In this paper we perform an empirical analysis to investigate the impact of socio-economic heterogeneity on electoral turnout. We exploit a unique dataset on local elections in an Italian municipality, which merges information on socio-economic characteristics of about 370.000 individuals with...

This paper investigates the effects of immigration quotas on the average quality of immigrants by developing a human capital migration model where efficiency in migration depends on skills and emigration rates are higher among skilled workers. Studying the joint determination of the domestic...

To study the political economy of immigration, we develop a common agency model where a trade union and a lobby of entrepreneurs offer contributions to the government to influence its decision on how many immigrants can enter the domestic economy. In the political equilibrium, anticipating that...

This paper provides an explanation for the existence of child labour which relies on the imperfect enforcement of compulsory schooling laws. In the presence of complementarities in the production of human capital that justify legislative intervention, mandatory measures ensure that coordination...

This paper develops a model of endogenous growth with overlapping generations to investigate the joint determination of social security, public investment and growth in a small open economy. We show that a pure pay-as-you-go-system with indexed to wages benefits provides the taxpayers with the...

We study the interaction between technological innovation, investment in human capital and child labour. In a two-stage game, first firms decide on innovation, then households decide on education. In equilibrium the presence of inefficient child labour depends on parameters related to...