Working papers results

We use a transparent statistical methodology for data-driven case studies-synthetic control methods-to investigate the impact of economic liberalization episodes on the pattern of real per capita GDP in a worldwide sample of countries. Economic liberalizations are measured by a widely used indicator that captures the scope of the market in the economy, mainly in terms of openness to international trade. The applied methodology compares the post- liberalization growth of treated (open) economies with the growth of a convex combination of similar but untreated (closed) economies, controlling for time-varying unobservables. We find that opening up the economy had a positive effect in most regions that we can analyze in our framework, but we note that more recent liberalizations (after 1990), mainly in Africa, had no significant impact on growth, indicating an early bird gain from globalization.

This paper studies the case where a game is played in a particular context. The context influences what beliefs players hold. As such, it may affect forward induction reasoning: If players rule out specific beliefs, they may not be able to rationalize observed behavior. The effects are not obvious. Context-laden forward induction may allow outcomes precluded by context-free forward induction. At the formal level, forward induction and contextual reasoning are defined within an epistemic structure. In particular, we represent contextual forward induction reasoning as rationality and common strong belief of rationality"(RCSBR) within an arbitrary type structure. (The concept is due to Battigalli-Siniscalchi [6, 2002].) We ask: What strategies are consistent with RCSBR (across all type structures)? We show that the RCSBR is characterized by a solution concept we call Extensive Form Best Response Sets (EFBRS's). We go on to study the EFBRS concept in games of interest.

-

We use the time series of shifts in U.S. taxes constructed by Romer and Romer to estimate tax multipliers. Differently from the single-equation approach adopted by Romer and Romer, our estimation strategy (a Var that includes output, government spending and revenues, inflation and the nominal interest rate) does not rely upon the assumption that tax shocks are orthogonal to each other as well as to lagged values of other macro variables. Our estimated multiplier is much smaller: one, rather than three at a three-year horizon. When we split the sample in two sub-samples (before and after 1980) we find, before 1980, a multiplier whose size is never greater than one, after 1980 a multiplier not significantly different from zero. Following the findings in Bohn (1998), we also experiment with a model that includes debt and the non-linear government budget constraint. We find that, while in general not very important, the non-linearity that arises from the budget constraint makes a difference after 1980, when the response offiscal variables to the level of the debt becomes stronger.

We analyze optimal policy design when firms' research activity may lead to socially harmful innovations. Public intervention, affecting the expected profitability of innovation, may both thwart the incentives to undertake research (average deterrence) and guide the use to which innovation is put (marginal deterrence). We show that public intervention should become increasingly stringent as the probability of social harm increases, switching First from laissez-faire to a penalty regime, then to a lenient authorization regime, and finally to a strict one. In contrast, absent innovative activity, regulation should rely only on authorizations, and laissez-faire is never optimal. Therefore, in innovative industries regulation should be softer.

We compare single round vs runoff elections under plurality rule, allowing for partly endogenous party formation. Under runoff elections, the number of political candidates is larger, but the influence of extremist voters on equilibrium policy and hence policy volatility are smaller, because the bargaining power of the political extremes is reduced compared to single round elections. The predictions on the number of candidates and on policy volatility are confirmed by evidence from a regression discontinuity design in Italy, where cities above 15,000 inhabitants elect the mayor with a runoff system, while those below hold single round elections.

I study the coexistence of formal and informal finance in underdeveloped credit markets. Formal banks have access to unlimited funds but are unable to control the use of credit. Informal lenders can prevent non-diligent behavior but often lack the needed capital. The model implies that formal and informal credit can be either complements or substitutes. The model also explains why weak legal institutions raise the prevalence of informal finance in some markets and reduce it in others, why financial market segmentation persists, and why informal interest rates can be highly variable within the same sub economy.

The wage paid to elected officials affects both the choice of citizens to run for office and the performance of those who are appointed. On the one hand, if skilled individuals shy away from politics because of higher opportunities in the private sector, an increase in politicians' pay may change their mind. On the other hand, if the reelection prospects of incumbents depend on their in-office deeds, a higher wage may foster performance. We use data on all Italian municipalities from 1993 to 2007 to test these hypotheses in a quasi-experimental framework. In Italy, the wage of the mayor depends on population size and sharply increases at nine thresholds. We apply a regression discontinuity design to two thresholds that uniquely identify a wage increase (1,000 and 5,000 inhabitants) to control for unobservable town characteristics. Exploiting the existence of a two-term limit, we further disentangle the composition from the incentive component of the impact of the wage on performance. The empirical results show that a higher wage attracts more educated and high-skilled candidates, and that better paid politicians lessen the government machinery by reducing per-capita taxes, tariffs, and current expenditure, while leaving investments unchanged. Importantly, most of the performance effect is driven by the selection of better candidates, rather than the incentive to be reelected.

The dynamic dividend growth model (Campbell&Shiller, 1988) linking the log dividend yield to future expected dividend growth and stock market returns has been extensively used in the literature for forecasting stock returns. The empirical evidence on the performance of the model is mixed as its strength varies with the sample choice. This model is derived on the assumption of stationary dpt, dividend-yield. The empirical validity of such hypothesis has been challenged in recent literature (Lettau&Van Nieuwerburgh, 2007) with strong evidence on a time varying mean, due to breaks, in this financial ratio. In this paper, we show that the slowly evolving mean toward which the dividend price ratio is reverting is determined by demographic factors. We also show that a forecasting model based on demographics and a demand factor as captured by excess consumption in the sense of Lettau and Ludvigson(2004) overperforms virtually all alternative models proposed in the empirical literature in the framework of the dynamic dividend growth model. Finally, we exploit the predictability of demographic factors to project the equity risk premium up to 2050.

This paper investigates whether or not the adoption of the Euro has
facilitated the introduction of structural reforms, defined as deregulation
in the product markets and liberalization and deregulation in the labor
markets. After reviewing the theoretical arguments that may link the
adoption of the Euro and structural reforms, we investigate the empirical
evidence. We find that the adoption of the Euro has been associated with
an acceleration of the pace of structural reforms in the product market.
The adoption of the Euro does not seem to have accelerated labor market
reforms in the "primary labor market;" however, the run up to the Euro
adoption seems to have been accompanied by wage moderation. We also
investigate issues concerning the sequencing of goods and labor market
reforms.

Why do people have kids in developed societies? We propose an empirical test of
two alternative theories - children as consumption vs. investment good. We use
as a natural experiment the Italian pension reforms of the 90s that introduced a clear
discontinuity in the treatment across workers. This policy experiment is particularly
well suited, since the consumption motive predicts lower future pensions to reduce
fertility, while the old-age security to increase it. Our empirical analysis identifies
a clear and robust positive effect of less generous future pensions on post-reform
fertility. These findings are consistent with old-age security even for contemporary
fertility.