The family is a primal institution, whose internal organization can be transferred to collective institutions, which come to substitute the family in one of its economic roles. We study how the family structure affected the initial design of pension systems. Our theoretical framework predicts...

Why do people have kids in developed societies? We propose an empirical test of two economic theories of fertility — children as “consumption” or “investment” good. We use as a natural experiment the Italian pension reforms of the 90s, which by decreasing expected pension benefits...

Is electoral competition good for political selection? To address this issue, we introduce a theoretical model where ideological parties select and allocate high-valence (experts) and lowvalence (party loyalists) candidates into electoral districts. Voters care about a national policy (e.g.,...

Gender stereotypes are well established also among women. Yet, a recent literature suggests that earning from other women experience about the effects of maternal employment on children outcomes may increase female labor force participation. To further explore this channel, we design a...

This paper investigates the differential response of male and female voters to competitive persuasion in political campaigns. During the 2011 municipal elections in Milan, a sample of eligible voters was randomly divided into three groups. Two were exposed to the same incumbent’s campaign but...

We analyze political selection in a closed list proportional system where parties have strong gate-keeping power, which they use as an instrument to pursue votes. Parties face a trade-off between selecting loyal candidates or experts, who are highly valued by the voters and thus increase the...

We provide a long term perspective on the individual retirement behavior and on the future of early retirement. In a cross-country sample, we find that total pension spending depends positively on the degree of early retirement and on the share of elderly in the population, which increase the...

What is the future of social security systems in OECD countries? In our view, the answer belongs to the realm of politics. We evaluate how political constraints shape the social security system in six countries – France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the UK and the US – under population aging. Two...

Why do people have kids in developed societies? We propose an empirical test of two alternative theories — children as “consumption” vs. “investment” good. We use as a natural experiment the Italian pension reforms of the 90s that introduced a clear discontinuity in the treatment...

We document the presence of a trade-off between unemployment benefits (UB) and employment protection legislation (EPL) in the provision of insurance against labor market risk. Different countries’ locations along this trade-off represent stable, hard to modify, politico-economic equilibria. We...