ABSTRACT. We study how party factionalization affects policy-making. We develop an accountability model where the incumbent party is internally divided into factions which can sabotage the implementation of a reform. Voters are uncertain about whether a reform is needed and how divided the party is. A united party is valued by the electorate because of its effectiveness. In equilibrium, this might lead it to produce unnecessary reforms, that increase nonetheless support from the voters (who may even be aware that the policies are suboptimal). We show that factions can improve voter welfare precisely because voters want to punish internal division. However, the welfare effects can be non-monotonic: an intermediate level of expected factionalization optimally balances the trade-off between reform effectiveness and equilibrium incentives to choose the correct policy.

ABSTRACT. We study the behavior of politicians when they have vast discretion over the allocation of public resources. We examine a unique case study from Italy, where the exogenous pandemic shock prompted Lombardy's regional government to approve a large extraordinary spending package. Most of these funds were swiftly allocated to numerous small projects through ad hoc motions proposed and signed by individual members of the regional parliament and subsequently approved through bipartisan resolutions. We leverage Large Language Models to text-mine thousands of parliamentary documents and assemble a fine grained politician-fund dataset containing detailed information on how and where these resources were distributed and which politician signed them. We document widespread pork-barrel strategies bargained with informal arrangements and driven by personal electoral rent-seeking, benefiting both majority and opposition politicians. By scraping social media data, we pinpoint the key mechanism: politicians credit claiming to boost visibility and advance their political careers.

ABSTRACT. This paper aims to explain the large differences in the number of local jurisdictions and of government levels across the countries of the world by looking at how historical events shape the populations’ preferences for general public goods, more efficiently provided by higher tiered, larger jurisdictions, and local public goods, better supplied by smaller, lower tiered jurisdictions. Previous analyses explained these influences away by using fixed effects specifications. We instead find that a history of foreign invasions decreases the number of local jurisdictions and raises the number of government tiers, the same effect found for internal risks such as natural calamities. The shape of the land and linguistic fragmentation also generate preferences for local goods and increases horizontal fragmentation. The type of government also matters, as dictatorial regimes are flatter and less fragmented than democracies. These results are robust to alternative specifications of the empirical model and estimation techniques, including the joint determination of horizontal and vertical fragmentation.

ABSTRACT. This paper investigates the inequality of opportunity in Sierra Leone and the Gam- bia, focusing on the dimensions of income and literacy. Using an ex-ante parametric normative framework combined with regression tree machine learning techniques, the study examines trends in income, consumption, and literacy to elucidate inequality patterns. A detailed Shapley decomposition analysis identifies and quantifies the key factors driving inequality in these domains. A novel aspect of this research is the literacy cohort analysis, which structures cohorts based on significant historical events in each country. The findings indicate that educational opportunities are more equitably distributed among younger cohorts, signaling a shift toward greater equity. Furthermore, targeted policies such as Sierra Leone’s Bunumbu Project and initiatives to reduce school fees for girls in The Gambia have significantly enhanced literacy rates among these cohorts, contributing to a reduction in the urban-rural divide. Despite these improvements, the analysis highlights that gender disparities persist, underscoring the need for a continued focus on gender-inclusive policies.

ABSTRACT. This study employed a two-stage experimental design to untangle the underlying causes of gender- and ethnicity-based employment discrimination in Ethiopia while utilizing an incorrect statistical framework. First, paired résumés of applicants, balanced by gender and ethnicity, were randomly sent to evaluators for hiring decisions. Then we elicited evaluators' beliefs about the productivity of applicants. In the second stage, we revealed the average exam performance of applicants by gender and ethnicity, and then we sent extra résumés to make a second hiring decision. The findings show that evaluators hold incorrect beliefs that the productivity of women and ethnic minorities is belittled, whereas the productivity of men and the ethnic majority is inflated. Women and ethnic minority applicants have a lower employment opportunity compared to men and the ethnic majority. The sources of discrimination differ depending on our assumption about whether evaluators’ beliefs are accurate or inaccurate. Apart from taste-based and statistical discrimination, inaccurate beliefs also drive the observed employment gap. However, the majority of gender-based employment disparities are due to in(accurate) statistical discrimination, whereas ethnic-based employment disparities are driven by taste-based discrimination. Our study concluded that the standard outcome-based methods attribute discrimination to taste-based and statistical discrimination driven by inaccurate beliefs. By applying a two-stage design, future studies can identify the underlying sources of discrimination in various domains. We argue that our study provides a new avenue for theoretical and practical works in the study of discrimination and employer learning processes. We suggested the need for promoting objective performance metrics-based hiring practices and policies that combat persistent biases.

ABSTRACT. The UN 2030 Agenda identifies 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), among which Goal 16 (Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions) includes corruption as the focus of a specific target: “16.5 Substantially reduce corruption and bribery in all their forms”. However, the Agenda also identifies Goal 10 “Reduce inequality within and among countries” as an important objective. The SDGs are integrated, that is, they recognize that action in one area will affect outcomes in others. And in fact, there is now a widely shared consensus that corruption is one of the main obstacles to economic, political, and social development, as well as a factor that exacerbates inequalities and distorts the implementation of public policies. However, to prevent and combat corruption, it is essential to deeply understand this latent phenomenon, which is not easy to measure. A step forward in understanding the phenomenon was made by the National Anti-Corruption Authority, which provided the public with 70 indicators capable of measuring the risk of corruption in provincial areas, including the Gini index of economic inequality. The reasons for considering this economic indicator are mainly related to the social sphere: greater economic inequality is associated with a higher likelihood of criminal behavior; furthermore, if individuals feel they are being treated unfairly, their tendency to seek shortcuts to achieve their economic well-being may increase. Some indicators draws inspiration from the methodology used in recent years for measuring complex multidimensional phenomena (e.g. BES): the structuring into pillars (Criminality, Education, Economy, Social Capital) and the calculation of composite indicators. It is notable that two of the dimensions analyzed - human capital (education) and social capital - are considered by modern economic literature as key determinants of economic growth, social well-being and the reducing of inequality and corruption.

ABSTRACT. This study investigates task allocation and substitution effects between general practitioners (GPs) and nurses in primary care settings, leveraging comprehensive electronic healthcare records from the UK. Using a novel copula-based Hidden Markov Bivariate Poisson model, we analyze patient-level data to assess how the allocation of responsibilities impacts service delivery. Our findings reveal significant substitution effects: increased nurse consultations reduce subsequent GP visits and vice versa, highlighting potential efficiencies in workforce planning. The analysis also underscores the importance of continuity of care, with patients more likely to engage consistently with the same type of healthcare provider. By examining utilization patterns across diverse patient cohorts, the study provides actionable insights for optimizing resource allocation in primary care, particularly in the context of GP shortages and evolving healthcare demands. These results have implications for policy development, emphasizing the need for targeted strategies that balance workload distribution while maintaining care quality and accessibility.

ABSTRACT. This paper analyzes the determinants of Covid-19 vaccine hesitancy by distinguishing between actual vaccine uptake and perceived vaccine unsafety. Using microdata from 2,317 individuals across 11 European countries, and applying multivariate probit models, we assess how sociodemographic factors, trust in science, health system characteristics, and risk attitudes shape both vaccination behavior and safety perceptions. Results show that trust in scientists, the presence of a National Health Service, and higher income levels significantly reduce both vaccine hesitancy and misperception of vaccine safety. Age and education are negatively associated with perceived unsafety but not significantly with uptake. Female respondents show greater mistrust in vaccine safety but do not exhibit lower uptake, suggesting the role of external incentives or constraints. Risk aversion increases vaccine uptake but does not influence perceived safety. The findings highlight the importance of separating behavioral compliance from belief-driven hesitancy, informing more nuanced public health policies.

ABSTRACT. This study utilizes 8 waves of US Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and its "Leave-Behind" module, which contains data on personality traits, covering the period 2006-2020 to explore the extent to which locus of control impacts on the uptake of cancer screening. In the United States, cancer screening rates are below the target. In 2023, 79.8% of women aged 50-74 years had a mammogram within the past 2 years, and only 38% of men aged 55-69 years were up-to-date with PSA test. Therefore, shedding insights on the determinants of cancer screening behaviour is very relevant from the policy point of view. The literature indicates that, among other individual characteristics, personality traits can influence cancer screening behaviours. Among the personality traits, we focus on the role played by locus of control, a particular trait which refers to an individual's perception about the underlying main causes of events in his/her life (i.e. “do you believe that your destiny is controlled by yourself or by external forces (such as fate, god, or powerful others?”). The empirical analysis exploits information about individuals living in the US, older than 50 and either married or cohabiting. The sample is made by approximately 5,000 observations. We estimate panel data model with random effects. The dependent variables are two binary variables, which are equal to 1 if the individual has undergone breast/prostate cancer screening in the last two years, 0 otherwise. The key independent variable is locus of control, assessed using a six-point Likert scale. To account for husband-wife correlation in their intention to undergo screening, we employ a Generalized Structural Equation Model (GSEM), which simultaneously estimates two probit models for breast and prostate cancer screening uptaking, while allowing for correlation between error terms. Our findings suggest that locus of control of both husbands and wives (or cohabiting partners) has a positive and statistically significant effect on the likelihood of undergoing prostate and breast cancer screening, respectively.

ABSTRACT. Using an enhanced modelling method, this paper presents new estimates of the Informal Economy (IE) for 152 countries from 1997 to 2022. We address several limitations from previous estimates of the IE, notably missing data issues, time-invariant country characteristics, and scaling issues with exogenous estimates of informality. By incorporating country-specific fixed effects, the model offers more reliable results. Our findings reveal significant variation in the drivers of IE between high-income and non-high-income countries. In terms of normative implications, our results underscore the need for tailored policies in dealing with the formalisation of informal activities in countries with different income levels.

ABSTRACT. This study investigates the relationship between perceived social mobility (PSM), proxied by the belief that success depends on personal effort rather than luck, and tax morale, defined as individuals’ intrinsic willingness to pay taxes. While prior research links intergenerational mobility to actual equality and tax compliance, the role of subjective perceptions of mobility remains underexplored. Using data from the seventh wave of the World Values Survey, which cover citizens belonging to 63 countries, this paper provides empirical evidence that higher PSM is associated with higher tax morale. Individuals who view society as meritocratic express greater willingness to contribute to the public expenditures, while subjects who attribute personal success to luck show lower tax morale. The relationship is strongest among upwardly mobile respondents, and weakest among those who experienced downward mobility. These results are robust across multiple econometric strategies, including instrumental variables estimation. This evidence highlight how individual fiscal preferences can be based on citizens’ perception of the society as meritocratic, and that not only the actual but also the perceived social mobility may strengthen tax morale and encourage greater voluntary compliance.

ABSTRACT. Tax evasion continues to pose a critical threat to the stability of Italy’s public finances, with substantial losses at both national and local levels. While much attention has been directed toward evasion in major national taxes, relatively little is known about compliance with local levies. This study investigates tax compliance in the context of Italy’s municipal waste tax (TARI), a key yet underexplored component of local fiscal revenue. Leveraging a unique panel dataset encompassing all Italian municipalities from 2016 to 2022, we examine how municipal fiscal autonomy, expenditure composition, and the quality of local waste management services influence compliance behaviour. Although the literature on tax evasion is extensive, it has predominantly addressed individual and macroeconomic determinants such as tax morale, perceived tax burden, regulatory complexity, and labor market conditions (Torgler and Schneider, 2007; Schneider and Enste, 2002; Schneider et al., 2010). Another stream of research has explored the relationship between corruption and the shadow economy (Johnson et al., 1997; Dreher & Schneider, 2010). By contrast, limited attention has been paid to the role of public expenditure and the quality of public services - particularly in decentralized governance contexts - in shaping tax compliance behaviour. Among the few related contributions, D’Agostino et al. (2021) analyse this relationship using Italian data at the provincial level. Drawing on multiple administrative sources - including OpenBDAP, the Ministry of Economy and Finance, ISPRA, the Italian Revenue Agency, and ISTAT - we implement a multilevel empirical strategy. First, an instrumental variable approach is used to estimate allocations to the Fund for Doubtful Receivables (Fondo Crediti di Dubbia Esigibilità), an indicator of anticipated tax shortfalls. We then conduct panel regressions to identify the key determinants of TARI collection, incorporating measures of fiscal and financial autonomy, public expenditure priorities, and service quality. To address the pronounced territorial disparities in tax compliance, we further apply weighted regression techniques. Our findings reveal that higher municipal fiscal autonomy and targeted public spending - especially when aligned with core service provision - are positively correlated with improved tax compliance. Moreover, the perceived quality of waste services, as proxied by recycling rates, significantly enhances compliance. Income levels and cadastral values of residential properties also play a positive role, whereas elevated cadastral values for commercial properties are associated with lower compliance rates. These results underscore the importance of local governance structures and expenditure quality in shaping taxpayers’ behaviour, offering policy-relevant insights into the design of more effective local tax systems.

ABSTRACT. This paper investigates the drivers of (de)centralisation of environmental protection expenditure across the 27 European Union Member States between 1995 and 2022. Drawing on the theoretical frameworks of fiscal and environmental federalism, we analyse how environmental pressures — specifically the distinction between local and global pollutant emissions, and the occurrence of uninsured natural disasters — influence the decentralisation of environmental spending relative to total public expenditure. Using harmonised multilevel data from Eurostat, we also assess the moderating role of institutional settings, measured by the Regional Authority Index, and political preferences for environmental and decentralisation reforms, using data from the Manifesto Project. The results reveal that a higher prevalence of locally impactful pollutant emissions fosters decentralisation, whereas greater exposure to uninsured disaster-related damages prompts a shift toward re-centralisation. Furthermore, while strong regional institutions appear to moderate buffer the centralising effects of environmental shocks, political preferences exert a limited influence. These findings offer new insights into the complex interactions between environmental risks, fiscal governance, and institutional resilience in the EU context.

