This paper documents and studies the gender gap in performance among associate lawyers in the United States. Unlike other high-skilled professions, the legal profession assesses performance using transparent measures that are widely used and comparable across firms: the number of hours billed to...

We analyse the risk of mafia capture of firms operating in the legal economy. Specifically, we study the relationship between firm performance and mafia infiltration. To overcome possible endogeneity concerns we exploit the abrupt drop in revenues caused by the (unexpected) Covid-19 related...

This paper carries out an investigation into the socio-economic determinants of couples’ childbearing decisions in Italy. Since having children is in most cases a “couple matter”, the analysis accounts for the characteristics of both the possible parents. Our results do not support...