"On the Historical and Geographic Origins of the Sicilian Mafia" Abstract     This research attempts to explain the large differences in the early diffusion of the mafia across different areas of Sicily. We advance the hypothesis that, after the demise of Sicilian feudalism, the lack of publicly provided property-right protection from widespread banditry favored the development…

"Informational Herding in the Provision of Public Goods"

"Do Performance Targets A ffect Financial Support to Schools? Evidence from Discontinuities in Test Scores"

"Bilateral Trust and the Ownership Structure of Foreign Direct Investments: Evidence from European Firm Level Data" abstract It is often argued that the foreign direct investments (FDIs) have positive effects on host countries. In particular, multinationals tend to have some competitive advantage based on superior technology or other firm-specic knowledge and, therefore, inward FDIs are…

"For a Fistful of Euros. Tales of Ordinary unemployment" abstract In most developed countries the insurance against involuntary unemployment is a pivotal policy in the support of workers. In Italy, it has just a marginal role; furthermore, it is currently questioned for the very low coverage it grants to its target population. In this paper we…

"Income Growth and Institutional Quality: Evidence fromInternational Oil Price Shocks"

"Youngsters' Reaction to Emancipation Incentives"by Ainhoa Aparicio and Veruska Opedisano Abstract We study the income and substitution effects of a rental subsidy together with its effectiveness in promoting youngsters' independence. We exploit the introduction of a sizeable monthly subsidy in Spain in 2008, granted to all youngsters in the 22-29 age brackets who earn a…

"On the construction of stationary process and their applications" abstract I will review a simple idea to construct strictly stationary Markov processes with given marginal distributions. The proposed methodology is appealing in that it keeps track ofthe underlying transition probabilities, hence being of interest in estimation, simulation and applied problems. Various classes of time series…

"Instability of Informed Coordination" (Note: the seminar is on Tuesday) Abstract When agents use observational learning to learn about the fundamentals of a coordination game, there are multiple equilibria. In some equilibria information is efficiently transmitted through observational learning, while in others private information is disregarded entirely. Investigating the stability of these equilibria in a stochastic…

Educational Differences in Early Childbearing: A Cross-national Comparative Study Abstract: This cross-national comparative study describes relationships between women’s socioeconomic status and early age at first childbirth and seeks to lay an empirical foundation for further research on the ways in which these relationships are shaped by national context.  To this end, we describe differences in early childbearing with respect to both…

"The Nature of Risk Preferences: Evidence from Insurance Choices" (Note: the seminar is on Wednesday) Abstract:      We use data on insurance deductible choices to estimate a structural model of risky choice that permits "standard" risk aversion, loss aversion, and probability weighting. We show that loss aversion and probability weighting - though not separately identified without strong…

"Discrimination in labour markets: An experimental analysis" Abstract: This study highlights that discrimination can be pervasive on the labor market also in the lack of quality differences between different categories and if employers with unbiased intentions strive for high quality workers. We tested experimentally the hypotheses that (i) high aspiration levels of firms and (ii)…

"Inference for Best Linear Approximations to Set Identified Functions" Abstract: This paper provides inference methods for best linear approximations to functions which are known to lie within a band. It extends the partial identification literature by allowing the upper and lower functions defining the band to be any functions, including ones carrying an index, which…

"On the Efficiency of Partial Information in Elections" We study the relation between the electorate’s information about candidates’ policy platforms during an election, and the subsequent provision of inefficient local publicgoods (pork) by the elected government. More information does not lead to better outcomes. We show that the efficient outcome in which no candidate proposes…

"Price as a signal of product quality: experimental evidence from wine tastings" Abstract:We study the determinants of the choice between wines in wine tasting experiments where about 200 nonprofessional tasters were asked to indicate which one of the tasted wines they preferred and which one they would buy. In addition to actually tasting several wines, which differ in terms…