ABSTRACT. Market-based climate policies, such as the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS), aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while minimizing economic distortions, yet their full impact on firm survival remains debated. While existing research has confirmed the role of the EU ETS in reducing overall emissions, most studies compare regulated and unregulated firms, overlooking variations in policy stringency among ETS-covered plants. Using a difference-in-differences approach, I analyze the emissions of French industrial plants, categorizing them based on permit allocation stringency and pre-existing permit banking. I find that plants subject to stricter permit constraints reduced emissions more than their sectoral peers, but that a portion of these reductions stemmed from plant exits. A survival analysis confirms that plants facing higher compliance costs due to stricter permit allocation policy were significantly more likely to exit, possibly reshaping industry dynamics. These findings highlight that observed emissions reductions under the EU ETS stem partly from exits rather than uniform abatement, raising questions about potential impacts of the policy on sector competitiveness.

ABSTRACT. The climate crisis has brought the energy transition to the forefront of global scientific and political debate. Shifting from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources (RES) is essential to achieving environmental sustainability, and green investments are widely recognised as key drivers of this process. In particular, the literature highlights the role of green foreign direct investments (GFDIs) in fostering innovation and clean technologies, which are in turn considered crucial for scaling up RES production. Green investments are thus often seen as drivers of innovation, while innovation itself acts as a catalyst for renewable energy generation. This study brings together these two strands of literature to assess whether similar dynamics are at play in the Italian context. Specifically, it investigates the extent to which green investments –distinguishing between domestic and foreign, innovative and non-innovative – contribute to electricity production from RES in Italy, and which types of firms are leading this transition. We use a firm-level dataset covering the period 2014 – 2023 and apply a dual empirical strategy combining Generalized Least Squares (GLS) panel regressions with Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), allowing us to capture both the marginal effects of green investments and the technical efficiency of firms. Our findings reveal that innovation is linked to both higher output and greater efficiency, with foreign innovative firms leading in performance. Cartographic evidence shows that these investments are predominantly concentrated in Northern Italy, reflecting regional disparities in technological infrastructure. These results underscore the need to consider both firm-level characteristics and territorial factors in shaping effective and inclusive green industrial strategies.

ABSTRACT. This study explores over 130 years of gender representation in the Financial Times, providing a rare long-term perspective on gender dynamics from 1888 to 2021. By examining millions of articles, the research uses name frequency to measure gender visibility, revealing a marked and enduring underrepresentation of women. Despite modest progress in recent decades, women’s presence has historically remained low, with significant declines between the 1930s and early 1950s and stagnation in the following decades. The results reflect deeply rooted gender imbalances, mirroring the power structures and prominent social roles that newspapers document through their daily coverage of events and influential figures.

ABSTRACT. Recent explanations of the gender wage gap emphasize the role of gender differences in job search, yet the role of childcare constraints remains underexplored. This paper uses French administrative data to investigate how childcare constraints shape women’s reservation wage and job search strategies. First, I assess the types of occupations that men and women apply for and the implications for the reservation wage gap. Using text analysis, I create a novel dataset classifying occupations based on amenities and job content. Quantile decomposition methods allow me to document an unequal gap in reservation wage, intensifying along the distribution, partially explained by gender biased choices in the temporal flexibility associated with the desired job. Given that gender differences in targeted amenities may be shaped by childcare constraints, could a reduction in childcare costs change women’s job search strategies? To address this question, I assess to which extent a 2018 reform, which increased childcare benefits for single-parent households by 30%, influenced the reservation wage and temporal flexibility of women. Using a difference-in-difference strategy and spatial variation in childcare service availability, results indicate that the reduction in childcare costs led women to lower their reservation wages. However, I also find that more affordable access to flexible childcare increases the likelihood of targeting occupations requiring greater temporal flexibility and the desired maximum commute, thereby enabling them to secure more stable jobs and improve their reemployment outcomes. Lastly, I show that policies of childcare cost reduction are only truly effective when combined with childcare services availability

ABSTRACT. Across the world, women carry out a larger share of housework (including childcare) compared to men, which can negatively affect both fertility and women’s career. The time allocated to housework depends on spouses’ comparative advantage, on the competing uses of time, and long-term, personal or external factors that have often been unobservable in the data. I use detailed time use data from Italy within a new dynamic life-cycle model of marriage, employment and fertility, where individuals choose their time allocation to formal work, housework, and leisure. The key contribution of the model is that it can estimate to what extent each of these factors determine differences in housework among spouses. To rationalize gender differences, the model estimates that men’s housework productivity should be about one fourth as women’s. In a counterfactual exercise, a zero gender wage gap paired with free, perfectly available nursery schools, increases fertility to 2.2 (+56.1%) children per woman and married women’s employment rate to 0.57 (+15.6%). If men were as home productive as women, the results would be 2.55 (+81%) and 0.98 (+99.8%) respectively. I also simulate the transition after increasing nursery school availability to 33%: 3 and 9 years after the policy, respectively, fertility increases by 1.8% and 6.1%, married women’s employment increases by 2.8% and 3.4%, and tax revenues increase by 0.11% and 0.17%. Gender differences in contribution to housework account for up to 70% of the child penalty in women’s earnings. The Italian data supports regional-specific analyses. The model can be used to produce comparable results across European countries using the Harmonised European Time Use Surveys.

ABSTRACT. Italy has recently undergone a major reform of its hospital healthcare system, driven by the so-called Spending Review. This reorganization, particularly following Ministerial Decree 70 of 2015, led to a sharp reduction in public and private accredited hospital facilities, primarily affecting hospitals and departments serving smaller catchment areas. While interest is growing in how this contraction affects specific health outcomes, such as heart attacks mortality and quality of care, existing evidence remains limited. This study aims to bridge that gap by analyzing the spatial equilibrium effects of the reform. Using unique data from the Ministry of Health on hospital departments and healthcare facilities, merged with municipality-level data from the Italian National Statistics Institute, we first examine how reductions in hospital bed availability by specialty influence patient and workforce reallocation in neighboring facilities. We then explore how this reallocation affects the quality of care in receiving hospitals. Finally, we assess the economic impact of these shifts, measuring changes in housing values and local GDP in affected areas. Preliminary findings suggest that hospital downsizing triggers a significant reallocation of both patients and healthcare professionals, leading to substantial economic spillover effects in surrounding areas. Overall, our study highlights how the reform has likely had unintended consequences on both local economies and healthcare services, raising important considerations for future policy decisions.

ABSTRACT. The economic literature consistently highlights the importance of early childhood education services for child development, women's participation in the labor market (and consequently fertility decisions), and regional development. The goal of revitalizing the economy in the wake of the pandemic has been accompanied by a significant increase in public investment, primarily thanks to the European NextGenEU program. In Italy’s implementation of NextGenEU, investments in early childhood education services occupy a central role, reflecting the cross-cutting priorities of reducing territorial and gender disparities, which are both particularly pronounced in this country. This paper first provides a snapshot of territorial disparities in terms of access to early childhood education services before the implementation of these investments. Then, it presents a summary of the main interventions enacted in recent years, their territorial distribution, and the concrete possibilities for levelling differences between regions, metropolitan areas, and more peripheral areas. The analysis takes into account the Italian regulatory framework, which sets a local-scale target for early childhood service coverage. Finally, the paper offers a preliminary first assessment of the effectiveness of the interventions and some considerations around potential future developments.

ABSTRACT. The study investigates the causal impact of additional financial aid awarded to students living far from university on academic performance, leveraging an Italian policy that supports the relocation of scholarship beneficiaries to the university city. Since the treatment status is probabilistically determined as a discontinuous function of students’ travel time to reach the university site, we use a fuzzy regression discontinuity design model to compare the academic achievements of scholarship beneficiaries enrolled in a medium-sized public university who reside around the time threshold. Our findings show that students who relocate to the university city accumulate university credits more slowly than their commuting counterparts. Additionally, they do not substitute "quantity" for "quality" as their average grades are lower than those of commuters. A mediation analysis suggests that the findings may be driven by the challenges of time management faced by students living alone and the inadequacy of scholarships to cover living expenses in the host city.

ABSTRACT. We study the roles of quantity and quality of public education in an overlapping generations model in which the working adult cares for her child's education as well as for her elderly parent's consumption, and spends time providing assistance to her parent. A more educated agent has more ability, hence she earns more and provides better assistance: the latter point implies a selfish motive for which an adult may want to educate her kid. First, we identify the optimal quality-quantity mix that a parent optimally chooses for her child as a function of the policy instruments (school fees, income tax and pensions). Then, we discuss within a steady-state framework how the efficient determination of the policy tools affects the quantity-quality mix from a social perspective. We find that school fees as a means of financing education are good in terms of work incentives and generally favour the generation of working adults, but, possibly, at the expense of a negative impact on the well-being of the young and of the elderly. The opposite would be true if education is mostly financed through the income tax.

ABSTRACT. This paper studies the causal effect of Covid-19, which triggered both an educational and economic crisis, on high school track choices in Italy, where students must select a school path early within a rigidly tracked system. In the absence of a never treated control group, I estimate a TWFE model that exploits regional differences in the duration of school closures as variation in treatment intensity. Preliminary results based on school-level data (MIUR) suggest a shift away from job-oriented tracks toward more prestigious academic programs, which pave the way to university and greater long-term stability. Future work will incorporate student-level data (INVALSI) to explore mechanisms and heterogeneity in responses.

ABSTRACT. This paper empirically tests whether dissolving Mafia-infiltrated municipal councils enhances public procurement efficiency in neighbouring Italian municipalities. Utilizing a comprehensive dataset of over 47,000 public work contracts (2007–2023) and employing a rigorous empirical strategy incorporating fixed effects, matching procedures, and placebo tests to isolate causal effects, we identify significant positive spillover effects. Procurement efficiency, assessed through winning rebates, cost overruns, and a novel total savings metric, improves substantially, primarily concentrated in the second year following a dissolution event nearby, before dissipating. Heterogeneity analyses reveal these effects are amplified when municipalities share the same provincial jurisdiction or economic linkages (shared contractors) and are significant only in regions with high historical Mafia presence (Southern Italy). The findings confirm that enhanced contract management efficiency underlies these spillovers, suggesting anti-corruption interventions generate broader regional improvements in governance, highlighting the importance of legal deterrence and the institutional context. This provides evidence that targeted crackdowns on organized crime can yield positive externalities for surrounding areas, informing the design of regional anti-corruption strategies.

ABSTRACT. This paper examines the institutional approach to individual trust in public institutions by investigating whether confiscation of real-estate assets from participants in organised crime influences individuals’ trust in government institutions and in the legal system. The case of Italy is considered, where public institutions have adopted a unique and effective policy of confiscating illicit assets from Mafia-type organisations. The empirical analysis combines data on individual trust from the Aspects of Daily Life survey conducted by the Italian National Institute of Statistics with regional-level data on confiscations provided by the National Agency for the Administration and Destination of Seized and Confiscated Assets for the period 2014–2019. Using non-linear and linear regression methods, and the instrumental variables approach, we found that confiscation of real estate assets from mafia organisations increases trust in government institutions, especially in regional governments, but has a weak impact on trust in the legal system. The positive effect on trust is stronger in regions with large numbers of confiscations, typically in the South, where confiscation also increases trust in the legal system. In other geographic areas, the positive effect is limited to trust in local tiers of government.

ABSTRACT. Organized crime groups are known to provide electoral support to politicians, but the rewards they obtain in return remain poorly understood. We develop a theoretical framework suggesting that modern mafia support hinges on parties’ willingness to weaken anti-mafia policies, specifically by neglecting the reallocation of confiscated mafia assets. Judicial records indicate that when these assets remain unassigned, crime families can quietly repossess them, turning policy inertia into a hidden payoff. Using data from Sicilian municipalities between 1992 and 2022, we first detect vote manipulation in tightly contested majoritarian races—particularly in smaller towns—indicating strategic vote buying by the mafia. A regression discontinuity design, restricted to comparable municipalities quasi-randomly sorted around the threshold, reveals that narrowly won Forza Italia victories trigger a sharp fall in asset reallocations only within mafia-controlled areas. To measure variation in vote‑buying capacity, we exploit the mafia’s abrupt 1987 withdrawal of support from the Christian Democrats. Municipalities suffering larger DC vote losses—our proxy for historical mafia influence—experience steeper post‑election cuts in asset reallocations, but only during Berlusconi’s governments. Instrumenting modern Forza Italia support with these historical shifts further supports a causal relation between mafia vote buying and national‑level policy concessions.

ABSTRACT. This paper investigates the impact of Covid-19 exposure on hospital workers’ decision-making and pro-social behavior. Using experimental survey data, we find that having worked in Covid-19 wards leads to an increased preference for therapies that maximize patients’ benefits, even after controlling for individual characteristics. This effect is mostly driven by doctors whose involvement in Covid-19 wards was not due to specific expertise, suggesting that strengthened altruism among already altruist physicians is a key underlying mechanism. We show that having a friend or close relative who experienced severe Covid-19 symptoms is also associated with increased pro-social behavior, while being infected has the opposite impact.

