Privatisation, i.e. the transfer of ownership and control of state-owned enterprises, is a worldwide phenomenon. Which political, economic and institutional factors are shaping this process? This paper addresses the issue presenting new evidence from a sample of 49 countries. From an empirical...

This paper presents new evidence about privatisation processes and their determinants from a panel of 34 countries over the 1977-99 period. The empirical analysis shows that privatisation takes place typically in wealthy and democratic countries, endowed with deep and liquid stock markets, and...

We investigate the effect of having a child on parents' criminal behavior using rich administrative data from Brazil. Fathers' criminal activity sharply increases by up to 10% during the pregnancy period, and by up to 30% two years after birth, while mothers experience only a transitory decline...

We show that the War on Drugs launched by the Mexican President Felipe Calderón in 2007 pushed drug cartels into large-scale oil thefts. Municipalities that the presidential candidate's party barely won at the local elections in 2007-2009 exhibit a larger increase in illegal oil taps over the...

We estimate the effects of a large program of public investment subsidies granted to Italian firms in disadvantaged areas. Projects were given numerical scores according to objective criteria and local politicians' preferences, and funded in rank order until the funds were fully allocated. We...

We estimate impacts of male job loss, female job loss, and male unemployment benefits on domestic violence in Brazil. We merge employer-employee and social welfare registers with administrative data on domestic violence cases brought to criminal courts, use of public shelters by victims and...

We provide the first estimates of intergenerational income mobility for a developing country, namely Brazil. We measure formal income from tax and employment registries, and we train machine learning models on census and survey data to predict informal income. The data reveal a much higher...

We estimate impacts of male job loss, female job loss, and male unemployment benefits on domestic violence in Brazil. We merge employer-employee and social welfare registers with administrative data on domestic violence cases brought to criminal courts, use of public shelters by victims and...

We estimate the effects of a large program of public investment subsidies granted to Italian firms in disadvantaged areas. Projects were given numerical scores according to objective criteria and local politicians’ preferences, and funded in rank order until the funds were fully allocated. We...

We provide the first estimates of intergenerational income mobility for a developing country, namely Brazil. We measure formal income from tax and employment registries, and we train machine learning models on census and survey data to predict informal income. The data reveal a much higher...