We study the consequences of broader access to credit and to capital markets on household's decisions over the number of children. In a life-cycle model of choice with forward and backward caring between parents and children, we analyze the effects of relaxing adults' borrowing constrains and...

This work provides a new way to analyze of the effect of electoral system and corruption: through its degree of proportionality. It seems the correct way to consider them because their proportionality degree varies under the same PR, plurality and mixed system. Results show that those degrees of...

According to the literature, two main factors sparked the European debt crisis: (1) macroeconomic imbalances originated by national governments and (2) institutional design flaws leading to feeble response by European authorities; still, economists disagree on the factors' strength. Using Bai...

This paper analyses the contribution of public investment to growth in southern Italy in the second half of the twentieth century (1951-1995). The period saw the only convergence in modern times of the Mezzogiorno towards the Italian average (1951-1973), followed by divergence (1974-1995). Using...