ABSTRACT. This paper examines the dynamic effects of living alone on objective physical and mental health outcomes, with a particular focus on the mediating role of loneliness. Using a Two-Way Fixed Effects Difference-in-Difference design, we exploit the event of transition to living alone by analyzing data from the HRS and SHARE surveys, covering the over-50 population in 20 EU countries and the US. Health outcomes include the likelihood of having psychiatric diseases, the number of co-morbidities, the probability of being hospitalized as a proxy for acute shocks, and mortality. The findings reveal that: i) living alone has generally adverse and in some cases persistent effects on health, ii) loneliness is not merely a correlate, but a key mechanism through which living alone affects health, iii) the adverse effects are more pronounced among widows, men, older adults, low-income individuals, and those residing in the US and Western EU countries, where living alone is more common. Our findings bring out living alone and loneliness as pressing concerns that need to be addressed as a global public health priority, especially in light of demographic trends in advanced societies.

ABSTRACT. Drawing on sociological theories and research, strengths-based approaches have been put forward as an effective alternative to traditional, deficit-based approaches in adult social care. In the United Kingdom, a prominent piece of legislation, hence affording the opportunity to provide an original contribution to the evidence base. To estimate the reform effect on adult social care outcomes, we conducted a series of econometric analyses and robustness check on 2010-2019 survey data on a large representative sample of adult social care outcome recipients in England (n= 1,659,564). Six dependent variables were considered capturing service effectiveness and recipients’ experience with social care services. Estimates indicated that the reform led to improvements in recipients’ perceived quality of life, safety, and control over daily activities. Other dimensions, particularly satisfaction with the care and support services received, also improved but to a lesser degree and showing lagged effects. Importantly, distributional effects were observed, where the positive mean changes in service effectiveness and recipients' experience were mostly driven by improvements at the lower end of the outcome spectrum. Future research should delve deeper into the complexities of adult social care implementation and policy evaluation, and ultimately improve decision-making and outcomes for care recipients and providers.

ABSTRACT. This paper studies how voter polarization reduces overall voter welfare through its effects on policymaking in electoral competition, when voters exhibit tolerance toward certain ideologies— perceiving ideologies as either goods or bads. I develop a model of Downsian electoral competition in a two-dimensional policy space, where each policy is defined by both its ideology and its scale of implementation. Voters tolerate some ideologies in the sense that they prefer higher scale for ideologies they perceive as goods, and more lower scale for those seen as bads. In equilibrium, candidates adopt policies aligned with the ideology tolerated by the median voter, but the scale of implementation decreases either as polarization increases or as voters become more intolerant. Unlike prior work, my results shed light on how polarization leads to a welfare decline for all voters in the absence of additional mechanisms: Moderates are harmed by reduced policy scale, while extremists are harmed by the unchanging ideological content of the median voter’s preferred policy. The driving mechanism is that the median voter is no longer pivotal in determining policy scale—candidates also respond to the preferences of more extreme voters, breaking the classic Hotelling-Downs logic that centers policy solely around the median.

ABSTRACT. We investigate the role of state capacity and political violence in favoring regime changes. Specifically, we examine the role of road networks in the spread of fascist violence in early 1920s Italy. Using novel and comprehensive data on fascist violence, along with digitized maps of the Italian road network, we investigate the impact of road accessibility on the location and intensity of political violence, addressing endogeneity issues by means of an instrumental variable approach based on the least-cost path virtual network among major municipalities as an instrument for the actual historical road network. We find that road accessibility played an important role in the spread of early fascist violence. Our conclusions suggest that incumbents might have a strategic incentive to limit the development of state capacity in order to maintain political power.

ABSTRACT. In May 2023, a severe flood affected 44 municipalities in Emilia-Romagna, causing an estimated €8,5 billion in damage. One year later, in June 2024, local elections took place in 85% of the affected municipalities. On the same day, European elections were also held. We conducted an experiment on a sample of 2,062 individuals living in Emilia-Romagna who were eligible to vote. The experiment involved three different treatments, each providing truthful but incomplete information about the political accountability of various tiers of government concerning both flood prevention measures and delays in the provision of post-disaster relief. The first treatment highlighted the inertia of the central government, the second treatment focused on the inefficiency of the mayor. The third treatment combined both pieces of information. The control group does not receive any information. For the municipal elections, we observe that under the first treatment, 17% of individuals who had previously voted for a right-wing party chose not to vote, leading to an increase in abstention. A similar effect occurred under the second treatment, where 15% who had previously voted for the left (the majority of local government are left wing) also preferred not to vote. When both pieces of information were provided together, no significant effect was observed. In contrast, for the European elections, we found no significant effects, suggesting that the shift in voting behavior was not ideological but rather tied to local circumstances.

ABSTRACT. Focusing on the period 2007-2021, this paper applies the Analysis of Gini (ANOGI) methodology introduced by Yitzhaki (1994) to the decomposition of EU-SILC household- level income data, to investigate the evolution of income distribution among EU Mem- ber States. Our findings show that aggregate income inequality has decreased in the European Union between 2007 and 2021, mainly driven by a drop in between-country inequality, aided by a reduction of the dispersive effect of within-country overlapping inequality. Within-country inequality and between-country overlapping inequality have instead remained broadly stable. The analysis of the bilateral within-country overlapping components also show that they are explained by macroeconomic factors such as cultural distance, geographical separation, technological differences, trade intensity, migration flows, and public expenditure patterns. The results indicate that closer cultural ties and stronger economic interactions are associated with greater overlap, suggesting that these determinants foster convergence in income distributions across the EU.

ABSTRACT. Does capital or labor income drive overall relative income mobility? This article examines the dynamics of capital and labor intra-generational income mobility, utilizing individual-level income registers from Norway covering almost 300,000 individuals observed over 26 years. It introduces a novel methodological framework to decompose total income mobility into the contributions of its components across the life cycle. We present three key findings on the subject. First, different capital and labor income mobility measures along the respective uni-dimensional distributions do not convey clear income-factor mobility orderings. Second, upward total income mobility is mainly driven by upward labor income mobility and by the joint upward mobility of capital and labor. Third, downward total income mobility is mainly driven by downward capital income mobility and by the joint downward mobility of capital and labor. These results are robust to considering only high upward or downward jumps and are discussed in light of recent theoretical and empirical findings on the dynamics of compositional inequality and homoploutia in capital and labor, both within countries and globally.

ABSTRACT. Segregation analysis is concerned with the way in which mutually exclusive groups are dissimilarly distributed across non-overlapping organizational units. We axiomatically derive a novel multi-group measure of segregation, the Gini Segregation index, which values segregation as a form of dissimilarity between groups distributions. The index coincides with the volume spanned by the zonotope representation of the data (a generalization of the segregation curve to more than two groups) and is hence consistent with robust segregation partial orders discussed in the literature. The axiomatic model that we consider could also be useful to characterize volume based measures of multivariate inequality.

ABSTRACT. This study investigates geographic disparities in healthcare access and outcomes among elderly patients undergoing hip and knee surgeries in Italy, focusing on urban versus rural settings. Using administrative hospital data from 2011 to 2016 and applying instrumental variable techniques to address endogeneity, we estimate the causal impact of place of residence on post-acute care outcomes. While rural patients exhibited higher comorbidity scores and were more frequently admitted to directly managed hospitals, urban patients benefited from greater access to specialized institutions. Our results reveal that urban residence is significantly associated with shorter hospital stays but higher probabilities of readmission at 30, 90, 180, and 365 days post-discharge. These patterns may reflect both more efficient acute care in urban settings and challenges in accessing post-hospitalization services in rural areas. The findings underscore the importance of targeted interventions to strengthen healthcare infrastructure in underserved regions and highlight the need for place-sensitive health policy to ensure equitable care delivery across geographic contexts.

ABSTRACT. This study investigates the interplay between income inequality, health spending, and patient mobility within the context of the Italian healthcare system. By analyzing a balanced panel of 15 Italian regions from 2003 to 2019, we assess how income inequality influences regional health expenditure policies and explore the moderating role of interregional compensation for patient mobility. Our findings indicate that both income inequality and patient mobility significantly shape regional health spending decisions. Specifically, higher income inequality leads to increased health expenditure, while credits from interregional health mobility positively affect spending, albeit with varying intensity based on the level of regional income inequality. Importantly, our analysis reveals that the effectiveness of mobility-based credits in supporting healthcare spending weakens in regions with high income inequality, suggesting that regional disparities can limit the financial benefits of patient mobility inflows. These results underscore the potential risks of further decentralizing healthcare governance in Italy, in the light of the complex interplay between patient mobility, health spending and income inequality at regional level, highlighting the need for targeted policies to mitigate the negative externalities of patient migration and promote equitable healthcare provision across regions.

ABSTRACT. This paper investigates the causal impact of broadband internet diffusion on patient mobility in decentralized healthcare systems, focusing on Italy as a case study. Using comprehensive provincial-level data from 2013 to 2019 on broadband coverage and all hospital-based oncological procedures, we examine whether improved internet access affects patients’ decisions to seek treatment outside their region of residence. We find that increased broadband availability significantly reduces patient mobility for cancer care, particularly for complex conditions with lower five-year survival rates—such as pancreatic and lung cancer. The effect is more pronounced among younger patients and those residing in Southern Italy, where perceptions of local care quality are more negative. By contrast, the impact is weaker among older patients and individuals traveling from Central Italy. Our findings suggest that enhanced digital connectivity lowers information frictions, enabling patients to better evaluate local healthcare options and thereby reducing unnecessary cross-regional mobility. This paper contributes to two strands of literature: the role of information in healthcare markets and the broader effects of internet infrastructure on health-related decision-making. Our results underscore the importance of digital inclusion policies in mitigating regional healthcare disparities and improving patient decision-making in decentralized health systems.

ABSTRACT. This paper evaluates the impact of the “Certified Warnings Program", a tax en- forcement initiative in Italy that enabled municipalities to collaborate with the na- tional tax authority in detecting tax evasion. Using a difference-in-differences ap- proach, we find that taxpayers in municipalities that adopted the program were more likely to be audited and reported significantly higher taxable income. Additionally, mayors who implemented the program during their first term were 8.9 percentage points more likely to be reelected, suggesting substantial political benefits. Our find- ings highlight the effectiveness of localized tax enforcement in improving tax compli- ance and its potential as a political strategy.

ABSTRACT. We investigate a two-period Bayesian persuasion game, where the receiver faces a decision, akin to a one-armed bandit problem: to undertake an action, gaining noisy information and a corresponding positive or negative payoff, or to refrain. The sender’s objective is to dissuade the receiver from taking action by furnish- ing information about the payoff. Our findings describe the optimal strategy for the amount and timing of information disclosure. In scenarios where the sender possesses knowledge of the receiver’s first-period action or observes a noisy pub- lic signal correlated with it, the optimal strategy entails revealing information in the second period. If this alone proves to be insufficient to dissuade the receiver from acting, supplementary information is provided in the first period. In scenar- ios where information must be provided without conditioning on the receiver’s first-period action, the optimal strategy entails revealing information exclusively in the first period. Some application of the result are discussed, including streategies to improve tax compliance through information disclosure

ABSTRACT. This paper examines how subnational identity and political ideology shape tax compliance, fo- cusing on the role of the Northern League in Italy. As a federalist and anti-establishment party, it has historically promoted narratives against national taxation. We analyze its impact on tax compliance by studying evasion of the national TV tax (RAI license fee), leveraging a staggered difference-in-differences (DiD) approach with the doubly robust Callaway and Sant’Anna esti- mator. Our findings show that the mere participation of the Northern League in local elections significantly increases tax evasion by 0.22%, even in the absence of an electoral victory. To disentangle the underlying mechanisms, we first ask whether the effect is driven by populism or federalism, distinguishing between anti-establishment rhetoric and opposition to national taxation. Second, we examine media exposure, assessing how partisan TV and national news- paper exposure amplify tax resistance. Third, we consider grassroots mobilization, looking at how local anti-tax campaigns directly engage citizens. Finally, we analyze territorial identity and socioeconomic heterogeneity, exploring how regional ties and economic conditions shape responses.

ABSTRACT. This study examines how the United Kingdom’s Brexit experience has influenced Europeans’ voting preferences, focusing on the interplay between trust, risk attitudes, socio-demographic characteristics, and climate change concerns. Using pooled data from the European Social Survey (ESS) rounds 8 (2016) and 10 (2021), we investigate the extent to which individuals' climate change perceptions correlate with their preference to remain in or leave the European Union (EU). Our findings suggest that, in the post-Brexit period, individuals favoring EU membership exhibit heightened concern for climate change compared to those supporting an exit. These results highlight the importance of social trust, political interest, and collective risk perception in shaping environmental attitudes. The analysis further underscores regional variations across Europe, with Northern European countries displaying the strongest alignment between pro-EU preferences and climate concerns. This research contributes to understanding the broader implications of Brexit, offering insights into the nexus of political preferences and environmental policy challenges.

