Kyklos最新文献

This article examines public attitudes toward wealth taxation in Italy, drawing on a survey of 2400 individuals conducted in 2021. Moving beyond the conventional “tax-the-rich” narrative, it investigates people's views on wealth taxes as a potential alternative to income and consumption taxation. The analysis exploresthe role of self-interest, personal beliefs, and political orientation, and shows that support for wealth taxes does not necessarily stem from redistributive motives, but may also express a preference for a less intrusive tax system with moderate progressivity, an approach aligned with classical–liberal principles. Respondents prefer wealth taxes to consumption taxes. Notably, many support a proposal to replace all existing taxes with a single wealth tax. However, concerns emerge regarding potential increases in the overall tax burden and the inclusion of primary residences in the tax base. Contrary to expectations, political orientation plays a limited role in shaping attitudes, although an interaction effect between political views and economic status is observed. The earmarking of tax revenues does not significantly influence preferences.

This paper estimates the causal effect of culturally inherited social trust on the severity of depressive symptoms among second-generation immigrants. To isolate the impact of inherited social trust on depressive symptoms, I regress the depressive symptoms of second-generation immigrants against the average social trust in their parents' country of origin. Using a sample of second-generation immigrants residing in 22 European countries, I show that a one-standard-deviation increase in inherited social trust reduces the severity of depressive symptoms, as measured by the CES-D8 depression scale, by 6.5% of a standard deviation. Overall, this paper highlights a causal relationship between higher inherited social trust and less severe depressive symptoms among second-generation immigrants.

We offer a theoretical and empirical analysis that shows how corruption can be a ‘green grease’ that facilitates both environmental crimes and money laundering. Corruption can be an accelerator that amplifies the multiplier effect on illegal revenues. We model these relationships using a logistic function, which we calibrate to estimate overall environmental crime revenues using Italian regional data from 1995 to 2020.

This paper brings individual-level evidence to the hypothesis that women holding political offices, that is, descriptive representation, affects the participation of women in politics. Specifically, using a regression discontinuity design, we analyze the role of close victories of directly elected female candidates in mixed-gender races at the federal elections in Germany in 2013 on individuals' decisions to turn out at the federal elections in Germany in 2017. We account for mediating channels such as changes in the pool of candidates, policy outcomes, policy interest, and knowledge that may all also affect voter turnout. The results indicate no effect of descriptive representation on female turnout in the future.

Substantial academic debate exists regarding whether students with economics training exhibit distinct behavioral patterns that differentiate them from students in other academic disciplines. On one hand, the debate remains open due to the heterogeneity of the results. On the other hand, establishing the reasons for these possible differences is complicated. The existing academic literature proposes two explanatory hypotheses: self-selection and indoctrination. Most of the current results support a self-selection effect and reject indoctrination. Despite this, most studies present methodological limitations that should be considered. This study aims to address and overcome these limitations. To enhance our understanding of the potential effects stemming from economic training, it contributes to the existing literature in three main ways: Firstly, it conducts a longitudinal study of self- and other-interested behavior in university students following a standard microeconomics course. Secondly, it employs a novel instrument to measure self- and other-interest, with strong psychometric properties of validity and reliability. Thirdly, the sample is limited to business and law students to ensure homogeneity in the comparison. Our results suggest the existence of behavioral differences, mainly due to the self-selection effect. No evidence was found to suggest an indoctrination effect from the study of microeconomics.

This study examines the impact of host-country citizenship on immigrant students' choice of academic majors, using data from an Italian university and incorporating characteristics of students' countries of origin. The analysis focuses on enrolment in fields of study categorized by mathematical content. The findings reveal three main points: First, obtaining citizenship reduces the likelihood of choosing math-related disciplines; second, this effect is more pronounced among women, further widening the gender gap in math-intensive fields; and third, these gaps are larger among students from more gender-equal countries but are less affected by the acquisition of citizenship. These results are supported by matching techniques, two-stage least squares, and robustness and sensitivity analyses. Given that math-intensive fields are linked to higher earning potential, the findings suggest that investment in mathematical skills may serve as a safeguard against labour market risks—a necessity that lessens upon acquiring citizenship, especially for women. Although this shift could adversely affect future earnings, it also contributes to a more even distribution of students across disciplines, potentially enhancing diversity in occupations where immigrants are traditionally under-represented.