Working papers results

We study whether (and why) self-employed individuals have higher fertility than employees.
Macro- and micro-level studies have produced inconsistent findings. Self-employment has been associated with income uncertainty and instability and may be negatively related to fertility. However, self-employment also implies workplace flexibility and higher potential income and may positively affect fertility. These mechanisms operate differently for men and women. We use the Italian Survey on Household Income and Wealth for 1995-2014, which includes objective and subjective fertility measures, and distinguish between three types of self-employment: laborer (solo) self-employment, entrepreneurship, and professionals. We show that all self-employed men and laborer self-employed women have higher fertility than comparable wage earners of the same sex. Using an instrumental variable treatment-effect regression approach and work histories, we show that self-employment causes higher fertility. We provide evidence that male and female entrepreneurs have more children because they would like to pass their business to their offspring (and rely on the family labor supply). Contrary to the US studies, Italian women do not perceive self-employment as facilitating work-life balance or encouraging childbearing.

The association between social classes and fertility behaviour remains undertheorized as the literature focused mostly on the differentials in education and income levels as determinants of fertility behaviour. By using data from the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC), which for many countries combine a cross-sectional and a longitudinal component, we aim at filling this gap in the literature. Hence, we first explore the association between social classes and fertility behaviour and the extent to which this association is moderated by education and income. Secondly, we consider how this association varies by parity. Results underline the role of social class in affecting individuals’ fertility, over and above education and income.

We empirically investigate the existence of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) focusing on a sample of 39 countries in the period 1996-2014. Using an interaction model, we also analyze whether the effectiveness of environmental taxes in reducing CO 2 emissions depends on the quality of political institutions. Our results show that the inverted U-shaped relationship between environmental stress and economic development holds independently of the quality of political institutions and environment related taxes. Moreover, an increase in the environmental tax revenue has the expected reducing effect on environmental degradation only in countries with more consolidated democratic institutions, higher civil society participation and less corrupt governments. Our findings also show that the effects on environmental stress of revenue neutral shifts to different tax sources depend not only on the quality of political institutions, but also on the kind of externality the policymaker aims at correcting.

Discussion on the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on African Americans has been at center stage since the outbreak of the epidemic in the United States. To present day, however, lack of race-disaggregated individual data has prevented a rigorous assessment of the extent of this phenomenon and the reasons why blacks may be particularly vulnerable to the disease. Using individual and georeferenced death data collected daily by the Cook County Medical Examiner, we provide first evidence that race does affect COVID-19 outcomes. The data confirm that in Cook County blacks are overrepresented in terms of COVID-19 related deaths since—as of June 16, 2020—they constitute 35 percent of the dead, so that they are dying at a rate 1.3 times higher than their population share. Furthermore, by combining the spatial distribution of mortality with the 1930s redlining maps for the Chicago area, we obtain a block group level panel dataset of weekly deaths over the period January 1, 2020-June 16, 2020, over which we establish that, after the outbreak of the epidemic, historically lower-graded neighborhoods display a sharper increase in mortality, driven by blacks, while no pretreatment differences are detected. Thus, we uncover a persistence influence of the racial segregation induced by the discriminatory lending practices of the 1930s, by way of a diminished resilience of the black population to the shock represented by the COVID-19 outbreak. A heterogeneity analysis reveals that the main channels of transmission are socioeconomic status and household composition, whose influence is magnified in combination with a higher black share.

We empirically assess the effect of historical slavery on the African American family structure. Our hypothesis is that female single headship among blacks is more likely to emerge in association not with slavery per se, but with slavery in sugar plantations, since the extreme demographic and social conditions prevailing in the latter have persistently affected family formation patterns. By exploiting the exogenous variation in sugar suitability, we establish the following. In 1850, sugar suitability is indeed associated with extreme demographic outcomes within the slave population. Over the period 1880-1940, higher sugar suitability determines a higher likelihood of single female headship. The effect is driven by blacks and starts fading in 1920 in connection with the Great Migration. OLS estimates are complemented with a matching estimator and a fuzzy RDD. Over a linked sample between 1880 and 1930, we identify an even stronger intergenerational legacy of sugar planting for migrants. By 1990, the effect of sugar is replaced by that of slavery and the black share, consistent with the spread of its influence through migration and intermarriage, and black incarceration emerges as a powerful mediator. By matching slaves’ ethnic origins with ethnographic data we rule out any influence of African cultural traditions.