ABSTRACT. Citizen Science (CS), defined as the collaboration between scientists and citizens in scientific research, is becoming a pivotal tool in addressing Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by engaging the public in data-driven tasks that directly impact their communities (Vohland et al., 2021). Based on various technological platforms, CS enables citizens to collect and report data, from multimedia inputs to geospatial and self-reported information, contributing valuable insights into societal challenges (Bonney et al., 2009; Jason & Glenwick, 2015). This approach has proved essential in urban planning, environmental monitoring, and health assessments, empowering citizens to influence policy while fostering public awareness of key issues (Hinckson et al., 2017; Benis et al., 2021). However, integrating CS data into policy processes presents significant obstacles. CS-generated data, while rich and diverse, face challenges in terms of accuracy, conformity to scientific standards, and reliability, as identified in studies such as Cappa et al. (2022) and Clare et al. (2019). Policy uptake of CS data is further complicated by technical limitations, including high costs and data gaps, as well as political issues like metric manipulation or insufficient contextual details (Ballerini & Bergh, 2021). Yet, when adequately managed, these data hold the potential to bridge the gap between community needs and policy actions. The potential impact of CS in supporting SDGs is underscored by its capacity to build a novel social intelligence ecosystem through the use of Big Data and digital technologies. Such an ecosystem enables adaptive policy responses to “wicked” problems—complex issues with high uncertainty and multiple stakeholders—by enhancing public services' responsiveness, optimizing resource allocation, and creating tailored interventions that reflect the real-time needs of communities (OECD, 2016). Our analysis also highlights how a public-private partnership approach to data collection and management can facilitate these goals, encouraging inclusive decision-making through data-sharing platforms and community-driven insights (Longo & Maino, 2021). This paper aims to suggest recommendations to advance the integration of CS into policy by exploring innovative data-sharing frameworks and methodologies. Despite the increased awareness around sustainability since the COVID-19 pandemic, citizen-driven projects that measure wellbeing and sustainability remain underdeveloped. As mental health and well-being gain attention as fundamental components of sustainable development, particularly under SDG3, CS offers an approach for capturing these dimensions in a manner that conventional data sources often overlook. By adopting CS-informed policies, we can potentially reduce the distance between citizens' needs and public services, promoting a holistic approach to sustainable and inclusive urban well-being policies. In particular, this paper would aim to contribute to the work of CITYBLE coordinated by the University of Ferrara with the University of Salento and the University of Milan which wishes to use CS to study urban wellbeing through digital tools.

The dataset originates from a comprehensive study commissioned by the European Commission (DG ENV, supported by DG JRC) to create an inventory of CS projects relevant to environmental policy in the European Union. Conducted by Bio Innovation Service in partnership with Fundacion Ibercivis and The Natural History Museum, the study identified 515 (as of 2024) CS projects through desk research and an EU-wide survey, aiming to assess their contributions to environmental policy and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). A subset of 45 projects was further analysed across 94 attributes to explore the conditions under which citizen science can effectively support environmental policy. This regularly updated inventory serves as a resource for understanding the role of citizen science in environmental management and participatory decision-making within the EU. The dataset, compiled by the European Commission (DG ENV, with DG JRC support), comprises 515 CS projects and a subset of 45 projects characterised by 94 distinct attributes. The dataset provides these variables for every project: geographical extensity (national, EU, regional etc.), age (number of years the project is active), policy impact (Y/N), and impact (direct, indirect, or none) on specific SDGs (hereby SDG impact). The first set of variables were used as independent variables against SDG impact. The groups were divided into multiple analyses based on the grouping of the dependent variable (SDG): Social Wellbeing: SDG 3, SDG 4, SDG 5, SDG 8, SDG 10, SDG 11, SDG 16 Circular Economy: SDG 8, SDG 9, SDG 11, SDG 12, SDG 13, SDG 14, SDG 15

We carried out a cluster analysis using R Studio, resulting in four main clusters.

Based on the clustering analysis, we identify four distinct groups of citizen science projects, each reflecting different characteristics in terms of age, geographical scope, social impact, policy alignment, and focus on circular economy and social wellbeing. Cluster 1 consists of new and emerging projects with limited social and policy influence, possibly in early development stages or experimental initiatives. Cluster 2 represents policy-driven projects with moderate social impact and regional reach, likely supported by governmental or institutional frameworks. Cluster 3 stands out as the most impactful group, featuring large-scale, globally oriented initiatives that maximize both circular economy principles and social wellbeing. Cluster 4 consists of long-established yet localized projects, deeply embedded in their communities with strong social engagement but relatively lower emphasis on policy and sustainability goals.

ABSTRACT. The multidimensional nature of environmental problems is increasingly recognized, as different relevant behaviors may be mutually reinforcing or may be in a trade-off relationship. This is particularly relevant in cases when the use of resources is tightly linked to their packaging, as in the case of bottled water consumption. This paper aims at using Italian data to assess whether plastic related separated collection and bottled water consumption reduction are complements or substitutes in consumers’ behaviors. Using Cross-sectional Italian data, we show that the relationship depends on the availability of waste infrastructures: surprisingly, better infrastructures (door to door collection) crowd out water related behaviors, resulting in a challenging “rebound” effect. We also attempt to provide a conceptual framework to explain this evidence and provide robustness analysis for our results.

ABSTRACT. Little is known about whether an individual’s level of attractiveness plays a role in the likelihood of perpetrating sexual violence. Using U.S. data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health), we examine the relationship between attractiveness and sexual violence perpetration against one’s partner. To operationalize beauty, we use physical attractiveness scores assigned by interviewers to survey respondents between the ages of 12 and 17. Our results show that within the sample of men, a 1-point increase in beauty rating (on a scale of 1-5) reduces the likelihood of having perpetrated sexual violence on the partner in adulthood by 13 percent. We also find that parental investment – proxied by birth order – mitigates this association, as very unattractive men who received high levels of parental investment have substantially lower predicted probabilities of perpetrating sexual violence compared to their counterparts who received low levels of parental investment.

ABSTRACT. This paper explores how local football matches influence help-seeking behavior among women victims of domestic violence. Analyzing daily admission data from the Roberta Lanzino Anti-Violence Center in Southern Italy (2013–2018), we find that losses by the local team, Cosenza Calcio, lead to a significant rise in women seeking support the following day, especially among those abused by Italian partners or ex-partners. This effect is localized to home match losses and does not extend to other regional teams. The results highlight how emotionally charged events, such as football defeats, can escalate ongoing abuse and act as critical tipping points in victims’ decisions to access support services.

ABSTRACT. Violence against women (VAW) is a pervasive issue globally, with intimate partner violence (IPV) and domestic violence (DV) forming a significant subset. Defined as "any act of gender-based violence that results in physical, sexual, or psychological harm to women," VAW remains a critical public health concern. This research analyzes the impact of closing the “boyfriend loophole” on VAW in the U.S. Using data from the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), I examine trends in reported cases of VAW from 2013 to 2023, focusing on how state-level gun control variations influenced VAW rates. Two samples are used to explore these effects, with the primary findings drawn from the larger sample. A difference-in-differences analysis with multiple time periods shows a 22.6\% decline in reported VAW cases following the implementation of stricter gun laws, highlighting the potential of targeted gun control policies to reduce violence against women. These results will be further explained through a toy model that will discuss the mechanisms behind the observed decline. This research aims to inform policy discussions on gun control and women's safety.

ABSTRACT. The transition from seasonal to fast fashion, coupled with the rise of compulsive and disposable consumer behaviors, poses significant challenges to both the environment and labor conditions. Our study investigates consumers' willingness to pay (WTP) for garments labeled as sustainable or ethically produced by different organizations (the brand, NGO, or EU). Using a Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT), we conducted a contingent evaluation study with a representative sample of approximately 5,000 Italian individuals, aged 18 to 75. Our findings indicate that WTP is influenced by a variety of factors, including demographic, socio-economic, and ideological variables. Specifically, individuals with left-leaning political views demonstrate a significantly higher WTP, suggesting that political ideology plays an important role in ethical consumption. Additionally, higher household income and greater spending on clothing are positively correlated with WTP, highlighting the role of economic capacity in supporting sustainable fashion choices. This research emphasizes the potential for consumer-driven solutions to address ethical and environmental challenges in the fashion industry. By aligning sustainability certifications with consumer expectations and fostering trust, brands and policymakers can promote significant advancements towards a more responsible and sustainable economy.

ABSTRACT. This study investigates whether and how hospitals compete on quality of care within the Italian National Health Service (NHS). More precisely, it exploits well-known spatial econometric techniques (Gravelle et al. (2014); Longo et al. (2017)) to assess whether changes in a hospital’s quality influence the quality of neighboring hospitals within the same geographical area. The Italian NHS offers an interesting setting for exploring hospital competition. Indeed, since 2001, it has transitioned to a decentralized system with 21 separate Regional Health Services (RHSs). Such regional systems differ in many features, such as the governance and organisational model adopted to manage the (local) healthcare market, and some of them are expected to stimulate more competition across providers. In exploring this issue, we test whether hospital competition varies within and between the 21 RHSs according to the structure of their institutional setting, by using an extension to the Spatial Autoregressive Panel model proposed by Atella et al. (2014). We use data provided by the Italian Ministry of Health, including, for each provider, detailed information about the effectiveness, efficacy, and quality of care for cardiovascular, cerebrovascular, oncological and prenatal procedures. Our results suggest that, other things being equal, competition among providers is mainly local for emergency treatments, whereas we observe the opposite for elective treatments.

ABSTRACT. This paper investigates the impact of the European Union Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) on Italy’s bilateral trade flows, focusing on both imports and exports. Using a gravity model framework as the theoretical basis, we employ difference-in-differences and event study methodologies to identify changes in trade patterns following the introduction of the EU ETS in 2005. Controlling for key geographic, economic, and institutional factors, our results indicate that Italy’s trade with countries participating in the EU ETS increased significantly compared to non-participating countries. Specifically, imports from EU ETS members rose, while exports showed a positive and significant increase among Italy’s top trading partners. These findings suggest that carbon market integration can promote trade among regulated countries, mitigating concerns about competitiveness loss and carbon leakage. The analysis highlights the importance of accounting for structural gravity model characteristics to robustly capture trade dynamics in the context of environmental regulation.

ABSTRACT. This paper employs agent-based modelling to explore the factors driving the high rate of tertiary education completion in the Netherlands. We examine the interplay of economic motivations, such as expected wages and financial constraints, alongside sociological and psychological influences, including peer effects, student disposition, personality, and geographic accessibility. Through simulations, we analyse the sustainability of these trends and evaluate the impact of educational policies, such as student grants and loans, on enrollment and borrowing behaviour among students from different socioeconomic backgrounds, further considering implications for the Dutch labour market.

ABSTRACT. Horizontal gender segregation in education negatively impacts both equity and efficiency in the labor market, contributing to disparities in career opportunities and economic outcomes. This paper examines the influence of social origins on gender segregation in Italian tertiary education over recent decades. Utilizing high-quality data on individuals born between 1941 and 1995, we find that parental education significantly shapes offspring's field of study choices. Specifically, higher parental education increases the likelihood of students making nontraditional field choices -- girls selecting traditionally male-dominated fields, such as STEM, and boys opting for traditionally female-dominated fields. This effect is primarily driven by girls entering male-dominated fields. The results remain robust across various field classifications and model specifications, highlighting the enduring role of family background in shaping educational and occupational outcomes. These findings align with previous research conducted in other countries, thereby strengthening their external validity.

ABSTRACT. We study the impact of a program designed to enhance data literacy on graduate students’ skills and academic outcomes in a large Italian university. The program (i.e. a minor) targets students who are expected to have weak quantitative competences and offers 120-hours training focused on improving the ability to interpret and process data, in addition to the regular courses of the master program in which students are enrolled (i.e. their major). The admission process to the minor is characterized by rationing, resolved by random assignment of available slots to applicants. Exploiting the resulting exogenous variation for identification, we find that the program largely improved digital literacy of participants with low pre-treatment levels of numeracy. Despite the additional effort required by the program, we can rule out any slowdown in the progress of the academic career in the major master program of participating students.

ABSTRACT. This paper examines the impact of Ingreso Solidario, Colombia’s nationwide unconditional cash transfer program introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic, on municipal-level crime rates. Using a difference-in-differences framework with continuous treatment intensity, we find that the program led to significant reductions in total and violent crimes, particularly injuries—the most common form of violent crime in the dataset. Disaggregated analysis by gender reveals that the relative decline in injuries was greater for female perpetrators, suggesting gender- specific responses to income support. The effects are stronger in municipalities with limited institutional capacity, high pre-existing levels of domestic violence, and low access to financial services, indicating that the program was most effective in socially and economically vulnerable contexts. These findings suggest that unconditional cash transfers can contribute to public safety by mitigating the socioeconomic stressors that drive interpersonal conflict.

ABSTRACT. The present study adopts an interdisciplinary approach, integrating social network analysis, systems ecology, and criminological theory to examine the organisational resilience of criminal networks. The objective of the study is twofold. Firstly, it introduces a novel composite indicator of network resilience, grounded in complexity science and ecological theory, and operationalised through three structural properties: Modularity, diversity, and redundancy. The study builds upon the resilience indicator developed initially by Villani et al. (SOCIO-ECON PLAN SCI 65:51-65, 2019), presenting a renewed and updated version that extends the former foundational framework by incorporating ecologically informed dimensions. This refinement enhances the indicator’s capacity to capture both institutional embeddedness and functional heterogeneity. Secondly, the novel indicator is applied to four Italian mafia-type organisations in order to evaluate its empirical performance and to compare the resulting resilience profiles across cases. Empirical validation, conducted through Principal Component Analysis (PCA), Item Response Theory (IRT), and related robustness checks, reveals marked variation in resilience profiles and structural configurations among the observed networks. In comparison with the previous version, the novel indicator enhances theoretical coherence, interpretative clarity, and adaptability across a range of empirical contexts. By visualising and quantifying resilience patterns, the updated composite indicator may serve as a valuable diagnostic tool, with potential applications in early warning systems, targeted policy interventions, and the design of governance architectures resilient to criminal infiltration. Given the contemporary urgency of the topic discussed, the study outlines further avenues for future research and emphasises the need for continued interdisciplinary collaboration to support further refinements and contextual application of the composite resilience indicator.

