We show that task juggling, i.e., the spreading of effort across too many active projects, decreases the performance of workers, raising the chances of low throughput, long duration of projects and exploding backlogs. Individual speed of job completion cannot be explained only in terms of...

We experimentally study the effect of financial education on investment attitudes in a large sample of high school students in Italy. Students in the treated classes were taught a course in finance and interviewed before and after the study, while controls were only interviewed. Our principal...

Using a regression discontinuity design, we document the effect of publicizing a procurement auction on entry and outcomes. We collect a large sample of procurement auctions, which by Italian law are assigned different publicity levels on the basis of their reserve price. We find that auctions...

We investigate how the functioning of public procurement is affected by the time politicians have stayed in office. We match a data set on public procurement auctions by Italian municipalities to a data set on the politics of municipal governments. For each municipality, we relate the mayor's...

We run a regression discontinuity design analysis to document the causal effect of increasing buyers' discretion on procurement outcomes in a large database for public works in Italy. Works with a value above a given threshold have to be awarded through an open auction. Works below this...