This paper argues that television viewing produces higher material aspirations, by enhancing both adaptation and positional effects, thus lowering the effect of income on life satisfaction. Using individual data from the World Values Survey we present evidence indicating that the effect of...

This paper presents new evidence on the effects of attendance on academic performance. We exploit a large panel data set for Introductory Microeconomics students to explicitly take into account the effect of unobservable factors correlated with attendance, such as ability, effort and motivation....

We develop a simple model of occupational choice under financial market im- perfections, in the presence of technological convexities. The aim is to analyze the quantitative effect of these imperfections on the level of income. We find that although their effect is relatively large, financial...

Some recent developments in the literature on the political economy of economic growth are considered in this paper. First, limitations of traditional cross-sectional analysis are discussed. Attention is focused on the problems of omitted variables and model uncertainty. Advantages and...

Christiano et al. (2005) have shown that a standard medium-sized DSGE model can successfully replicate VAR IRFs to a money supply shock. This important result vanishes under limited asset market partic- ipation. Further, even a moderate fraction of constrained consumers is su¢ cient to dampen...

We analyse the determinants of long term external debt for a large sample of developing countries. We ¯nd that, in addition to the stan- dard economic variables, institutional and socio-political variables are a key factor in explaining the level of external debt. Overall the re- sults point to...

This paper provides original evidence about Chinese Outward Direct Investments in Italy. Data have been collected at the micro level, through a multiple-choice questionnaire, designed by the author and submitted to the whole population of Dragon multinationals. With a reply rate of 65%, we draw...

We find that both the aggregate issuance of bonds, and the volume of commercial and industrial loans outstanding in the US, respond to fluctuations in industrial production and interest rates, but in opposite directions. This empirical result suggests that universal banks can reduce the cyclical...

For the most part of the last century the role of State owned enterprises was probably more pronounced, continuous and prolonged in Italy than elsewhere in the West. This was the response to the fact that Italian economic growth had long been penalized by structural frailties such as a narrow...

In this paper we study the assimilation of immigrants into the Italian labour market using over-education as an indicator of labour market performance. The main objective is to assess the extent to which work experience in the host country’s labour market favours the international...