Research

Work in progress: 

Abstract

We study the presence and the extent of gender differences in reference letters for graduate students in economics and finance, and how these differences relate to early labor market outcomes. To these ends, we build a novel rich dataset and combine Natural Language Processing techniques with standard regression analysis. We find that men are described more often as brilliant and women as hardworking and diligent. We show that the former (latter) description relates positively (negatively) with various subsequent career outcomes. We provide evidence that the observed differences in the way candidates are described are driven by implicit gender stereotypes.

Media coverage: Wired Italia, 14 February 2024

la Repubblica, 26 February 2024


Abstract

We analyse the risk of mafia capture of firms operating in the legal economy. Specifically, we study the relationship between firm performance and mafia infiltration. To overcome possible endogeneity concerns we exploit the abrupt drop in revenues caused by the (unexpected) Covid-19 related closures imposed in Spring 2020 in Italy. Our estimates reveal that the induced sudden and significant worsening of affected firms financial conditions increased the likelihood of them being infiltrated by mafia-connected entre- preneurs. According to our preferred specification, a 10% drop in revenues leads to a 4.8% increase in the probability of a firm being infiltrated by the mafia compared to the baseline. These effects, however, were partly offset by the extraordinary measures put in place by the government to support financially distressed firms. Heterogeneity in the effectiveness of the different measures provides indirect evidence that firms are more likely to resort to mafia lending when they face temporary difficulties in repaying their debts.


Abstract

A growing body of research shows that differences in both fields of study and firm-specific pay premiums account for a large share of the gender pay gap. This paper makes use of unique administrative data obtained for Italy, which combines granular information on both educational choices and early labor market outcomes, to jointly assess the role of field of study choices and that of jobs' and firms' characteristics, conditional on fields of study, for the early career gender pay gap. We find that  choices of university majors explain more than half (60%) of the early career gender pay gap among university graduates, while within-major differences in jobs and firms characteristics account for only 20% of the gap. For secondary school graduates, differences in the choice of high-school tracks play also an important role (30%), but within-track disparities in jobs' and firms' characteristics are more relevant (45%), likely because of the lower degree of specialization of tracks with respect to majors. These findings call for policies that act before  boys and girls enter the labor market, when they are still in education, and choose their fields of study, especially at university.


Abstract

This paper analyzes whether and in which way the macroeconomic conditions when students are about the end of the years of compulsory education affect their educational aspirations and, through them, their future educational choices. To this purpose, we combine individual-level self-reported aspirations about the intentions to complete high school and to enroll at university of all students attending the tenth grade of the Italian education system contained in the Invalsi SNV Students' Questionnaires, with measures of the regional labor market conditions, as a proxy for the local conditions of the business cycle. Identification of the effect of interest is achieved by exploiting the naturally exogenous variations in the local labor market conditions and by comparing adjacent cohorts of students, within the same school, exposed to different local business cycle conditions at the time when the educational aspirations are stated. We find that students exposed to economic downturn in the last year of compulsory education are more likely to state they wish to drop out and not attain a secondary school diploma. Moreover, among those who state they do not wish to drop out, we find a significant increase in the stated likelihood of pursuing a higher education degree at the end of secondary school for girls but not for boys. 


Published papers:

Media coverage: il Sole 24 ore, 10 October 2019

il Fatto Quotidiano, 11 October 2019

 Messaggero, 11 October 2019

Winner of Giorgio Rota Prize 2015, Centro Einaudi 

Winner of Prize in memory of Etta Chiuri 2015
Winner of International Institute of Public Finance Young Economists Award 2015

Policy papers:

Media coverage: la Repubblica, il Sole 24 ore, la Stampa, il Manifesto.