We provide new cross-country evidence on smoking persistence in Europe, which can be due to both true state dependence and individual unobserved heterogeneity. We distinguish between the two by using semi-parametric panel data selection methods, applied to both the smoking participation and the...

This paper assesses the role of surveys for the early estimates of GDP in the euro area in a model-based automated procedures which exploits the timeliness of their release. The analysis is conducted using both an historical evaluation and a real time case study on the current conjuncture.

Labour market policies settled at national level imply a “one-size-fits-all” labour market strategy. This strategy might not sufficiently take into account region-specific economic structures. We employ a panel factor-augmented vector autoregression (FAVAR) to evaluate whether active labour...

This paper estimates a lower bound to the foregone gains of incomplete portfolios, which are in turn a lower bound to the (unobserved) entry costs that could rationalize non-participation to financial markets. My estimates provide a heuristic test for the cost-based explanation of limited...

Increasing marginal tax rates and making payments to the poor reduce inequality and introduce savings dis-incentives. Using a heterogeneous agent model with incomplete markets, we show that higher taxes (and transfers) decrease consumption inequality but also mean savings and mean consumption....

Expectations and riskiness of future earnings are crucial determinants of individuals’ intertemporal choices. Yet, the empirical literature lacks reliable measures of the distribution of future income. Lacking direct observability, the latter is usually estimated inferring moments of the...

The life-cycle hypothesis posits that saving is positive for young households and negative for the retired, so that wealth should be hump-shaped. Yet, if one looks at the microeconomic evidence on saving by age, dissaving by the elderly is limited or absent. But the saving measures usually...

This paper studies if external commitment devices are effectively capable of helping agents to reduce their consumption of addictive goods (alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, fatty foods etc.). The main assumption introduced in the model is that individuals are sophisticated hyperbolic discounters. The...

We estimate the effect of taxes on intergenerational transfers exploiting a sequence of Italian reforms culminating with the abolishment of transfer taxes. We use the 1993-2006 Survey of Household Income and Wealth, which has data on real estate transfers received and information on potential...

Using a representative sample of Italian investors, we estimate the risk associated with pension benefits by eliciting for each individual the subjective distribution of the replacement rate as a summary indicator of social security wealth. We find substantial heterogeneity of pension risk and...