This paper studies the impact of the introduction of joint custody in Italy (Law 54/2006) on judiciary outcomes. As to the formal (legal) assignment of joint custody, the reform envisaged very little judge discretion. With reference to the substance of the custody (the amount of time each parent...

This paper studies the role of the expansion of higher education (HE) in increasing the equality of tertiary education opportunities. It examines Italy's experience during the 1990s, when policy changes prompted HE institutions to offer a wider range of degrees and to open new sites in...

We analyze the impact of immigration on voting. Using Italian municipality data and IV estimation strategy, we find that immigration generates a sizable causal increase in votes for the centre-right coalition, which has a political platform less favorable to immigrants. Additional findings are:...

This paper investigates the impact of risk attitudes on the decision to become an entrepreneur. In contrast to previous research, we handle endogeneity issues relying on an instrumental variables strategy considering as a source of exogenous variation in risk aversion the early exposure to a...

"We analyze data from the 1994-2002 waves of the British Household Panel Survey to explore the influence of parental smoking habits on their children's smoking decisions. In order to account for the potential endogeneity of parental smoking habits we use instrumental variable methods. We find...

We analyze empirically the effects of urban agglomeration on Italian college graduates' work possibilities as entrepreneurs three years after graduation. We find that each 100,000 inhabitant-increase in the size of the individual's province of work reduces the chances of being an entrepreneur by...

This paper explores newly available Italian data derived from a 1:90 sample of social security administrative records (INPS) to investigate gender differences in pay during the initial stages of a worker's career. We find that a significant and growing pay differential between men and women...

This paper investigates labor supply and redistributive effects of in-work benefits for Italian married couples using a tax-benefit microsimulation model and a multi-sectoral discrete choice model of labor supply. We consider two in-work benefit schemes following the key principles of the Earned...

The aim of this paper is to investigate the effect of Employment Protection Legislation (EPL) on fertility decisions of Italian working women using administrative data. We exploit a reform that introduced in 1990 costs for dismissals unmotivated by a 'fair cause' or 'justified motive' in firms...

This paper investigates the impact of the public smoking ban which came into effect in Italy on January 2005 on individual smoking behaviour. Current empirical evidence supports the existence of a negative effect of the Italian ban on smoking prevalence and consumption in the general population....