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Are public good games really capturing individuals’ willingness to contribute to real-life public goods? To answer this question, we conducted a lab-in-the-field experiment with communities who own collective goods. In our experiment, subjects voluntarily contribute to a common pool, which can either be subdivided in individual vouchers, as in standard public good games, or used to acquire collective goods, as it happens for real-life public goods. We show that participants’ contributions are larger when the voucher is paid individually, suggesting that individuals’ willingness to contribute to public goods may be overestimated when based on results from laboratory experiments.

In this paper the question of within-country heterogeneity in patterns of transition to adulthood is addressed, focusing on the exit from the parental home in Spain, a country representative of the latest-late transition to adulthood. Microcensus data are used to investigate the relative weight that structural-contextual factors measured at the municipal level and cultural factors measured at the provincial level might have in explaining regional existing differences in the transition to independent living, by applying multilevel multinomial logistic model on three choices of living arrangements, namely, co-residing with parents, living outside the parental home and in partnership, living outside the parental home and not in partnership.

Although the European Union allows citizens from member countries to migrate freely within its confines to facilitate integration, it may be alienating public support for Europe. This paper investigates this by extending group threat theory to explain how internal migration influences mass public support using annual data from 1998 to 2014 across 15 Western European countries. We find that increases in the presence of foreigners from new member countries in Central and Eastern Europe have raised collective concerns about EU membership and there is some evidence that it may have eroded trust in European institutions as well. The results also show that this effect is exacerbated during an economic downturn. Our findings imply that collective opinion has responded ‘rationally’ to contextual changes in Europe’s internal migration patterns. The study concludes by discussing how group threat theory is relevant for understanding collective sentiment about the European Union.

How do tax incentives affect firms’ investment? Using confidential UK corporation tax returns, we provide new evidence on the effects of incentives in the form of depreciation allowances. We exploit a 2004 exogenous change in the qualifying thresholds for the first-year depreciation allowances (FYAs) and conduct a difference-in-difference analysis. Results suggest that the investment rate increased between 2.1 and 2.6 percentage points when firms became qualified for FYAs, relative to firms that never qualified. This implies an increase in investment rate of 11 percent at the mean. We exploit exogenous variation in the timing of tax payments to show that this large effect is not due to an increase in available cash and hence, this is primarily a cost of capital effect. Firms respond rather quickly to FYAs, within 12 to 18 months. Firms also bunch just below notches in the cost of capital created by the qualifying thresholds, suggesting salience of the FYAs. Such behaviour does not drive our main results.

ABSTRACT Compared to older cohorts, young adults in developed societies delay their transition to adulthood. Yet within cohorts, variations in timing and sequencing of events still remain. A major determinant of life course events is social class. This characteristic can influence the sequence of events in terms of socioeconomic inequalities through a different availability of opportunities for social mobility. Several studies show that in North America, a higher familial status tends to decrease the complexity of trajectories, while the opposite effect has been found in Southern Europe. This research examines the sequence of transitions, highlighting in a comparative perspective how life trajectories are influenced by parental social class in the United States and Italy. The main result of the analysis is that the effect of parental background is different across countries. In the United States, we find that a high status favors not only a higher education and an early entry in the labor market, but also a higher heterogeneity of states and the occurrence of new behaviors like single living and cohabitation. In Italy, the effect of social class is gender-specific. Among men, a higher social class tends to delay transitions more than lead towards modern behaviors. Among women, a higher social class either tends to facilitate the experience of a more modern and independent transition, or it generates a higher probability of postponing exit from the parental home, and then family formation, among those who completed their education and found a job.

Background: In recent years, we witnessed a resurgence of measles even in countries where, according to WHO guidelines, elimination should have already been achieved. In high-income countries, the raise of anti-vaccination movements and parental vaccine hesitancy are posing major challenges for the achievement and maintenance of high coverage during routine programmes. Italy and France approved new regulations, respectively in 2017 and 2018, aimed at raising immunisation rates among children by introducing mandatory vaccination at school entry. Methods: We simulated the evolution of measles immunity profiles in seven distinct countries for the period 2018–2050 and evaluated the effect of possible adjustments of immunisation strategies adopted in the past on the overall fraction and age distribution of susceptible individuals in different high-income demographic settings. The proposed model accounts for country-specific demographic components, current immunity gaps and immunisation activities in 2018. Vaccination strategies considered include the enhancement of coverage for routine programmes already in place and the introduction of a compulsory vaccination at primary school entry in countries where universal school enrolment is likely achieved. Results: Our model shows that, under current vaccination policies, the susceptible fraction of the population would remain below measles elimination threshold only in Singapore and South Korea. In the UK, Ireland, the USA and Australia either the increase of coverage of routine programmes above 95% or the introduction of a compulsory vaccination at school entry with coverage above 40% are needed to maintain susceptible individuals below 7.5% up to 2050. Although the implementation of mandatory vaccination at school entry would be surely beneficial in Italy, strategies targeting adults would also be required to avoid future outbreaks in this country. Conclusions: Current vaccination policies are not sufficient to achieve and maintain measles elimination in most countries. Strategies targeting unvaccinated children before they enter primary school can remarkably enhance the fulfilment of WHO targets.