SELECTED PUBLICATIONS


AEA Papers and Proceedings.  May 2023. Vol 113.

It assembles a novel dataset tracking the share of job ads advertising WFH in 20 OECD countries and shows that this share kept rising following the pandemic, reaching more than 11%  overall and almost 30% in high-WFH-potential occupations in March 2023.

Data available here.


Review of Economics and Statistics. November 2022. Vol 104, Issue 6: 1174-1190. 

It argues, both theoretically and empirically, that labor market deregulation in the 1990s and 2000s may explain about a tenth of the labor share decline observed in most advanced economies over the last three decades. 

Among others, presented at the 2019 Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association.

Media: Brookings; Sydney Morning Herald; Washington Center for Equitable Growth.  WP version here.


Journal of International Money and Finance. October 2022. Vol 127: 102676.

It separates U.S. monetary policy surprises into a pure monetary policy and an information shock component and finds that the two have distinctly different effects on international mutual fund investment and capital flows - negative for the former and marginally positive for the latter.

Among others, presented at the San Francisco Fed 2021 Asia Economic Policy Conference.

Op-eds: VoxEU.org; Ideas for India. Data available here (disable VPN/firewalls).  WP version here.


OTHER PUBLICATIONS


Journal of International Money and Finance. February 2023. Vol 130: 102764.

It studies the effect of uncertainty on international capital flows, going beyond U.S. and global uncertainty. It shows that increases in economic and political uncertainty in the recipient country are associated with a reduction in foreign bank credit and portfolio debt inflows.

WP version here.


Applied Economics. 2022. Vol 54, Issue 36: 4227-4239. 

It shows that the cyclical sensitivity of unemployment to aggregate demand is more than twice as large in advanced as in emerging market and developing economies, twice as large for the young as for the adults, and significantly lower for women than for men . 

WP version here.


Health Economics. September 2022. Vol 31, Issue 9: 1823-1843. 

It argues that Italy's business shutdown policy may have reduced the death toll from the first wave of COVID-19 by about 40%, and that shutdowns should (i) be adopted earlier on in the pandemic curve to be most effective, and (ii) only target services activities to minimize economic trade-offs. 

WP version here.


Journal of Public Health. December 2020. Vol 42, Issue 4: 723-730.

It investigates COVID-19-induced mortality during Italy's first wave using death registry data and finds that the pandemic led to the death of more than 0.15% of the local population in Italy's north. It also shows that official statistics vastly underreport this death toll, by about 60%.

Op-eds: VoxEU.org (most read in May/2020).


European Economic Review. January 2020. Vol. 121: 103347.

It shows that consumption risk sharing in the Euro Area increased from about 30% in its early years to about 60% in the 2010s, thanks largely to higher financial integration through cross-border porftolio holdings and the provision of official loans to distressed countries.



European Journal of Political Economy. March 2019. Vol. 57: 107-124. 

It studies the inequality effects of increases in taxes and finds that (i) these reduce inequality, but at the cost of weaker economic activity, and (ii) indirect taxes reduce inequality by more than direct taxes, possibly due to the operation of a positive labour supply channel.

WP version here.



  • WORKING PAPERS


CEPR Discussion Paper 18859. 2024. Accepted for publication at Economica.

It analyzes the electoral effects of austerity policies and finds that these are negative for tax hikes, while those of expenditure cuts depend on whether the government campaigned on a free-market platform. It explains this result developing a model of electoral competition with polarized voter constituencies.

Op-eds: VoxEU.org


ANU Working Papers in Economics and Econometrics, 2023-696.

It studies oil price windfalls as drivers of job protection reforms and finds asymmetric effects across democracies and autocracies: positive (negative) windfalls lead to a deregulation in autocracies (democracies). It explores potential transmission channels and conclude that different political economy considerations may be driving these results.


OECD Economics Department Working Papers, No. 1788. 2023.

It analyzes employment reallocation across firms during the COVID-19 pandemic and role of job retention schemes (JRS). It finds that JRS cushioned the effect of the crisis on employment growth and firm survival without distorting the productivity-enhancing nature of reallocation.

Op-eds: VoxEU.org.


SSRN Working Paper. 2022.

It studies the adoption of WFH after the COVID-19 pandemic using a newly assembled dataset of job postings advertising WFH. It finds that increases in pandemic severity substantially raise WFH but declines have no effect, suggesting that WFH is here to stay.

Among others, presented at the 2023 Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association (live streamed).

Op-eds: VoxEU.org; EcoScope; Indeed Hiring Lab; OECD Statistics Blog. 

Media: Wall Street Journal; Bloomberg; Financial Times; Le Figaro; Les Echos; BFMTV; Sueddeutsche Zeitung; RTE, Irish Examiner; Irish Times. 

Data available here.


OECD Economics Department Working Papers No. 1668. 2021.

It shows that the gender wage gap is around 15% on average across 25 European countries and studies its drivers. It finds that "sticky floors" related to social norms and discrimination account for 40% of the gap, while the "glass ceiling" related to the motherhood penalty accounts for 60%.

Op-eds: VoxEU.org 

Media: Expresso.pt; NYT


medRxiv Working Paper. 2020.

Using distance to the ICU as proxy for access to emergency care, it argues that healthcare congestion may have substantially increased mortality rates during Lombardy's first COVID-19 wave, by about a third in the average municipality, which is about 15 minutes driving away from the ICU.


SSRN Working Paper. 2020.

It shows empirically that the shutdown of non-essential service activities was very effective in reducing mortality during Italy's first COVID-19 wave and it argues that improving pre-hospital emergency services and building ambulance capacity is key to avoid healthcare system congestion.

Op-eds: VoxEU.org, Nada Es Gratis


WORK IN PROGRESS





POLICY PAPERS


IMF Staff Discussion Note. SDN 19/08.


Chapter 3 of the 2019 Fall Edition of the IMF World Economic Outlook


IMF Staff Discussion Note. SDN 19/02.