ABSTRACT. In recent years, the erosion of citizens’ trust in political institutions has emerged as a critical challenge across many democracies, posing a substantial threat to the resilience and sustainability of democratic governance. Safeguarding a robust and enduring social contract therefore requires a deeper understanding of the factors that drive individuals to lose confidence in institutions. This paper explores the potential relationship between economic crimes and political trust, focusing on the Italian context between 2013 and 2022. By combining individual-level data on institutional trust with regional data on reported economic crimes, the analysis reveals a nuanced and often ambiguous association. Certain economic crimes—such as money laundering, cyber fraud, and counterfeiting—appear to be more socially tolerated, and their increased visibility correlates with a decline in political trust. In contrast, crimes -such as usury, shoplifting and intentional homicides- are linked to increased trust, possibly reflecting perceptions of institutional responsiveness. These findings suggest that not all economic crimes undermine trust in the same way, and that social tolerance toward certain offenses may weaken state legitimacy more than the crimes themselves. These findings highlight the complexity of tackling economic crime in democratic systems, where not all offenses exert the same influence on public trust. In addition, they have important implications for policy design: effective interventions should not only aim at deterrence and enforcement but also target public perceptions and the social framing of illegality. Acknowledging the differentiated impact of crime types on political trust can help reinforce the legitimacy of institutions and restore citizens’ confidence in democratic governance.

ABSTRACT. This paper examines the role of family ties and social capital in shaping individual saving behavior in Italy. Leveraging a novel, highly disaggregated territorial dataset, we estimate a two-stage instrumental variable model to address endogeneity in the relationship between social factors and saving choices. Our findings reveal that stronger family ties significantly reduce participation in complementary pension schemes, reinforcing traditional saving preferences. Conversely, higher levels of interpersonal trust and civicness are positively associated with engagement in private welfare instruments. These results highlight a trade-off between informal family support and marketbased welfare solutions, offering new empirical evidence on the cultural determinants of financial planning. Methodologically, we validate our results by testing their spatial stability through geographically varying estimation windows. The paper contributes to the literature by combining cultural economics with spatial econometrics to uncover the heterogeneous impact of social capital on financial behavior.

ABSTRACT. The paper analyses the financial adequacy of retirees in Italy using data from the Survey on Household Income and Wealth from 1993-2016. Comparing workers and pensioners around the pension eligibility thresholds using a fuzzy regression discontinuity design shows that retirees face significant income drops upon leaving the workforce, with pensions averaging 28.6 percentage points lower than previous earnings. Disparities exist among different employment categories, with craftsmen and entrepreneurs facing declines of about 45 percent. Although individuals seem either aware of or particularly pessimistic about the income contraction they will face upon retirement, this does not protect them from a greater risk of financial distress, casting doubts on their ability to pursue consumption smoothing.

ABSTRACT. Leveraging the differential impact of a recent and unexpected Italian pension reform that raised the age requirements for accessing retirement benefits, this study analyzes the probability of working as well as the wage and employment dynamics of young women whose mothers were directly affected by the reform. The analysis is based on extensive Italian administrative data, and the results indicate that women whose mothers were impacted by the sudden increase in retirement age from 60 to 64 years work less and earn lower wages, particularly among those with low levels of education and income.

ABSTRACT. This study explores whether the advantages of larger local governments outweigh the inefficiencies associated with consolidation. Specifically, it examines an Italian policy reform that mandated small municipalities to engage in inter-municipal cooperation for the provision of shared services. The analysis assesses the impact of this reform on local real estate prices, revealing a significant decline in house prices in the affected municipalities. This decrease suggests a deterioration in the quality of public goods provision. Furthermore, we find no evidence supporting alternative explanations, such as changes in taxation or housing supply, for these price fluctuations. Ultimately, the results suggest that joint management of municipal functions may be detrimental to both local governments and their residents, raising critical questions about the effectiveness of consolidation efforts. The high non-compliance rate, particularly among smaller municipalities, underscores that mandatory function sharing fails to address their specific needs. This highlights a significant gap in support, indicating that policymakers should prioritize tailored assistance to help these municipalities overcome structural and technical challenges, rather than enforcing collaboration.

ABSTRACT. This paper examines the electoral effects of EU recovery funding on local incumbents, using Italy’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP) implementation as a natural experiment. I exploit data from municipal elections where incumbents seek for reelection between 2019 and 2023 in Italy. I apply a difference-in-difference strategy and I find that NRRP access increases mayoral re-election probability by 10.68 percentage points. The effect declines over time, from 17.9 percentage points in 2021 to 9.6 percentage points in 2023. Results are robust across multiple estimation methods and contribute new evidence on how external funding acquisition affects electoral accountability at the local level.

ABSTRACT. Exclusionary welfare policies are among the flagship proposals in the economic agenda of the far right. Yet, there is little empirical evidence as to whether -- after gaining power -- such parties do indeed cut welfare provisions to immigrants. Using data on more than 6 million procurement contracts within a close-election Regression Discontinuity Design, I estimate that Italian mayors supported by the far right significantly cut welfare spending for immigrants and refugees. However, using novel data on volunteering associations, I also show that the narrow victory of a far-right coalition is followed by an 11.4% growth in the per-capita number of local NGOs. The effect is driven by social welfare associations, which provide poverty relief and assistance to vulnerable individuals. Individual-level survey data document how the growth in volunteering is driven by left-leaning citizens with positive attitudes toward immigrants. These findings show how -- following political turnovers -- the non-profit sector can substitute the state in the provision of public goods that are off the agenda of incumbent policymakers.

ABSTRACT. Resilience refers to the ability of countries and regions to effectively handle crises, adapt, and swiftly return to stability, a key topic in worldwide economic debates. In the past fifteen-plus years, different shocks – Great Recession; Covid-19 crisis; Ukraine-Russian war; inflation surge – have produced hard consequences on societies and economies with uneven patterns across people and places. To understand the overall impact of the crises and, in particular, the factors behind the different spatial trajectories observed during and after shocks, the decade-old concept of regional economic resilience has regained popularity among researchers and practitioners. The fast-growing resilience literature, however, has primarily used data at regional level and made comparisons across territories with different economic levels. What is missing is the analysis of resilience trajectories in lagging regions, namely, regions that show low-economic levels compared to other areas. Equally remarkable is the study of the presence of firm-, local- and sector-specific patterns when looking at the economic performance within lagging regions. The objective of this work is twofold. First, we provide novel, micro evidence on the resilience of lagging regions in the South of Italy, the so-called Mezzogiorno, during and after the Great Recession. Secondly, we study the performance of firms and local areas in the Italian lagging regions after the Great Recession and make comparisons across and within such regions in order to show which factors can help explaining differences in territorial resilience in less advanced regions. We finally discuss the key results of our work and the main policy implications, also in the light of the recent territorial asymmetries registered during the post-pandemic recovery phase.

ABSTRACT. Il lavoro ricostruisce l’insieme delle imprese partecipate dalle Amministrazioni locali e ne descrive le principali caratteristiche, focalizzandosi sul confronto territoriale tra Mezzogiorno e Centro Nord. Le partecipate con sede nel Meridione sono mediamente di dimensioni più ridotte e hanno un numero di enti partecipanti inferiore a quelle del Centro Nord. Dall’analisi dei bilanci emerge inoltre che sono caratterizzate da una minore capitalizzazione, risultati reddituali inferiori e una più bassa propensione all’investimento. Non emergono significative differenze rispetto al Centro Nord per quanto riguarda il processo di riduzione nel numero di imprese avviato con il Testo unico in materia di società a partecipazione pubblica (TUSP) del 2016, che ha avuto finora effetti limitati. Il lavoro approfondisce anche la relazione tra la situazione economico-finanziaria degli enti partecipanti e alcuni indicatori di performance delle proprie partecipate, tenendo conto delle principali caratteristiche dell’impresa. I risultati mostrano, in particolare, una correlazione positiva con la redditività aziendale.

ABSTRACT. Several shocks hit local economies, threatening their resilience with serious implications on communities’ sustainability and citizens well-being. Local stabilization is unfeasible without insights into the features and the drivers of economic fluctuations. Our paper contributes to the existing literature applying an approximate factor model at the provincial level (NUTS 3), with the aim of identifying the structural characteristics of common and idiosyncratic shocks. Using a unique data set obtained by different sources we investigate the impact of several determinants, finding that asymmetries in local business cycles are mainly triggered by technological and environmental variables, such as the index of specialization and the occurrence of natural disasters of medium and high intensity. Although inflationary shocks also act against synchronization, nevertheless their impact is quite limited. By contrast, investment is the main countercyclical driver, improving synchronization among local and national economies. Our analysis may help policy makers in designing their strategies aimed at reducing future vulnerability of local communities.

ABSTRACT. A growing share of the global population is affected by chronic conditions, prompting the development of various organizational models for chronic disease management. These models often emphasize the pivotal role of General Practitioners (GPs) and community health nurses in leading chronic care efforts. Recognizing the significant burden of diabetes as a leading cause of disability and mortality, the Emilia-Romagna Region of Italy introduced clinical guidelines for diabetes management in 2010 to enhance the quality of care for patients with type 2 diabetes. This initiative enables GPs working within Community Health Homes to collaborate with Nursing Outpatient Clinics (NOCs) for more effective chronic disease management. This study evaluates the impact of NOCs on key indicators of patient adherence with clinical guidelines. Using a balanced panel of administrative, individual-level data, we analyze the diabetic population within the largest Local Health Authority in Emilia-Romagna over a seven-year period (2010–2016). To assess the impact of NOCs on patient adherence, we employ alternative difference-in-differences approaches while accounting for heterogeneous treatment effects due to varying patient exposure periods. Our findings indicate that patients enrolled with GPs who integrate NOCs into diabetes management exhibit significantly improved adherence to clinical guidelines. These results offer valuable insights for policymakers designing diabetes management programs that incorporate nursing support to enhance patient engagement and adherence.

ABSTRACT. We investigate the causal effect of triage - the practice of prioritizing patients for care in emergency departments - on individuals’ health outcomes, using administrative records from a large private hospital in Italy treating more than 68,000 cases per year. We use an instrumental variable approach exploiting the quasi-random assignment of patients to triage nurses, who differ in terms of patients’ evaluations. Our baseline estimates show that being classified as a more urgent code (i.e., being assigned to a more lenient nurse) increases the probability of being hospitalized as a result of accessing the emergency department, but does not have a significant impact on health (proxied by the probability of being re-admitted to the hospital within six months or one year). Stratified estimates show that this effect is significant among less experienced nurses (as opposed to more experienced ones) and day shifts (as opposed to night shifts).

ABSTRACT. Cardiovascular risk is a major health issue in today’s economies. Statins are lipid-lowering drugs that aim to prevent the occurrence of cardiovascular events. This study examines the relationship between statin use and cardiovascular disease (CVD) hospitalisations in the Emilia-Romagna region from 2010 to 2019, utilising district-level panel data. We consider two study populations to measure hospitalisations for individuals aged 50 years and older: first, the general population residing in the region; second, individuals who are under statin therapy (statin users). We find evidence that statins play a significant role in reducing CVD hospitalisations, even though the results are heterogeneous depending on the specific diagnostic category, type of hospital admission, and gender. Furthermore, when we examine the role of two different dimensions — statin coverage and treatment intensity — we find that the former appears to be more relevant for most types of cardiovascular events.

ABSTRACT. This paper presents a novel dataset on estate, inheritance, and gift (EIG) taxes that covers several decades and over 160 countries. The data include harmonized rates, exemption thresholds, schedules, and revenues, indicating a global decline in EIG taxation. However, there is significant variation across countries — some have scaled back or repealed taxes, while others have implemented policies that increase tax liabilities. The top marginal tax rate, which was around 30% before the 1980s, had fallen to about 20% by 2022. Moreover, among countries with progressive tax rates, the average number of brackets has fallen from over 20 in the 1970s to about five today. However, the average tax exemption as a ratio of average wealth has remained largely unchanged, and there is no single pattern in the evolution of EIG tax revenues across countries over the last four decades. Finally, we use these data to derive cross-country revenue elasticities, estimating that a 1% increase in the top marginal tax rates leads to a 7% increase in EIG tax revenues.

ABSTRACT. Can subnational redistribution policies effectively reduce interpersonal income inequality? The empirical answer to this crucial question in public economics is challenging, mainly because of the concomitant implementation of other policies, the endogeneity of the redistribution policy itself, and the possible presence of reverse causality. We overcome these challenges by leveraging a sudden, exogenous increase in the regional income tax surcharge in Lazio, one of Italy’s most populated regions, which exclusively targeted high-income taxpayers and transformed the regional flat tax into a redistributive mechanism. Owing to the availability of detailed data at the municipal level and the adoption of a geographic difference-in-discontinuities design, we find that the tax increase led, as expected, to a sharp and enduring increase in the revenues of the regional government. It also led to a sudden and substantial decrease in income inequality, although this drop vanished over time. We investigate the mechanisms behind the lack of long-lasting effects on income inequality and find that they are mostly due to the mobility response of a small portion of taxpayers. This empirical finding lends support to the theoretical predictions of the first-generation theory of fiscal federalism, even when inter-jurisdictional differences in redistribution policies are modest.

