ABSTRACT: How much do the poor spend on food as their income increases? We estimate a key economic parameter---the income elasticity of food expenditures---using data from five randomized evaluations of conditional cash transfer programs: two in Mexico and one in each of Nicaragua, the Philippines, and Uganda. These transfers provided routine, exogenous increases of 12 to 23 percent of baseline income for at least a year to recipients at or below the global poverty line. Using pooled ordinary least squares and Bayesian hierarchical models, we first show that expenditures on all food categories increase with income. But even among some of the poorest people in the world, all of whom are experiencing high hunger levels, our estimate of the income elasticity for food is 0.04, i.e., much smaller than many published estimates that rely either on cross-sectional variation or which study responses to large income shocks. Next, we use our data to run the first credible test of Bennett's Law---the empirical regularity whereby, for poor households, income increases are associated with (i) shifting spending from coarse to fine staples, and then (ii) spending more on protein than staples---which we find partial support for. While income increases lead consumers to spend a declining share of their income on food and to substitute fine grains for coarse grains and protein for staples, the estimated shifts are smaller than previous estimates. Quantifying how small, routine income changes affect food demand in low- and middle-income countries can inform the policy discourse on poverty reduction, nutrition, and social protection, as well as the debate on the impact of economic growth on global carbon emission patterns.

ABSTRACT: Under what conditions do commodity booms lead to industrialization? We study this question in the context of Brazil in the 19th and early 20th centuries, when the region of São Paulo experienced a coffee boom together with the formation of its first industrial cluster. We digitize a host of new data on sectoral employment; agricultural, textile, and manufacturing censuses; trade flows (internal and external), and railroad investments for 1872-1950. The data show that regions with higher coffee suitability experienced slower manufacturing growth, while regions in proximity to those where coffee was booming experienced substantial manufacturing growth. A model disciplined by these correlations attributes more than half of São Paulo's industrialization to the coffee boom.

ABSTRACT: This paper examines how fuel-price shocks affect household spending in Italy. Using the AD-HBS dataset, which links Household Budget Survey data to administrative income records for 2017-2023, we jointly estimate households’ adjustment in fuel demand and non-fuel consumption. We find that fuel demand is relatively rigid, causing higher fuel costs to spill over strongly into cuts in other expenditure. These effects are highly uneven: low-income households, residents of Southern Italy and the Islands, metropolitan households, and diesel users bear the largest adjustments. Responses also intensified during the 2022-2023 energy crisis, suggesting that large and salient price shocks amplify both quantity adjustment and household expenditure reallocation. Our findings show that fuel-price increases are not only an energy issue but also a significant distributional shock, calling for compensation policies targeted at the most exposed households.

ABSTRACT: We show that influencers constitute a previously unrecognized class of platform, with distinctive features that cannot be reduced to those of conventional platforms. We call them personal platforms: two-sided intermediaries whose quality is inseparable from the composition of the communities they connect. We model an influencer as a two-sided platform connecting followers and sponsored sellers. Expansion creates network benefits but also increases cross-side mismatch. We show that the side that is more sensitive to mismatch is optimally kept narrower. Moreover, community breadth depends on aggregate cross-side externalities, while relative prices depend on their allocation across sides. Community design and cross-subsidization are thus distinct margins, yielding a taxonomy of personal platforms based on architecture and monetization.

ABSTRACT: This paper examines how education and local context shape migration trajectories following an initial internal move. We develop a dynamic framework in which migration is modeled as a sequential decision process, where individuals accumulate location-specific adaptation and relational capital that influence subsequent mobility choices. The model is estimated using a discrete-time competing-risks approach applied to longitudinal administrative data tracking young individuals who moved from Southern to Northern Italy between 2011 and 2014. The results reveal a strong educational sorting of migration trajectories. Highly educated individuals are significantly more likely to undertake onward international migration and substantially less likely to return to the South, whereas lower-educated migrants display the opposite pattern. Importantly, the effect of education depends on the context in which adaptation takes place. Urban destinations in the North significantly increase the likelihood that highly educated migrants use internal migration as a stepping stone toward international mobility, while this effect is much weaker in non-urban areas. These findings suggest that internal migration does not necessarily mitigate regional brain drain. Instead, it may reinforce it by facilitating subsequent international migration among highly educated individuals.

ABSTRACT: The paper deals with stablecoins, privately issued monetary instruments that promise to maintain a rate of exchange 1:1 with a conventional fiat money. We look at how this significant innovation impacts the monetary and financial system. We concentrate on the comparison between issuers of stablecoins and ordinary banks. We analyze: i) the different ways in which they intermediate; ii) how stablecoins relate to conventional money. We argue that financial intermediation activities remain crucial in the new environment and we reject the idea that stablecoins can be regarded as substitutes for conventional money. The paper concludes that the stablecoins’ promise to maintain a 1:1 exchange rate with conventional fiat money cannot be ensured and that the failure to keep it can give rise to financial instability. We argue in favor of more thorough regulatory policies and institutional measures able to reduce the risks generated by stablecoins without suffocating their positive effects, notably lower transaction costs due to the extended use of new digital technologies with the related advantages especially in international transactions.

ABSTRACT: This paper studies how news format and access to additional information affect individuals’ ability to detect fake news. We conduct a large-scale online survey experiment on a representative sample of the Italian adult population, implementing a 2×2 design that varies whether news is presented in a short, sensationalistic or a long, descriptive format, and whether respondents can request additional neutral information before making a judgment.

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