We investigate the determinants of the education gender gap in Italy in a historical perspective with a focus on the influence of family structure. We capture the latter with two indicators: residential habits (nuclear versus complex families) and inheritance rules (partition versus...

The Chilean economy experienced a decade of sustained growth in aggregate output and productivity after the 1982 financial crisis. This paper analyzes the role of allocative efficiency on total factor productivity (TFP) in the manufacturing sector by applying the methodology of Hsieh and Klenow...

We consider the extent to which cross-country differences in the intergenerational persistence of income can be explained by differences in government spending on early childhood education. We build a life-cycle model where human capital is accumulated in early, middle and late childhood. Both...

This paper incorporates two features of housing in a life-cycle analysis of social security: housing as a durable good and housing market frictions. We find that both housing quantities and homeownership rates respond strongly to eliminating social security. Accordingly, the aggregate impacts of...

This paper analyzes the quantitative role of idiosyncratic uncertainty in an economy in which rational agents vote on hypothetical social security reforms. We find that the role of a pay-as-you-go social security system as a partial insurance and redistribution device significantly reduces...