ABSTRACT. We use administrative tax data from 17 developed and developing countries to calculate the within-country corporate elasticity of taxable income (ETI) and investigate differences between these estimates. We develop a new structural empirical method using the observed distribution of taxable income that exploits the differential tax treatment of business income for firms earning positive and negative taxable income. Our ETI estimates range between 1.9 for Canada and 0.04 for Uruguay, and these differences are much smaller than the range found in the literature (0 to 5). We use our estimates, a large set of predictors, and a random forest estimation to provide out-of-sample ETI estimates for 248 countries and find an average elasticity of 0.59. We then show differences in elasticities across countries are explained by country characteristics (52%), tax system characteristics (31%), and firm characteristics (16%).

ABSTRACT. This research examines whether financial constraints drive municipalities to increase land take for fiscal revenue generation, a claim frequently made in policy debates despite limited empirical evidence. Exploiting a quasi-experimental setting of toxic loan exposure among French municipalities, I analyze the effects of both the 2011 information shock and the 2015 financial shock from the Swiss Franc unpegging. Contrary to conventional wisdom, I find that municipalities facing debt shocks significantly reduced overall land take while reallocating development priorities toward economic activities rather than residential expansion. Simultaneously, municipalities adjusted their fiscal policies, decreasing certain tax rates while experiencing significant growth in tax bases. These findings challenge the assumed tradeoff between fiscal sustainability and land conservation, suggesting that financial constraints may encourage more efficient land use patterns rather than accelerating artificialization. This analysis provides critical insights for designing policies that reconcile municipal fiscal needs with sustainable land managment.

ABSTRACT. This paper provides new causal evidence on the relationship between government frag- mentation, housing supply, and urban sprawl. I compile new data on French inter- municipal mergers to study a reform that required many municipalities to transfer urban-planning authority to a broader community level. The findings show that, when given the choice, municipalities strongly prefer to retain control over land-use decisions. However, when consolidation is imposed, it results in effective cooperation on the development of new planning rules. This cooperation leads to increased housing construction while reducing the conversion of natural and agricultural land, suggesting improved efficiency of land-use. These effects emerge gradually, following the timeline of new planning documents, in line with the idea that coordinating land-use at a larger scale helps internalize positive spillovers.

ABSTRACT. Renewable Energy Communities (RECs) represent a crucial resource for the transition towards a decentralized and sustainable energy system, facilitating innovation and strengthening local renewable sources. RECs significantly contribute to the European energy transition and are associated with positive social impacts, including the creation of social capital, support for renewable energy and behavior change among citizens. Involving final consumers and expanding local renewable sources are key to their growth and success. This study focuses on the role of human and social capital in forming and developing RECs, examining the relationship between the presence of these factors and the diffusion of RECs in Italian municipalities. The empirical analysis is characterized by two stages, in particular the econometric model used is the Two-Stage Residual Inclusion (2SRI). Various local and social factors are expected to positively or negatively impact the decision to adopt a Renewable Energy Community, influencing the availability of resources, environmental sensitivity and economic capacity of communities. Therefore, the results will provide new evidence on the elements that facilitate the creation of RECs and on the impacts that these have in different municipal realities, contributing to a deeper understanding of the determinants of the energy transition.

ABSTRACT. While politicians strategically implement policies to secure re-election, the role of gender identity in these decisions remains unclear. This study examines whether Italian mayors seeking re-election provide different provision of early childcare according their gender. Leveraging a sample of closely contested mixed-gender municipal elections from 2002 to 2015 and applying a Regression Discontinuity Design (RDD), I find a negative gender gap in early childcare provision. Municipalities led by male mayors are 8.6% more likely to offer early childcare services, provide 1.2% more childcare spots, and spend 60% more per child aged 0–3 than their female led counterparts. This gap is not driven by differences in policy preferences but rather by strategic behaviour aimed at re-election and is consistent across other core female-oriented services. Finally, the gap widens in municipalities with more progressive gender norms, higher demand for early childcare services, and greater voter turnout. These findings suggest that male mayors increase early childcare spending to strengthen electoral support in the second ballot, rather than female mayors reducing childcare provision to counter gender stereotypes.

ABSTRACT. In a representative democracy, the extent to which gender-specific policy preferences are transmitted through the stages of political selection is relevant for assessing the substantive quality of representation. Using cross-sectional data from the European Social Survey (ESS) and the Comparative Candidate Survey (CCS), we explore gender gaps in policy preferences among individuals, political candidates, and elected officials. We find that women consistently express more progressive preferences than men, but these gender gaps are narrower among candidates, and even less pronounced among elected officials. Among politicians, gender gaps persist on certain identity-linked issues, such as same-sex rights. These findings hold true irrespective of political ideology. The institutional context plays a different role depending on the specific policy area: gender gaps can vanish among politicians even in countries with higher level of political gender equality.

ABSTRACT. This paper explores how voter prejudice against women in politics can evolve over time through learning. Building on a Bayesian updating framework, we model voters as holding biased priors about female candidates’ competence and updating their beliefs based on the performance of elected women. We show that gender quotas can accelerate this learning process by increasing the visibility of competent female politicians, especially in more biased contexts. Using a natural experiment from a short-lived gender quota reform in Italian municipal elections (1993–1995), we test two key implications. We find that quotas had a persistent effect on women’s representation even after their removal, and that their impact was stronger in municipalities with historically higher gender bias, as proxied by referendum results on abortion and divorce.

ABSTRACT. This paper studies the effect of workplace fatalities and their media coverage on subsequent workplace safety outcomes. Using high-frequency administrative data from Italy (2015–2019), we first show that non-fatal injury rates decline in the short term following workplace deaths that are considered "newsworthy"—specifically, those involving young, female, or foreign-born workers. We then examine the role of media coverage more closely, exploiting variation in newspaper circulation across provinces and article-level coverage from a major national newspaper within a Bartik-style identification strategy. We find that the reduction in injuries is larger in areas with higher media penetration and more intensive coverage of the incident. However, the effect is significantly attenuated in weeks when local football teams experience unexpected outcomes, based on bookmaker predictions, diverting public attention. These findings suggest that media salience acts as an informal, attention-driven mechanism for improving workplace safety.

ABSTRACT. This paper examines the relationship between the efficiency of National Innovation Systems (NIS) and occupational safety using a holistic approach. In this context, innovation extends beyond the simple introduction of advanced technologies to include their integration and institutionalization within established social frameworks, thereby maximizing their societal benefits. Using a panel dataset of 25 European countries over the time 2010-2019, we employ a two-step methodology. First, we estimate NIS efficiency scores through parametric Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA). In the second step, we apply alternative panel empirical models for investigating the effect of NIS efficiency on fatal workplace accident rates, controlling for a range of socio-economic, production system, and institutional factors. Our findings indicate that more efficient National Innovation Systems (NIS) are correlated with lower fatal accident rates, thereby supporting the hypothesis that countries with more effective innovation systems are better suited to adopt and implement technologies and practices that enhance workplace safety.

ABSTRACT. Using a unique dataset provided by the Italian National Institute for Insurance against Accidents at Work (Inail), this study investigates whether Inail’s 2013 initiative—designed to promote fixed investments in safer assets—has an indirect impact on firm survival. By subsidizing investments aimed at replacing outdated machinery or automating manual processes, the policy plausibly fosters process innovation, which may enhance firms’ economic performance and, in turn, improve their survival prospects. To evaluate this effect, the identification strategy exploits the quasi-random assignment mechanism induced by the “Click Day” procedure—a time-based allocation system measured to the hundredths of a second. The empirical analysis combines an Intention-to-Treat (ITT) approach with Average Treatment Effect (ATE) estimates derived from Nearest-Neighbour and Propensity Score Matching techniques, to account for potential post-randomization selection bias. The findings indicate that the policy exerts a statistically significant positive effect on firm survival and resilience. A key policy implication is that broadening the occupational safety and health (OSH) policy mix to include not only regulatory enforcement (“sticks”) but also direct financial incentives (“carrots”), particularly targeted at small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), can enhance OSH standards and support firm-level economic performance from an industrial policy perspective.

ABSTRACT. Access to useful knowledge is crucial for fostering modern economic growth. We show, for the first time, that knowledge accumulated and stored in monasteries was useful for innovation. In 1866, anticlerical legislation in Italy led to the suppression of religious orders, the expropriation of their properties, and the transfer of their manuscripts to local public libraries. From a contemporary survey on public libraries, we construct a unique dataset on municipalities which received monastic volumes. This information is then linked to newly digitized annual data on patents issued in Italy between 1863 and 1883. Difference-in-differences estimates show that municipalities exposed to an influx of monastic manuscripts experienced a significant increase in innovation. The effect is driven by the increase in the number of manuscripts in previously existing libraries. We show that the innovation advantage also persisted in the long run and had no impact on human capital.

ABSTRACT. This paper contributes to peace research by assessing the viability of an economic policy instrument for sustaining social peace. The central argument posited herein is that the ratio of public investment in education to military expenditure (henceforth referred to as Edumilex) serves as a meaningful instrument for promoting policies conducive to peace. To empirically evaluate the impact of Edumilex on peace, we construct a measure of domestic peace (henceforth referred to as Social Peace Index) structured around four core dimensions: (i) Health, (ii) Standard of living, (iii) Quality of institutions, and (iv) Spread of violence. Utilizing a panel dataset of 88 countries from 1990 to 2020, we estimate the impact of Edumilex on Social Peace Index through an IV/2SLS estimator. The findings reveal a robust and positive relationship, suggesting that Edumilex holds potential as an effective tool for economic policy geared toward peace. This proposition represents an innovative departure from traditional perspectives, as governments typically treat education and military spending as discrete policy areas. However, our results suggest this perspective may be limited, as both sectors critically impact peace. By linking these domains, this study clarifies the broader implications of balanced public spending, offering insights for policymakers on fostering stable, peaceful societies through integrated economic strategies.

ABSTRACT. This study evaluates the influence of education on shadow economy for 133 countries within annual period 2001 – 2020. To this end, panel cointegration and panel error correction models are employed. The panel cointegration tests suggest that there is a stable, long – term relationship among the selected variables. Both short – run and long – run parameters are reported for a Fully Modified Ordinary Least Squares (FMOLS) panel regression. The findings show a positive relationship between education and the size of the shadow economy. To take into account the likely heterogeneity among countries, we create subsamples of countries based on their shadow economy and education level. Lastly, this study employs the novel panel Granger non-causality method (JKS test) to investigate the two-way interaction between education and shadow economy, revealing a bidirectional relationship for the whole sample and high – shadow and low – education countries; but a one-way causal relationship from education to shadow economy for the low – shadow and high – education countries. Our empirical evidence is useful for future researchers and policy-makers suggesting that public policies devoted to higher education level could imply a perverse effect on economic growth, through an increasing shadow economy.

ABSTRACT. In decentralized settings, due to the vertical distribution of governmental powers, individuals exhibit in-group bias and rely on informational shortcuts when apportioning responsibilities among different levels of government. When it becomes challenging for voters to determine who is accountable for specific tasks, they are more likely to attribute credit and blame for policy outcomes based on their pre-existing political and non-political beliefs. The study aims to assess people’s ability to assign responsibilities accurately within various governance layers characterized by varying clarity levels in responsibility distribution. Additionally, we will gauge local perceptions of the quality of public goods and services provision and aim to investigate whether such perceptions change when we rectify individuals’ beliefs by providing accurate information about who is responsible for what. We will also explore the potential mechanisms through which individuals adjust their attributions of responsibility.

ABSTRACT. This study examines the role of trust in institutions and governance quality in shaping public perceptions of water quality during the ecological transition era, focusing on Italy as a case of infrastructure-perception mismatch. Drawing on integrated psychological and institutional theories, we develop a multi-level framework connecting micro-level trust evaluations with macro-level governance performance to explain perceptions about water quality. Analyzing ISTAT household survey data (2014-2019, N=130,000) through hierarchical modeling, we how trust operates along a proximity gradient, with local institutional confidence having the strongest influence on water quality assessments, followed by regional and national levels. At the same time, regional governance quality—particularly government effectiveness and corruption control—emerges as a significant driver of positive perceptions, controlling for socioeconomic factors. The study contributes to environmental governance literature by integrating trust mechanisms across administrative levels and empirically assessing the role of institutional quality. Methodologically, it shows the value of multi-level analysis in studying perception formation. For policy, the findings underscore the need for targeted measures at local levels and systemic governance reforms to align public perceptions with service quality, fostering sustainable water consumption behaviors.

ABSTRACT. Abstract This paper investigates the spatial distribution of land value gains resulting from the opening of Milan’s new M4 metro line and assesses the potential for value capture to improve the efficiency and equity of infrastructure financing. Combining quasi-experimental methods with geospatial data, I exploit the staggered rollout of M4 using difference-in-differences and event study designs on three datasets: 30 years of neighborhood-level listing prices, geocoded property transactions (2019–2025), and Airbnb listing data (2024–2025). Results indicate an 8% increase in residential property values within 500 meters of new stations and a €15 per night premium for nearby short-term rentals. These gains reflect a substantial localized willingness to pay for transit access—one not matched by Milan’s uniform property tax (IMU). A spatial equilibrium model is used to simulate Lindahl pricing, showing that benefit-based levies could shift the tax burden toward beneficiaries while improving allocative efficiency. The findings underscore the need to reform urban tax systems to better align with realized market responses to public investment. JEL Codes: H23, H41, H71, R14, R21, R42

ABSTRACT. The study examines the historical and spatial evolution of 22 European welfare systems over the period 2008-2017. To explore the relationships between the elementary performance indices of the SPPI (Social Protection Performance Index) and social protection expenditure functions, an empirical analysis is conducted using pooled OLS regression models with robust standard errors. Results highlight non-linear relationships among social expenditure functions and socioeconomic indicators, as well as numerous indirect effects of the former. They emphasize the pivotal role of targeting in achieving social policy objectives, suggest possible saturation effects in the effectiveness of social protection expenditure functions, and highlight the importance of the socio-cultural dimension as a determinant of the effectiveness of social policies.

