We quantify the private returns and social costs of political connections exploiting a unique longitudinal dataset that combines matched employer-employee data for a representative sample of Italian firms with administrative archives on the universe of individuals appointed in local governments...

We use the last two waves of the Italian Time Use Survey to analyse the intergenerational transmission of reading habits. This can be explained by both cultural and educational transfers from parents to children and by imitative behaviour. Imitation is of particular interest, since it suggests...