Economica最新文献

Drawing on a matched survey–administrative dataset tracking careers from 1975 to 2018, we examine the trends in intragenerational earnings mobility in Italy over the past 40 years. We compare earnings trajectories from age 35 to age 45 via a refined version of the ‘income risk decomposition’ proposed by Austin Nichols in 2008, distinguishing between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ earnings mobility from an individual welfare perspective. Our findings reveal that the long-run trend of increasing cross-sectional earnings inequality in Italy has been accompanied by widening persistent disparities within the same generation. For all cohorts of workers, at least 80% of inequality is permanent, reaching nearly 90% for the most recent cohort. We also uncover that a substantial share of individuals—between 25% and 39%—do not benefit from stable upward income mobility during a crucial career phase. This issue has worsened over time, with the last ten cohorts experiencing higher income instability ($��+�20�.�2�$%) and declining upward mobility ($��-�34�.�7�$%), largely explained by the growing prevalence of atypical employment arrangements. Furthermore, using intragenerational Great Gatsby curves, we show that cohorts exposed to greater earnings inequality also face more persistent differences and reduced earnings growth, especially in the aftermath of the Great Recession.

Fertility levels have decreased greatly in virtually every nation, but the timing of the decline has differed even among developed countries. In Europe, Asia and North America, total fertility rates (TFRs) of some nations dipped below the magic replacement figure of 2.1 as early as the 1970s. But in other nations, fertility rates remained substantial until the 1990s, plummeting subsequently. This paper addresses why some countries in Europe and Asia with moderate fertility levels in the 1980s have become the ‘lowest low’ nations today (TFRs less than 1.3), whereas those that decreased earlier have not. Also addressed is why the crossover point for the two groups of nations was around the 1980s and 1990s. An important factor that distinguishes the two groups is their economic growth in the decades after the Second World War, especially the 1960s and 1970s. Countries with ‘lowest low’ fertility rates today experienced rapid growth in GDP per capita after a long period of stagnation or decline. They were catapulted into modernity, but the beliefs, values and traditions of their citizens changed more slowly. Thus swift economic change may lead to both generational and gendered conflicts that result in a rapid decrease in TFR.

Using a new survey and experimental data, we investigate how information on inequality and immigration affects preferences for redistribution in Italy. Our analysis addresses both the economic and cultural dimensions of immigration, showing that, in general, preferences for redistribution are inelastic to new information. However, we find that providing information about the native–immigrant composition of poverty reduces exclusionary redistributive preferences. Specifically, when respondents learn that poverty among natives is lower than they had previously believed, they are less likely to prioritize natives and exclude immigrants from receiving welfare benefits. This provides evidence of an economic in-group bias in redistribution preferences. Heterogeneous treatment effects also reveal the presence of a cultural in-group bias among certain sociodemographic groups.

A rich literature has long studied the asymmetric effects of monetary policy over the business cycle, generally presenting mixed results. Most of the empirical work, however, focuses on the responses of output and prices. Our analysis centres on the dynamics of the markup, given the key role that it plays in the transmission of monetary policy, the fact that it constitutes a key leading indicator for predicting economic and financial crises, its direct relationship with income distribution, and the scarce studies on the subject. Recent empirical findings suggest that the markup decreases (increases) in response to a monetary policy tightening (easing) shock, a counterintuitive result if we consider the basic New Keynesian model, which delivers a countercyclical response of the markup conditional on a monetary shock. We show that the dynamics of the markup depend on whether the monetary policy shock takes place during a period of expansion or recession, with the markup responding as expected in the New Keynesian model in recessions, but failing to do so in expansions. Our results have important policy implications, providing evidence that the transmission mechanism of monetary policy through the markup would not be operative during booms.

Measuring time-varying policy intensity as the proportion of relevant newspaper articles, we study how the Chinese government's 2012 anti-corruption campaign affected listed companies from 2012 to 2014. We find that the campaign's first two years decreased the market value of politically connected companies by 7.5%, which is equivalent to 80–83% of the benefit brought by these connections. These impacts were driven mainly by non-government-owned companies, less productive companies, and companies in regions with higher levels of corruption. Furthermore, our analysis reveals that companies with political connections have reallocated more resources to marketing to sustain their operations since the start of the campaign. Additionally, they have retained a larger share of their profits to navigate through more challenging economic and financing conditions.