ABSTRACT. This paper examines the impact of Italy’s “Reddito di Cittadinanza” (RdC), a guaranteed minimum income program introduced in 2019, on fertility. Using administrative data from the Italian Social Security Institute and a Fuzzy Regression Discontinuity Design, we uncover regionally heterogeneous effects. While no significant impact is observed in the Centre-North, RdC recipients in the South are 1.5 percentage points more likely to have a child within two years compared to non-recipients—a 18% biennial increase. Additionally, we find no significant effect of the RdC on labor supply in the South. In contrast, beneficiaries in the Centre-North experience reductions in both months worked and labor earnings: over a nine-month period, women work 0.13 fewer months and earn €609 less, while men work 0.11 fewer months and earn €628 less—a 10% decline relative to the control group mean. These contrasting regional responses are driven by more traditional gender norms, greater financial constraints, and lower opportunity costs of childbearing in the South relative to the Centre-North.

ABSTRACT. This paper evaluates the Citizenship Income (Reddito di Cittadinanza) programme, introduced in Italy in 2019. It examines the causal effects on household consumption, unemployment, and poverty. We employ a difference-in-differences analysis, prior to a propensity score to reduce the selection bias between treated and control group. Matching ensures balance on pre-treatment covariates. We exploit repeated cross-sections from 2017 to 2022. Our findings suggest that beneficiary households experienced a statistically significant increase in consumption expenditures, and a decrease in poverty incidence rates - both relative and absolute. Nonetheless, same household group observes a rise in unemployment rate, due to different factors of legal design and labour market. Ultimately, a fiscal multiplier is calculated through a public expenditure exercise. There is not evidence of a scheme which fully self-financed itself. Thus, the policy effectively achieved two primary objectives of stimulating consumption and alleviating poverty, while it was costly and did not meet the active labour policy goals.

ABSTRACT. This article explores the link between government spending and civic engagement, measured by participation in civil society associations and voting at national elections in 28 democracies observed from 2000 to 2024. It exploits country-specific reactions to global warming due to time-invariant preferences for collectivism (versus individualism) as exogenous drivers of the willingness to engage civically. The results indicate a positive and robust effect of civil society participation on government spending, compatible with the hypothesis that more participative societies call for more redistribution. Instead, electoral participation reduces public spending because voters who are more interested in the collective costs of global warming seem to distance themselves from civic engagement through traditional electoral channels.

ABSTRACT. People tend to behave in a less prosocial way towards individuals who are members of an out-group; there is evidence that this also applies to supporters of political parties (Fowler & Kam, 2007; Iyengar & Westwood, 2015). There are different ways to define an out-group in the political domain: it may consist of voters who identify with a party different to one’s own preferred party or of those who voted for a different party. In the UK, the electoral system results in much strategic voting such that these two groups do not coincide. Using a dictator game implemented shortly after the 2024 UK general election, this paper finds that voters contribute less to out-groups defined in both ways but that the voting behaviour of the out-group is a more significant driver of behaviour. Our results provide evidence on whether preferences or actions of others are important factors in determining how prosocial we are.

ABSTRACT. This paper studies the role of political appointments on the performance and career trajectories of civil servants. The focus is on U.S. federal judges, who are nominated by the president based on recommendations from their home-state senators. Leveraging individual-level data on judges and senators from 1789 to 2019, we employ difference-in-differences and event-study designs to compare judges' performance before and after their recommending senators leave office. Following their recommenders' exit from Congress, judges' performance declines. These negative effects manifest in both quantity, as measured by fewer judicial opinions authored and a larger backlog of civil cases, and quality, indicated by shorter opinions and fewer citations made and received. The results are consistent with an erosion of career prospects driving the effects: after their recommenders leave office, district court judges become less likely to be promoted to upper-level courts. The findings highlight how political appointments can motivate civil servants through career incentives, but also show that these incentives are closely tied to the tenure of their political sponsors.

ABSTRACT. This study evaluates the effectiveness of the Italian National Strategy for Inner Areas (SNAI) in reducing territorial disparities in access to essential services. Introduced in 2014, the SNAI targets municipalities characterized by demographic decline and poor accessibility to public services such as schools, healthcare, and transport. Relying on real-time travel data from OpenStreetMap and Tom Tom, we develop a replicable monitoring framework to assess driving times to service hubs for over 7,600 municipalities. Using this approach, we reclassified Inner Areas for 2025 and found a 17.7% increase in their number over five years, since the last classification. Our Difference-in-Differences analysis reveals a counterintuitive finding: municipalities included in the SNAI experienced an increase - rather than a reduction - in average travel times to essential services, with a rise of approximately three minutes compared to non-targeted areas. The effect is especially pronounced in Northern regions, where the increase reaches seven minutes. These results suggest that while the SNAI may support broader development goals, it has yet to achieve one of its core objectives—improving physical accessibility. Our findings highlight the need for more targeted and effective interventions to close infrastructure gaps in Italy’s peripheral territories.

ABSTRACT. This paper investigates income convergence across Italian municipalities over the period 2008–2023, using administrative data on average personal income declared by taxpayers. The analysis focuses on a national context marked by long-term income stagnation and persistent territorial inequalities. Using a dataset covering more than 7,000 municipalities, we estimate the degree of convergence in average incomes and track the evolution of indicators of income dispersion across municipalities. We find evidence of both β and σ convergence and interpret the results in light of potential frictions in labour mobility across municipalities and heterogeneity in local price levels, which may distort real income comparisons and limit spatial equalization.

ABSTRACT. Developing an advanced urban resilience agenda is a significant challenge for municipalities. The lack of instruments and tools for valuing urban resilience makes it more difficult, especially for non-metropolitan cities. Therefore, our work aims to analyze and propose a framework that municipalities can use to assess their resilience capacity. Literature defines resilience as the ability of a complex system to return to equilibrium after a perturbation or shock. Therefore, it is necessary to measure a bundle of indicators, define the possible relation between them, and measure the speed at which they return to long-run equilibrium after a shock. To propose a set of indices to assess urban resilience, we rely on the theoretical framework developed by the Rockefeller Foundation and ARUP. To analyze urban resilience capacity, we suggest that structural vector autoregression (SVAR) estimation is an ideal tool for resilience analysis. Still, such an ideal tool is impossible to apply due to data availability, and we have to find a methodology that could adapt to available data and capture the same intuition. Hence, we analyze the capacity for urban reliance in the Italian context, drawing on a newly constructed dataset covering 2014–2021, and we evaluate the urban resilience capacity of the two key functional areas of the city: health and well-being, and economy and society. Our finding, limited to the province level, shows that generally, after a shock, the southern regions appear to be less resilient. The time taken to return to equilibrium after an external shock for the southern province appears longer than that for the northern provinces regarding health and well-being, even though they sometimes perform better. Instead, the northern and central provinces have mixed results, with a higher prevalence in provinces that recover faster.

ABSTRACT. Social capital is a key factor in creating a supportive environment to healthy aging in the EU. Social capital is an individual resource embedded in one’s social networks. Collective-owed regional level resources (e.g. sharing norms, institutional settings, etc.) can be mobilised by the individuals to build up their own social capital. Our aim is to investigate regional differences in the level of social capital held on average by older adults as well as the complexity of the relationship between individual social capital and regional level resources. Our analysis is twofold. First, using graphical methods and logistic nonlinear models, we investigate changes in social capital levels in specific groups of regions after the Covid-19 pandemic, changes that we interpret as the consequences of the different Covid-management strategies implemented in the EU regions. Second, using econometric methods, we investigate the determinants of social capital. We find that disparities in (unobserved) regional level resources explain a significant share of social capital inequality among the elderly.

ABSTRACT. This paper proposes a novel territorial and multidimensional approach to measuring health poverty in Italy at the municipal level. We develop a Multidimensional Health Poverty non-compensatory index based on three key dimensions: availability, accessibility, and equity of healthcare services. The results reveal significant intra- and inter-regional disparities, with inner and mountainous areas experiencing the highest levels of health poverty. While availability and accessibility emerge as the primary drivers of health poverty, our findings reveal a partial decoupling between health status and healthcare access—and, ultimately, health poverty. A similar disconnect is observed with respect to other poverty indicators, underscoring the inadequacy of non-comprehensive measures as proxies for capturing health-related poverty and suggesting that improving access to healthcare services in Italy appears to be more critical than merely increasing household financial capacity.

ABSTRACT. This paper investigates the distributional effects of sovereign debt distress on households, with a focus on the role of regional heterogeneity in health service provision in Italy as a key transmission channel. Using survey data on household income and wealth, combined with regional variations in health service provision during the eurozone sovereign debt crisis, we analyze the impact on health inequality in Italy from 2006 to 2016. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper to document how the propagation of sovereign risk affects inequality through reductions in social spending and deterioration in access to healthcare.

ABSTRACT. This paper investigates whether immigration influences tax evasion behavior among native citizens in Spain. Relying on repeated cross-sectional survey data and a shift- share instrumental variable strategy, I estimate the effect of local immigrant presence on tax morale, a widely used proxy for individual compliance attitudes. The analysis reveals that, on average, immigration does not increase tax evasion. However, significant heterogeneous effects emerge depending on migrants’ region of origin: immigration from countries that are culturally distant from the native population ap- pears to increase the likelihood of tax evasion among natives. These findings suggest that immigration may shape perceptions of fiscal fairness and, in turn, influence com- pliance behavior, with broader implications for the sustainability of tax systems and the political economy of redistribution in increasingly diverse societies.

ABSTRACT. This paper investigates the association between taxation and accounting performance for the firms in the sectors in a cross-country analysis using panel regression models. The empirical analysis includes three high income groups (USA, Japan and Western Europe) and the firms are aggregated into nine sectors. The main result is that there is an inverted U relationship between the effective tax rate and return on equity, which implies that if the effective tax rate is higher than the threshold level, the firms have a greater incentive to tax avoidance by adopting tax savings activities to increase their accounting performance.

ABSTRACT. Tax administrations in low-income countries face widespread tax evasion and high enforcement costs. They thus need information to detect where tax evasion is most severe, and allocate scarce resources accordingly. This paper shows that leveraging large firms’ trading network to collect information about their suppliers is a cost-efficient way to detect tax evasion and increase future audit returns. We collaborate with the Senegalese tax administration on a vast data collection effort to digitise lists of payments submitted by the largest firms and show that 88.6% of these firms provide incomplete information about their suppliers. This prevents any cross-checking against income declared by the suppliers themselves. We then randomise a low-cost communication campaign across all 3,487 misreporting firms, to discourage future misreporting. The intervention increases the prevalence of suppliers’ identification information by 52%. In aggregate, this allows to uncover $145.5 million in unreported revenue (i.e. 0.5 % of GDP). Most of it accrues to a few tax-registered suppliers, as opposed to informal ones. A simulation exercise shows that exploiting the newly available information to target the largest under-reporting suppliers would increase audit returns by at least 100%.

ABSTRACT. This paper studies the association between greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and the main demographic and economic characteristics of Italian households. It constructs a novel database by combining household surveys on consumption, income, and wealth with a billionaires rich list, National Accounts, and Input–Output Tables. GHG emissions are found to increase over the life cycle, although more recent cohorts exhibit systematically lower levels of emissions. While inequality in emissions across consumption, income, and wealth is substantial, it remained relatively stable between 2014 and 2020. Notably, inequality in emissions appears significantly lower when households are ranked by wealth compared to other economic dimensions. These findings are supported by novel estimates of the elasticities of GHG emissions with respect to income, consumption, and wealth. The analysis further distinguishes between demand-based and investment-based emissions, revealing that the latter are increasingly concentrated at the top of the wealth distribution.

ABSTRACT. We map the mining sector in Europe, with a focus on Energy Transition Metals (ETMs), and present an in-depth analysis of the environmental impact and associated monetary costs, at the regional level, of extraction activities. We aim to offer a spatially disaggregated view of the current mining projects and associated environmental costs in terms of CO2 emissions and their monetary value. To do this, we collected global warming potential (GWP) data from Life Cycle Assessment Impact Analysis (LCIA) and linked these to their expected monetary value. By considering the full spectrum of sourced ETMs, we map the environmental, physical, and monetary impact of current mining activities in Europe, and understand what a further increase in exploiting European reserves to reduce dependence from abroad and facilitate the green transition, could imply for European regions.

