The choice of an appropriate social rate of discount is critical in the decision-making process on public investments. In this paper we review the literature on social discounting, and address in particular a recently growing field of related research, that is, individual time preferences. We...

Following the seminal work by Bullard and Sebald [Effects of Parametric Uncertainty and Technological Change on In put-Out put Models, Rev. of Ec. And Stat., vol. 59,75-81], in this paper we present an innovative approach to sensitivity analysis in Input-Out put model. In particular, we propose...

The choice of an appropriate social rate of discount is critical in the decision-making process on public investments. In this paper we review concisely the literature on social discounting and refer explicitly to a recently growing field of related research, that is, individual time preference....

The aim of this paper is to present an alternative methodology for discounting far distant future externalities genereted by an investment project: time-declining discount rates. First I present the experimental evidence on individuals' time-inconsistency. Second I consider the theoretical...

In recent years a growing body of literature has begun to consider the possible presence of path dependence in the development processes of countries. This phenomenon has always been recognized in regional and urban studies because the path of development almost naturally follows a...

Geography has long been considered as a fundamental prerequisite for economic development and growth. In recent years, a growing number of papers have considered the role of physical geography as a determinant of regional growth and development by considering it as a source of intrinsic...

This study shows how soil aridity (proxied with a measure of soil potential evapotranspiration) impacts child wellbeing in Sub-Saharan Africa. Using climate and infant health data from a grid of approximately 4,000 cells in 34 African countries, we find that infants born in arid areas are...

The share of the population living in urban centres has vastly increased in recent decades, and is predicted to further expand in the future. In this context, research on the environmental impact of different urban environments, in terms of both the form and built-up structure of cities, is...

For many governments enacting green policies is a priority, but these often entail substantial and uneven costs on citizens. How does the introduction of green policies affect voting? We study this question in the context of a major ban on polluting cars introduced in Milan. The policy was...

The paper aims to analyze the effects of plague on the long-term development of Italian cities, with particular attention to the 1629-30 epidemic. By using a new dataset on plague mortality rates in 49 cities covering the period 1575-1700 ca., an economic geography model verifying the existence...