Research

Publications

1) A Tale of Two Cities: an Experiment on Inequality and Cooperation

[paper with Maria Bigoni and Stefania Bortolotti], Theory and Decision (2021).

We study how differences in socio-economic characteristics of the neighborhood where people live correlate with their preferences and beliefs, in a sample of college students born in a mid-sized Italian city. Our findings indicate that participants living in an area characterized by a high socio-economic environment tend to trust more and are more inclined to reciprocate higher levels of trust, as compared to those coming from less wealthy neighborhoods. This behavioral difference is, at least in part, driven by heterogeneities in beliefs: subjects from the most affluent part of the city have more optimistic expectations on their counterpart’s trustworthiness than those living in a lower socio-economic environment. By contrast, no significant differences emerge in other preferences: generosity, risk-attitudes, and time preferences. Finally, we do not find any systematic evidence of out-group discrimination based on neighborhood identity.

2) Job satisfaction among healthcare workers in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic

[paper with Emilia Barili, Paola Bertoli, Veronica Grembi], Plos One (2022)

Relying on a unique survey of more than 2,500 respondent physicians and 4,500 nurses run immediately after the first wave of the COVID-19 crisis in Italy, we first show that the socio-economic characteristics of workers and their working conditions are separate important determinants of their ability to cope with the hardship caused by the epidemic outbreak. In particular, the self-declared level of mental distress and concerns is higher for females, nurses, and younger workers. Among the workplace conditions, working for a high-quality facility strongly decreases the emotional and psychological burden of workers, while increasing their satisfaction and their willingness to stay in the profession and in their medical specialty. Differently, working in a province with a shortage of medical personnel brings the opposite results. Second, we show that the severity of the epidemic outbreak in the province of work plays a minor role in affecting workers’ well-being since healthcare workers are primarily negatively affected by the intensity with which the pandemic struck themselves or their colleagues. Experiences like being infected or losing colleagues by COVID-19 are the actual sources of emotional discomfort of healthcare professionals, who are indeed trained and committed to support the diseased but not to suffer so many bad events during their activity. Yet, regardless of their struggle and that of their colleagues, the vocation of healthcare workers generally has not been undermined.

3) Worker Autonomy and Performance: Evidence from a Real-Effort Experiment

[paper], Journal of Economics Management and Strategy (2023)

Worker flexibility in effort allocation is a crucial factor for productivity and optimal job design. This paper runs a real-effort experiment that manipulates both the degree and the type of autonomy individuals have in scheduling their effort, and it examines the causal effects on final performance for both high- and low-skilled workers. Using choice-process data, I find significant baseline differences in performance and effort allocation strategies between low- and high-skilled subjects. However, the designed treatments are effective in annihilating this performance gap and identifying the types of workers who benefit the most from having full scheduling flexibility. Overall, this paper provides new and robust evidence on the importance of bounded rationality in explaining effort allocation decisions, and it identifies job design interventions to increase the performance of both high- and low- skilled workers.

4) The Effects of Financial Aid on Graduation and Labor Market Outcomes: New evidence from Matched Education-Labor Data 

[paper], Economics of Education Review (2023)

Financial aid decreases the cost of acquiring additional education. By using administrative data on financial aid applicants and exploiting sharp discontinuities in eligibility for different aid amounts, this paper identifies the causal effect of aid generosity on college performance and labor market outcomes. Eligibility for a lower aid significantly increases the probability of graduating on time. After graduation, higher-aid recipients are more likely to continue their education, and no differences emerge in the probability of working before or after graduating. However, higher-aid recipients secure a worse job-match in terms of working hours and payment, but also in terms of skills-matching

5) COVID Angels Fighting Daily Demons? Religiosity and Mental Health in Healthcare Workers

[paper with Emilia Barili, Paola Bertoli, Veronica Grembi], European Economic Review (2024)

Relying on an online experiment run with more than 15,000 healthcare respondents in Italy, right after the first wave of the COVID-19 crisis, we show that priming the religious identity of the healthcare personnel decreases the self-declared level of stress and concerns associated with several aspects of the workers’ life and network (e.g., relatives, partner) in the aftermath of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. The effects are stronger on nurses (-11.2% on the reported mental distress) rather than on physicians (-7.6%), on females (-9.9%), and hospital workers (-11.2%). The results are in line with the idea that religion is used as a coping mechanism since the effects are stronger when the respondent had faced a more stressful situation, such as being reassigned due to the COVID-19 emergency, working in a COVID-19 related specialty (e.g., emergency care), or being tested positive to the virus.

Working Paper

Identity and Cooperation in a Multicultural Society

[with Natalia Montinari, Matteo Ploner]

The research idea of this paper is based on the multidimensional view of identity. In particular, for immigrants’ identity is defined by both ethnic elements, linked to the country of origin, and by elements related to the host country. The objectives of the paper are to study how preferences and attitudes are influenced by specifics dimensions of identity and to analyze how cooperation between individuals can be encouraged by making salient a unitary identity (e.g., being part of the same community) rather than a fragmentary one (e.g., ethnicity). The aims are to improve the understanding of how identity affects preferences and behavior and to help in defining policies aimed at reducing social conflicts between different ethnic groups.

Tertiary Education and Financial Aid: Evidence from an Information Experiment

[with Giuseppe Pignataro, Luca Bonacini]

Understanding the role of information and future expectations among disadvantaged students is crucial in explaining their investment decisions in higher education. We conduct a field experiment with 6,386 University students in Italy who benefit from need-based financial aid assistance, to study the effects of different types of information provision on students’ expectations and aspirations, and on academic performance. The information treatment consists of two types of messages: one message gives information about the labor market returns of completing college – especially without delays –, and the other informs students on the importance of keeping financial aid to reach (timely) completion. The results show that the latter message has a positive effect on the aspiration of getting a job with good career prospects, and it reduces the intention of searching for part-time positions. Both messages increases students’ expectations of finding a job satisfying their personal ambitions within one year from graduation, and of being in a highly skilled profession by the age of forty. Interestingly, these results are driven by the financial aid recipients with less educated parents, further suggesting that students with non-college-educated parents may lack important information.

Work in Progress

The Impact of Financial Aid Reforms [with Massimiliano Bratti, Carlo Fiorio, Enrico Lippo]

How do firms react to demand shocks increasing workers’ human capital? The case of Italian firms in Piemonte and Veneto [with Daniela Sonedda]

Healthcare Managers and the COVID19 emergency in Italy [with Emilia Barili, Paola Bertoli, Veronica Grembi]