We develop an equilibrium model of labour force participation to examine the labour market business cycle. The model remains agnostic about unemployment inflows and outflows, modelling these flows with a structural moving average representation derived from a factor-augmented vector autoregression model. Estimating the augmented dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model on data for the USA, we identify the structural shocks and parameters driving business cycle fluctuations, avoiding misspecified job-finding and job-separation rates. Our results show that real wage rigidities play a minor role, labour force participation is mildly procyclical, and transitions between employment, unemployment and non-participation are strongly cyclical.

We study the capacity reduction process in an industry with geographically complex market structure, using the case study of the closing of bank branches in Spain in the years following the burst of the credit bubble (2008–14). We geolocate each bank branch and identify as its competitors those branches that lie within 150 metres of it. We find that branches with competitors are less likely to close than branches without, indicative of strategic behaviour. Clustering the circle markets centred within the same census tract using fixed effects, we estimate a negative effect of the number of competitors at the start on both the exit rate in a local market and the probability of closing of an individual branch. This sign is the opposite of both what has been found in the related literature, and what we estimate without the census tract fixed effects. We argue that this negative relationship is rationalizable by a standard free entry model in the presence of fixed costs. We also find that branch closings are faster when the parent bank has other branches in the same local market, which is further evidence for strategic behaviour.

We conduct a survey experiment among 18,000 respondents in Germany to examine the determinants of support for rent control policies. We find that highlighting undesirable price and supply effects lowers respondents' agreement with rent control, while pointing out that it can prevent the displacement of low-income tenants increases agreement. However, while our treatments shift support for the policy into the hypothesized direction, the effect size decreases with misperceptions. Our results suggest that responsiveness to new information depends largely on prior beliefs, which affect perceived credibility and political neutrality of the received information. Mere information provision may therefore not be sufficient to effectively alter policy views.

This paper puts forward an analytically tractable dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model, with both labour and product market frictions. Frictions in the labour market arise from the power of labour market insiders to periodically preset nominal wages, without full current information. Product market frictions arise from monopolistic competition and staggered pricing. The model results in an insider–outsider New Keynesian Phillips curve (IO-NKPC) that transcends the main limitations of the benchmark and hybrid NKPCs based on staggered pricing, as: (i) it is expressed in terms of unanticipated inflation since current inflation depends on prior expectations about its level; (ii) unemployment (output) and inflation persistence are endogenous; and (iii) the divine coincidence between the stabilization of inflation and employment (output) does not apply, rendering a Taylor-type interest rate rule optimal. Dynamic simulations reveal multifaceted inflation dynamics shaped by the interplay of price stickiness and labour market persistence. An empirical application to the euro area validates the IO-NKPC's superior forecasting performance, highlighting its relevance for understanding inflation dynamics and guiding effective monetary policy design.

This study explores the impact of light-touch interventions on the academic outcomes of female scholarship recipients. In a randomized trial involving nearly 2000 students at the University of Bologna, we delivered a targeted message highlighting how higher education can reduce the gender gap in the labour market, and boost employment prospects. The nudge increased the likelihood of meeting scholarship requirements by nearly 5 percentage points, alongside significant gains in passing exams with higher credit values, and a reduction in failed exams in the medium term, with no short-term effects. Notably, there was an improvement in grades during the July/August exam period, reflecting a shift towards prioritizing quality over quantity in academic efforts, even though grades were not part of the requirements for maintaining scholarships. Treated students exhibited enhanced academic focus and more strategic study habits, without increasing overall exam load. These findings highlight the potential of cost-effective informational nudges to drive meaningful changes for women facing financial and informational barriers, providing valuable insights for policies designed to support female students. The results emphasize the importance of well-timed informational interventions in helping women to make informed decisions about their education, ultimately enhancing their academic success and long-term economic prospects.