive export structure, concentrated in a few agricultural and mineral-based commodities, as well as recent financial integration, for exchange rate determination. It finds that terms of trade, export concentration, and export prices have a significant impact on the exchange rate level and volatility. By contrast, financial factors including the interest rate differential, international market conditions, and short-term financial flows, influence the likelihood of sudden and large exchange rate movements."

"The sudden onset of the COVID shock has left European economies reeling, resulting in a sudden contraction of demand that has hit some vulnerable firms and sectors in a remarkably uneven way. There is a genuine interest from policymakers to learn about which types of firms have been left in vulnerable circumstances as a result of the crisis. In this paper, we present new evidence on the evolution of investment plans of certain groups of firms suspected of being vulnerable -young and small firms, High-Growth Enterprises (HGEs) and R&D investors. We applied a difference-in-differences approach on panel data regarding forward-looking investment expectations. The results show that all the vulnerable groups are pessimistic about the availability of internal and external finance, with HGEs suddenly expecting less of a positive change in investment, and R&D investors expecting a negative change in investment."

"This sovereign default risk index is a high frequency measure of countries’ default risk, particularly for those lacking market-based measures: it correlates with sovereign credit default swap spreads, predicts rating downgrades, and reflects default risk information not fully captured these spreads. We assess the influence of sovereign default concerns on equity markets, and find that spikes in the index are negatively associated with same-week market returns. This indicates that investors might overreact to default concerns. Equity markets’ reaction to default concerns is more pronounced and persistent for countries with tight fiscal constraints. The response to global, compared to country-specific, default concerns is much stronger, underlining the relevance of global “push” factors for local asset prices."

"The COVID-19 pandemic and its effects affected sectors in different ways, including on the firm-level productivity. Findings show that firms’ responses to the COVID-19 crisis varied within sectors: more productive firms coped with the crisis better in terms of closures and employment adjustments. They were also more likely to speed up some digitalisation processes. These findings imply that the recent crisis could amplify the difference between highly productive and less productive firms. When it comes to the governments’ policy measures, we find strong usage at the firm level, but very little differentiation across productivity quantiles, suggesting room for a more targeted approach for the reminder of the pandemic."

Relying on the EIB Online Survey on Climate Innovations, we investigate the different climate innovations European firms are currently using, their motivations and challenges, and their views on current regulatory frameworks. The analysis confirms that there’s a strong link between climate innovation and firm performance, but also that firms suffer from the low availability of finance. To create more successful firms in the climate sector, European policymakers should strengthen policies that reduce regulatory uncertainty and work actively to improve access to finance conditions, in particular for start-ups.

"This study uses unique firm-level data from EIBIS to identify EU firms' climate strategies and the firm characteristics associated with them. Through a clustering analysis, the these strategies are divided into five distinct clusters, in line with the correspondent literature. We then investigate the role of various firms' characteristics in their adoption based on a multi-logit regression. The findings show that almost half of the EU firms either adopt ""wait-and-see"" strategies or plan to invest in tackling climate change risks. More climate-friendly strategies appear to be positively associated with awareness of climate-related risks, especially with firms that see the transition to a low-carbon future as an opportunity. Similarly, those strategies are followed by large firms that are innovative, face fewer credit constraints and operate in an environment where there is a strong push for climate action from various stakeholders. These findings can guide policymakers on supporting firms' transformation to play their part, as an integral part of our society, in the road to a clean, affordable, and secure energy future."