We empirically study the determinants of intra-household decision power with respect to economic and financial choices using a suitable direct measure provided in the 1989-2010 Bank of Italy Survey of Household Income and Wealth. Focusing on a sample of couples, we evaluate the effect of each...

In this paper we investigate household financial fragility and assess the role played by the composition of the household portfolio besides standard determinants of this condition (e.g. income, indebtedness, age, gender, financial literacy). We take the case of Italy, given the very peculiar...

This paper investigates households' financial fragility in twelve European countries and in the US by employing the first wave of the Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS) and the 2010 Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF), respectively. Financial fragility is defined by taking into...

While purchasing the primary home is mainly motivated by essential consumption needs, a second house has generally been considered a good investment. However, second homes may result in disparate final uses, including unprofitable ones. We contribute to the scant literature on second houses by...

Large, unpredictable and not fully insurable health-care costs represent a source of background risk that might deter households' financial risk taking. Using panel data from the Health and Retirement Study and fixed-effects estimation, we test whether universal health insurance, like Medicare...

We investigate the determinants of households' bank switching in 2006-2012 period exploiting a unique representative dataset from Bank of Italy Survey on Household Income and Wealth that follows the households and their bank(s) over time. Focusing on the features of the household-bank...

Employing structured financial planning to manage personal finances on is associ-ated with higher levels of financial well-being and increased ability to react to shocks. Therefore, it is important to understand the factors associated with the propensity to plan and what it is that promotes...

Using a unique Italian dataset covering the period 2004-2020, we assess the immigrant-native gap in entrepreneurship and investigate channels behind it. The data allows us to account for many observable characteristics as well as for risk aversion, which is usually not observed, yet crucial for...

Using rich Italian data for the period 2006-2014, we document sizeable gaps between native and immigrant households with respect to wealth holdings and financial decisions. Immigrant household heads hold less net wealth than native along the entire wealth distribution. Immigrant status reduces...

Pairs trading is hardly applied to high-dimensionality datasets. The first step for its implementation, required to identify co-moving assets and usually based on cointegration-tests, comes with a remarkable computational burden. This paper compares seven different preselection measures that,...