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In this paper, we explore the impact of social policies and labour market characteristics on women's decisions regarding work and childbearing, using data from the European Community Household Panel (ECHP). We estimate the two decisions jointly and, in addition to personal characteristics, we include variables related to the childcare system, parental leave arrangements, family allowances, and part time opportunities. Our empirical results indicate that a non-negligible portion of the differences in labour market participation decisions of women from different European countries can be attributed to characteristics of their social policies, while the impact of environmental variables on fertility decisions is only marginally significant. Environmental effects vary by educational level in a significant way. Part-time opportunities (when well-paid and protected), childcare, optional parental leave, and child allowances have more of an impact on the participation decisions of women at lower educational levels.

We present a theoretical model of immigration and crime in which legal status raises the opportunity cost of crime, illegal immigrants may be deported, and there is endogenous selection into legal status. We estimate the model exploiting administrative records on the universe of prison inmates pardoned with a clemency bill in Italy on August 2006, and exogenous variation in legal status after the European Union enlargement of January 2007. The causal effect of legal status amounts to a 50% reduction in recidivism, and explains 1/2 to 2/3 of the observed differences in crime rates between legal and illegal immigrants.

We examine the causal effect of legislative activity on private benefits, which have been largely neglected by previous research in legislative studies. By relying on a natural experiment in New Zealand, where randomly selected MPs are given the opportunity to propose legislation, we find evidence for a causal relation between proposing a (successful) bill and the private benefits MPs receive, in terms of gifts and payments for services. We conclude that the allocation of private benefits depends on legislative performance.

Increasing life expectancy coupled with declining birth rates is prompting European countries to revise their current pension schemes. The key elements of pension reforms are 1) introducing funded schemes as a means to supplement the current pay-as-you-go system, and 2) a lengthening of the working careers of European citizens. The policy reforms needed constitutes perhaps the biggest challenge facing European policy makers since the introduction of the welfare state after the Second World War. The urgency of the policy reforms are reflected by the European Council Summits of Stockholm (2001) and Barcelona (2002), where the attending policy makers agreed to both increase the labour force participation among older workers and to delay the retirement period. Notwithstanding the efforts, recent changes in the employment rates and the retirement age indicate that the great majority of countries are way off the targets set for 2010. On the backdrop of the policy challenges lying ahead, we consider in this paper individuals' preferences for work and retirement in 23 European countries. A deeper understanding of these preferences helps policy makers, not only informing them about the potential success of the planned pension reforms, but also to make adjustments to its design that may lead to efficiency gains in welfare provision. We find that on average individuals prefer to retire at a younger age than the current mean retirement age. However, there is huge variation in these preferences both at the individual and country levels. We find rather robust evidence to suggest that individuals are willing to work longer as the average life expectancy is increasing.

Using a cross-classified multilevel modelling approach, we study the probability  of living outside the parental home for second generation immigrants in Spain, a latest-late transition to adulthood country. We simultaneously take into account two sources of heterogeneity: the country of origin and the province of residence in Spain. Using micro-census data we are able to consider all main immigrant groups. We find that living arrangements vary extremely according to immigrants' origin, although a geographical clustering emerges. The cultural heritage, as represented for example by the mean age at marriage in the country of origin, still plays an important role in shaping second generation immigrants' patterns of co-residence with their parents. Even though the effect of the province of residence is less pronounced, it is not negligible. In particular, the cultural climate of the province, as measured by the proportion of cohabiting couples, is found to be influential for both immigrant and native young adults' living arrangements.

This paper provides some initial results of long-term trends in economic inequality in Catalonia from 1400-1800 ca. These first findings show that the evidence collected for Catalonia matches quite well with some hypotheses suggested previously in the literature. Namely, the high inequality levels prevalent across pre-industrial Europe; an inequality gradient that linked urban, more populated, and wealthier communities with greater inequality and vice versa; and the importance of the trends followed by the share owned by the wealthy as good predictors of economic inequality trends. However, at this stage, one of the most appealing propositions—the idea that economic inequality grew for the whole of Europe during the early-modern period, shaping a long left side of a “super Kuznets curve”—does not seem to be fully confirmed for Catalonia. From the mid-17th century, inequality growth seems to go hand-in-hand with growth in per capita GDP. In earlier periods, though, the inequality trend seems to be unrelated to economic growth and even, during the second half of the 16th century, there is some evidence of inequality decline coupled with economic growth.