This paper shows and explains lower wealth inequality in East Asia than Western Europe over the very long-run, 1300-2000. A rich new dataset of village censuses in Japan, 1640-1870, and secondary evidence suggest Gini coefficients of wealth inequality in the East were 0.4-0.5 relative to 0.7-0.9 in the West preceding industrialization. Such regional patterns also precede the black death so any explanation must predate this. I propose the demographic institution of adoption as one such explanation. Adoption prevented the failure of male lines through which wealth was inherited. Adoption was practiced across Eurasia until the 5th century when the church began preaching against it. This increased household extinctions in Europe causing wealth concentration among surviving male lines. In contrast, the Japanese data suggest adoption prevented household extinctions and kept wealth in the family. Simulations show that this mechanism can explain much of the gap in regional wealth inequality.

OBJECTIVE: In this study we test whether perceived stability of employment and perceived resilience to potential job loss affect fertility intentions, net of individual level risk attitudes and considering variation in the local macroeconomic conditions. BACKGROUND: The role of employment uncertainty as a fertility driver has been explored in a number of studies with a limited set of constructs, and with inconclusive results. A key reason for this heterogeneous pattern is that scholars did not recognize the multidimensionality and the prospective nature of employment uncertainty. We address these oversights by considering two key dimensions of employment uncertainty: perceived stability of employment and perceived resilience to potential job loss. METHOD: Our study is conducted using the newly-released 2017 OECD Italian Trustlab survey and its built-in module on self-assessed employment uncertainty (N=521). We perform multivariate analysis using ordered logistic regression. RESULTS: Perception of employment resilience was a powerful predictor of fertility intentions, whereas perception of employment stability had only a limited impact. The observed relationship between resilience and fertility intentions was robust to the inclusion of person-specific risk attitude and it did not depend on aggregate-level variables, such as unemployment and fixed-term contract rates in the area of residence. CONCLUSION: With this paper, we argue that the notion of resilience is crucial for making sense of economic prospects in connection to fertility planning.

For a sample of Central and Eastern European countries, characterized by historically high female labor force participation and currently low fertility rates, we analyze whether fathers’ increased involvement in the family (housework and childcare) has the potential of increasing both fertility and maternal employment. Using two waves of the Generations and Gender Survey, we show that a higher fathers’ involvement in the family increases the subsequent likelihood that the mother has a second child and works full-time. Men’s fertility and work decisions are instead unrelated to mothers’ housework and childcare. We also show that fathers’ involvement in housework plays a more important role than involvement in childcare. The role of fathers’ involvement in housework is confirmed when we consider women who initially wanted or intended to have a child, women whose partner also wanted a child or women who intended to continue working.

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.

The north-south gap in Italian social capital has been considered by international scholars as an example of how cultural diversity within a country can generate dierent developmental outcomes. Most studies, however, suer from limited external validity and measurement-error problems. This paper exploits a new and representative online lab-experiment to assess social capital patterns in Italy. Our study only partially conrms previous ndings: northerners perform better in trustworthiness, but they are statistically similar to southerners in many other economic preferences such as cooperation, trust, expected trustworthiness, altruism, and risk tolerance. A novelty of this study is that the gap in trustworthiness stems from the lower reciprocity of southerners in response to large transfers from trustors, and it is characterized by the intergenerational transmission of norms. Eective convergence policies should target, within social capital, reciprocity, while looking to other, and perhaps more compelling gaps.