Publications & Research

Social restrictions, leisure and well-being (with Francesca Foliano and Almudena Sevilla)  Labour Economics, 87:102485 (2024) [link to the journal] 

Abstract: A wide-ranging public debate surrounds how pandemic lockdown measures differentially impacted individuals and which precise mechanisms – whether financial-, health-, or policy-driven – predominate in determining these effects. Using a nationally representative 24-h diary survey covering the first two years of the pandemic, we explore potential mechanisms underlying changes in well-being. We exploit the variation in the stringency of the social restrictions implemented by the UK government during this period and use an event-study methodology to net out the impact of social restrictions from other pandemic effects. We find that well-being dropped by 47 % (for men) and 71 % (for women) of a standard deviation during the strictest lockdown and that it took longer to revert to pre-pandemic levels than previously estimated. This finding holds after we account for financial conditions and changes in local infection and death rates, suggesting that the time use–related changes driven by social restrictions dominate financial and health shocks in driving the overall well-being effects during the pandemic. Our detailed data on time allocation and individual preferences over the activities undertaken throughout the day suggest that the drop in well-being was primarily associated to a drastic reduction in time spent in leisure with non–household members or outside the home, a category with greater weight in the well-being of women.

JEL classification: I10, I14, I18, I30 

Keywords: Well-being, Social isolation, Time use, Instantaneous enjoyment, Covid-19. 

Do parental time investments react to changes in child’s skills and health? (with Cheti Nicoletti) European Economic Review, 127: 103491 (2020) [link to the journal]

Abstract: Parental time investment decisions have been found to have important effects on child development; however, little is known about the response of parents to changes in their child's human capital across time. Using the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children, we measure time investments considering the time young children spend, with or without parents, in different activities. By adopting a child fixed-effect instrumental variable estimation, we find that parents reinforce for high socio-emotional skills by spending more time socialising with their child and compensate for low cognitive skills by increasing the time the child spends in learning activities.

Keywords: Time-use, Family Investment, Quality Time, Abilities, Child Development.

JEL: J13, D13, C23, C26

Mother’s health after baby’s birth: does delivery method matter?  Journal of Health Economics, 63: 182-196 (2019) [link to the journal]

Winner of Giorgio Rota Best Paper Award for Young Researchers by Centro Einaudi and Fondazione CRT

Media Coverage: The Coversation, UK, February 28, 2019 (link)

Abstract: The dramatic increase in the utilization of caesarean section has raised concerns on its impact on public expenditure and health. While the financial costs associated with this surgical procedure are well recognized, less is known on the intangible health costs borne by mothers and their families. We contribute to the debate by investigating the effect of unplanned caesarean deliveries on mothers’ mental health in the first nine months after the delivery. Differently from previous studies, we account for the unobserved heterogeneity due to the fact that mothers who give birth through an unplanned caesarean delivery may be different than mothers who give birth with a natural delivery. Identification is achieved exploiting exogenous variation in the position of the baby in the womb at the time of delivery while controlling for hospital unobserved factors. We find that mothers having an unplanned caesarean section are at higher risk of developing postnatal depression and this result is robust to alternative specifications.

Keywords: Caesarean Delivery; Postnatal Depression, Endogeneity; Fixed Effects; Instrumental Variables.

JEL: I12, J13, J16

Do waiting times affect health outcomes? Evidence from Coronary Bypass (with Giuseppe Moscelli and Luigi Siciliani). Social Science and Medicine, 161: 151-159 (2016) [link to the journal]

Media Coverage: National Public Radio (NPR), USA, August 2016 (link)

Abstract: Long waiting times for non-emergency services are a feature of several publicly-funded health systems.  key policy concern is that waiting times may worsen health outcomes: when patients receive treatment, their health condition may have deteriorated and health gains reduced. This study investigates whether patients in need of coronary bypass with longer waiting times have poorer health outcomes in the English National Health Service over 2000-2010. We measure health outcomes with in-hospital mortality and 28-day emergency readmission following discharge. Our results find no evidence of waiting times increasing in-hospital mortality and evidence of adverse but weak effects on emergency readmission. 

Keywords: Coronary Bypass; Health Outcomes; Hospitals; Panel Data; Waiting Times.

JEL: I11, I18

Gender stereotypes in the family (with Cheti Nicoletti and Almudena Sevilla)  IZA Working Paper no.  15773 [link] [new version here]  Submitted

Media Coverage: The Guardian, UK, May 2024 (link)

Abstract: We study whether and why parents have gender-stereotyped beliefs when they assess their children's abilities. Exploiting systematic differences in parental beliefs about a child's skills and blindly graded standardized test scores, we find that parents overestimate boys' skills more so than girls' in mathematics (a male-stereotyped subject), whereas there are no gender differences for reading. Consistent with an information friction hypothesis, we use exogenous variation in parents' interview dates to document that the parental gender bias disappears for parents who are interviewed after receiving information on their child’s test scores. We further show that parental gender bias in detriment of girls contributes to explain the widening of the gender gap in mathematical skills later in childhood, supporting the hypothesis that exposure to gender biases negatively influence girls’ ability to achieve their full potential.

JEL codes: J13, D13, C23, C26

Keywords: Parental beliefs, Gender bias, Stereotypes, School performance, Standardized scores. 

The effect of public health insurance coverage on child health (with Anne Nolan) [full text available upon request] 

Abstract: Public health insurance programs are mainly justified by the aim of reducing inequalities in access to health care, and, in a final instance, improving public health. This goal is particularly important for children because early health interventions have been shown to be critical for future health and life outcomes. The paper investigates the effect of public health insurance coverage on child health in the Republic of Ireland, employing a variety of econometric methods to control for endogeneity. We take advantage of the variety of information from Growing Up in Ireland (GUI) - a nationally representative child cohort study - by focusing on different measures of child health (physical health, psychological well-being) and alternative measures of health care utilisation. Our results show that children whose families benefit from public health insurance coverage have higher healthcare use, but the effects on health are ambiguous. Further research is needed to understand whether this evidence is due to a lower level of health endowment at birth for low-income children (compared to children from high-income families), an inefficient utilisation of health care services or other factors.

Keywords: Child Health, Health Care Utilisation, Health Insurance, Ireland.

JEL: I13, I14, J13

Work in Progress:

Parents' behavioural response to conflict  (with Cheti Nicoletti and Emma Tominey) Media Coverage at RES 2019 Annual Conference (link)

Gender Bias in Higher Education