ABSTRACT. Nuclear energy is officially considered a low-carbon energy source by institutions such as the European Union, due to its negligible direct CO2 emissions. Nevertheless, following major nuclear incidents like Fukushima, several countries have implemented nuclear phase-out programs driven by safety concerns. This has raised critical questions about whether the reduction in nuclear capacity would be compensated for by an increase in renewable energy or by a return to fossil fuel-based generation. In this paper, we analyze the trajectory of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from fossil fuel energy sources (namely coal, oil, and gas) in Germany after the launch of its nuclear phase-out in 2010. Using a synthetic control method, we find that although emissions from fossil sources declined overall in the region, the reduction was weaker in Germany after the phase-out, due to an increased reliance on fossil fuels. However, over a thirteen-year period, the gap in fossil-related CO2 emissions between Germany and its synthetic control group progressively narrows and eventually closes by 2023. These findings suggest that the nuclear phase-out contributed to higher pollution from fossil fuel energy in the short term, but that this effect was gradually mitigated by a stronger expansion of renewables in Germany during the 2011–2023 period.

ABSTRACT. Violence begins early in life, and the school environment is not exempt from aggressive behaviors such as bullying. In this paper, we rely on Invalsi data to document gender differences in the self-reported likelihood of being both victims and perpetrators across various dimensions of bullying, for students in primary school. Our findings show that this phenomenon is more prevalent among male students on both sides. Additionally, we analyze the impact of gender-imbalanced classes on bullying among girls and boys. By exploiting the quasi-random allocation of students within schools and across classes, we demonstrate that girls report significantly more bullying, both as victims and perpetrators, when the proportion of male peers in the classroom increases. These results are particularly driven by psychological dimensions of bullying, including mockery, isolation, and insults, and correlate with worse well-being measures and deterioration of friendships. In summary, this evidence illustrates how violence can transmit across same-sex groups, spilling over from boys to girls as the number of boys (initially more violent) increases. These patterns are crucial for understanding the initial social interactions among young peers. Furthermore, the gender implications of these findings are highly relevant to the policy discussion on violence against women.

ABSTRACT. Spain has experienced a notable increase in female participation in the labor force in recent years, especially among mothers, although a significant gap between mothers and non-mothers persists. This study investigates the impact of both the availability and the quality of childcare on maternal employment rates. I analyse the implications of “Ley Orgánica 2/2006,” a policy aimed at regulating and enhancing the quality of early childhood education. Using staggered difference-in-differences and interactive fixed effects methodologies with rich microdata from 2004 to 2018, I explore how improvements in nursery school quality affect the child penalty faced by mothers. The results reveal that while the policy slightly improved the quality of early education, it also led to a substantial reduction in the availability of childcare. This unintended decrease in access reduced the supply of mothers’ labor in the provinces where the policy was implemented. The analysis shows heterogeneous impacts, with lower work-flexibility workers being more affected (i.e., non-college degree holders or private-sector workers) and no effect on more income-constrained groups, such as single mothers. Mechanisms indicate that childcare responsibilities were shifted primarily to mothers and not to other informal caregivers or fathers. In addition, suggestive evidence reveals that families value quantity over quality. These findings provide critical information for policy-makers seeking to balance improvements in childcare quality with maintaining accessibility to support maternal employment.

ABSTRACT. This research investigates why some women like STEM occupations more than others. We show that this phenomenon is rooted in historical kin-based norms and specific aspects of cognition, perceptions, and aspirations enforced by the normative demands of ancestral societies. Using a sub-population of second-generation immigrants from the European Social Survey (ESS), we find that intensive kinship ties, supported by strong cousin-marriage preferences, co-residence of extended families, and community endogamy, which resulted in the enforcement of stricter social norms and greater conformity while discouraging individualism, independence, and analytical thinking, had a persistent negative impact on women’s current STEM occupation choices. In addition to the individual-level analysis, we also document that kinship intensity reduces the proportion of women in STEM across countries, thereby widening the documented gender gaps. Furthermore, we show that the causal link between norms, cognition, and occupation is both direct and indirect, passing through contemporary cultural traits. At the same time, ancestral kin does not significantly affect men’s occupational choices, while it increases the likelihood of having a gender-biased opinion about the role of women in the labour market. The results are robust to a rich set of potential confounding factors at the country of origin level and a battery of sensitivity checks.

ABSTRACT. We examine how workers perceive the benefits and risks of “meaningful” jobs, focusing on the core dimensions of Self-Determination Theory (SDT): autonomy (control over tasks), competence (use of skills), and relatedness (supportive relationships). Drawing on a novel survey of 3,510 Italian employees, we first elicit subjective beliefs about how these dimensions affect job satisfaction and work-life balance. We then compare these beliefs to actual outcomes—measured through job satisfaction, job search behavior, and working hours. Our findings show that workers, on average, view autonomy, competence, and relatedness as drivers of higher job satisfaction, yet they associate competence with increased risks for work-life balance. These perceptions vary significantly across education groups, contract types, and geographical areas, highlighting substantial heterogeneities. Moreover, the data reveal partial alignment between stated beliefs and real-world outcomes: for example, autonomy predicts higher job satisfaction and lower job search, whereas competence raises actual hours worked and can raise after-hours pressures and more struggle in conciliating work and leisure. Relatedness improves well-being, though it can create spillovers between work and personal life.

ABSTRACT. We examine how the pandemic-driven rise in work from home (WFH) affected labour market participation and employment in Italy. Leveraging a unique administrative dataset covering the population of remote workers, we find that WFH had a positive effect on both activity and employment rates at the local labour market (LLM) level. To address endogeneity concerns, we instrument the observed increase in WFH with its potential, derived from LLM's sectoral compositions. Controlling for several demographic and economic factors that could affect the distribution of WFH potential, we find no evidence of pre-trends. We also explore the mechanisms driving our results. The impact is stronger in response to the increase in WFH among women in childrearing age and in areas with limited childcare services. We also find that the effect is more pronounced in lagging-behind areas, such as Southern regions, and in less densely populated LLMs. These findings suggest that WFH can play a role in terms of labour market inclusion.

ABSTRACT. Ergonomics is widely seen as a crucial factor of productivity, competitiveness, regulatory compliance, and fulfillment of organizational objectives. As a first step to integrate ergonomics in a theory of the firm, we use a simple but non-standard principal-agent model. The principal (the firm) establishes incentive compensation, while also investing in decreasing the agent's (a representative employee's) marginal cost of effort (thanks to process ergonomics) and increasing consumers' willingness-to-pay for a more user-friendly product or service (thanks to product ergonomi s). Our main result is that investing in ergonomics correlates with lower-powered incentives. This yields empirically-testable propositions. Some policy implications are also discussed.

ABSTRACT. This paper investigates the interplay between yardstick competition (YC), inter-municipal cooperation (IMC), and rent-seeking behavior in the context of local public service provision, particularly under conditions of fiscal and institutional disparities. Extending the theoretical framework of Di Liddo and Giuranno (2016, 2024), we introduce heterogeneity in both the cost of service provision and the cost of improving bureaucratic efficiency across jurisdictions. The model allows local administrators to invest in bureaucratic efficiency, influencing the quality and timeliness of service delivery. Voters, unable to observe rents directly, rely on comparative service quality to inform electoral decisions, creating a competitive dynamic among incumbents. The analysis reveals that disparities in local costs distort YC, potentially biasing electoral accountability and incentivizing rent extraction. Furthermore, the paper explores how cooperation through consortia can be used strategically by incumbents to mitigate YC pressures and increase rents, especially when disparities are moderate. The findings highlight that while cooperation can reduce service disparities, it may also undermine political accountability unless minimum service standards are enforced. The study contributes to the literature by demonstrating how local investments in efficiency and the structure of fiscal disparities shape both the incentives for cooperation and the effectiveness of yardstick competition.

ABSTRACT. Poor performance by the established political class can drive voters towards anti- establishment outsiders. Is the ine¤ectiveness of incumbent politicians an important driver of the recent rise of populist parties? We provide an empirical test exploiting a sharp discontinuity in the wage of local politicians as a function of population in Italian municipalities. We …nd that the more skilled local politicians and more e¤ec- tive local government in municipalities above the threshold cause a signi…cant drop in voter support for the populist Five-Star Movement in regional and national elections. Support for incumbent governing parties increases instead.

ABSTRACT. This paper makes three contributions. First, it presents a theoretical analysis of how social capital, formalized as trust in politicians, impacts on government performance and turnover, employing a political agency model with both moral hazard and adverse selection. Second, it presents novel measures of both local government performance and social capital at the Italian municipality level using administrative data, and insights from an online survey and information about commuting areas respectively. Third, its empirical results are consistent with the main predictions of the theory: higher social capital improves both the discipline and selection effects of elections (performance both in the first and final terms in office), but also increases turnover of incumbent mayors.

ABSTRACT. We consider an infinitely repeated game between a public purchaser of a health service and a semi-altruistic hospital when some quality dimensions of the service are non-contractible. We discuss how a Pay-for-Performance Relational Contract (P4P- RC) can induce the hospital to deliver positive unverifiable quality. We find that the optimal conditions for both price and quantities of the P4P-RC converge to the first- best the higher the stability of the interaction between the purchaser and the hospital. Using measures of political stability in Italy as a proxy for a stable interaction, we empirically test the relationship between proxies of healthcare service quality and political stability from 1996 to 2020. We find evidence that unverifiable quality increases with the political stability of the regional governments.

ABSTRACT. This paper contributes to the expanding body of research on public perception of healthcare systems, focusing in particular on how objective and subjective health status influences policy preferences and levels of public trust. One key factor shaping perceptions of healthcare quality is a person’s own health condition: individuals suffering from illness or chronic conditions often evaluate healthcare systems differently compared to those in good health. Using data collected in Round 3 (2006/07) and Round 9 (2018/19) of the European Social Survey, we employ an ordinal logistic model to examine how both objective illness conditions and subjective health status affect the likelihood of perceiving healthcare systems more positively across European countries. Our empirical results show that individuals who report having an illness are significantly more inclined to give a higher evaluation of the healthcare system. Similarly, better self-perceived health is positively associated with more favourable assessments of healthcare quality. Men tend to express greater satisfaction with the healthcare system compared to women. In contrast, individuals with higher levels of education report slightly lower satisfaction, possibly due to heightened expectations or increased awareness of system shortcomings. However, a positive perception of one’s income and higher levels of life satisfaction are both significantly linked to more favourable evaluations of healthcare services.

ABSTRACT. This study explores the impact of general practitioners’ practice styles on patients’ health and labor market outcomes after hospitalization events. We exploit administrative data from the Netherlands from 2009 to 2020, linked to Nivel data on GP practice for each patient. We construct a GP practice-specific measure of prescribing propensity, focusing on benzodiazepines, opioids, antidepressants, and antibiotics, to create a generalized measure of doctors’ practice styles. Through a non-parametric event study approach, we compare patients’ outcomes before and after hospitalization exposed to GPs with propensity to prescribe below and above the median, accounting for individual and time fixed effects. Preliminary findings confirm significant economic impacts of hospitalization, with a notable increase in medication consumption post-hospitalization. Patients treated by GPs with a higher propensity to prescribe medications experience worse labor market outcomes post-hospitalization, particularly a reduction in income from work and gross income. These effects are driven by younger patients, who experience a hospitalization earlier in their life before their careers have taken off.

ABSTRACT. The university climate is an essential factor for students’ outcomes and future trajectories. Traditional masculinity traits can create barriers to success especially for women in male-dominated fields. This paper leverages the random allocation of students into classes within the same course at an ´elite university to examine how the gender composition of peers affects students’ gender attitudes, beliefs, anxiety, academic performance, and confidence. Our findings reveal that greater exposure to female peers reduces classroom conformity to masculinity norms and anxiety while improving confidence and exam performance.

ABSTRACT. This study investigates how increased female representation in Italian municipal governments affects budget forecast errors. Leveraging Law 56/2014, which introduced gender quotas in municipalities with more than 3,000 residents, we employ an instrumental variable approach to address endogeneity issues. Our findings indicate that a one percentage point increase in the share of female politicians results in a 1.27 percent reduction in expenditure forecast errors, particularly in gender-relevant spending areas. Moreover, greater female representation improves the accuracy of revenue forecasts by 1 percent. We also explore potential heterogeneity based on the gender composition of the two main municipal governing bodies, the gender of the mayor, and whether the mayor is subject to binding term limits. The effect is more pronounced in municipalities located in economically disadvantaged areas and is associated with higher educational levels among elected officials, particularly aldermen. Overall, the results suggest that female politicians enhance fiscal discipline and transparency, leading to more accurate budget forecasts, especially in areas with weaker institutional frameworks.

ABSTRACT. In this paper we investigate the impact of the 2008 Great Recession on mental health care utilization among migrant and native workers who experienced job changes during the period 2007-2011 in the Lombardy region in Italy. We exploit a unique administrative dataset about the employees residing in Lombardy, matched with data on psychotropic drug prescriptions and hospitalizations for psychiatric disorders, and we employ a continuous difference-in-differences approach to estimate the causal effect of the Great Recession on health care utilization, looking at heterogeneous effects between natives and immigrants. Our results show that the Great Recession significantly increased mental health care utilization among native workers, while its impact on immigrant workers is minimal and statistically insignificant. To better understand the reasons behind the disparity between natives and immigrants, we analyze the impact of the Great Recession on their employment outcomes, by assuming that the employment status serves as a transmission mechanism linking the economic shock to mental health care utilization. Our labour market analysis indicates that both immigrant and native workers are negatively impacted by the Great Recession and that immigrants are more likely than Italian workers to transition from employment to unemployment in areas more severely affected by the crisis. This pattern holds across gender and age groups. Therefore, we tend to rule out the possibility that immigrants did not increase their mental health care utilization due to a lack of labour market impact. From a broader perspective, our findings point at the complexity of the relationship between economic crises and mental health care utilization, which can be influenced by various factors, including access to services, social stigma, and the broader economic and policy context.