I am a postdoctoral researcher at Mercatorum University and an associated researcher at CRENoS.
My research interests include labor economics, human capital, and macroeconomics.
Contact: simone.nobili@unimercatorum.it
Previously:
Research Fellow at University of Cagliari.
Visiting Ph.D. at Pompeu Fabra University.
Visiting Ph.D. at Ca' Foscari University of Venice.
Ph.D. student in Economics, Management and Quantitative Methods at University of Sassari.
"Generative AI and Posted Labor Demand: Volume, Seniority and Timing" with Fabio Cerina and Marco Rosso.
Abstract:
We study how the release of ChatGPT affected posted U.S. labor demand, using 368 million Lightcast job postings (2016–2025) and a usage-anchored measure of LLM exposure. While we find a negative and causal effect on the volume of postings in AI-exposed occupations, we find no post-release effect on their seniority composition. After November 2022, posting volume in top-quartile-exposed occupations contracts by 9 log points (approximately 8.6 percent) relative to less-exposed occupations within the same metropolitan market, industry and month. The estimate survives an extensive battery of robustness checks and is concentrated in measured LLM usage rather than AI capability. In exposed occupations, junior postings fall considerably more than senior postings after the release, but the divergence predates ChatGPT: it opens in 2021–22, during the COVID recovery, and shows no break at the release. The differential that a simple pre/post comparison would attribute to ChatGPT is absorbed by predetermined remote-work exposure. Our results caution against reading exposure-based entry-level declines as evidence of AI-driven seniority-biased technological change.
"Skill-biased remote work and incentives" with Fabio Cerina and Luca Deidda.
Abstract:
We document that, since the Covid-19 pandemic, performance pay has become increasingly common alongside remote work, especially in high-skill jobs, even within narrowly defined occupations. We develop a firm-worker model with moral hazard to show how workers’ skills shape the firm’s joint choice of work arrange- ments and incentive schemes. Since low-skill workers are less likely to achieve high performance, under risk aversion, they require larger performance premia. Therefore, the firm adopts performance pay only if the worker is sufficiently skilled, and fixed pay with monitoring otherwise. The unforeseen pandemic shock forces the firm to implement remote work, expanding the adoption of performance pay because monitoring is less effective remotely. Post-pandemic, the firm always retains remote work for high-skill workers paid on performance, and for low-skill workers only if remote monitoring remains sufficiently effective. The model thus predicts that a decline in the efficacy of remote monitoring reduces remote work among low-skill workers while leaving high-skill workers unaffected. We test this prediction with a Difference-in-Differences design that exploits the introduction of stricter electronic-monitoring regulation in New York State, and find strong support. Our findings suggest that regulations governing workplace monitoring shape firms’ choices over work arrangements and incentive structures.
"Market structure and international tax competition"
Abstract:
Over the past few decades, there has been a notable increase in firms' market power accompanied by a global decrease in Corporate Income Tax (CIT) rates. This paper provides a theoretical framework to shed light on these diverging trends. I develop a general equilibrium model that incorporates imperfect competition and strategic interaction among firms, allowing them to shift profits abroad towards a tax haven. I find that increasing firms' market power enhances their incentives to engage in profit shifting, via larger profits. Profits rise through (i) larger markdowns and (ii) reallocation of market share towards more productive firms. A government, competing to retain firms' profits, set low tax rates to prevent local firms from evading toward tax haven(s). International tax competition is stronger, i.e. lower tax rates, when firms' market power is higher. Besides, I find that profit shifting endogenously increases the level of market power in the economy, favouring the most productive firms, and hasten the tax "race to the bottom".
"Focus. L'intelligenza artificiale e la domanda di lavoro" with Fabio Cerina and Giacomo Deidda
"Remote revolution: gendering job postings is the new black" with Hugues Champeaux and Elisa Dienesch
"The performance of incentives within the firm"