The age-productivity gradient: Evidence from a sample of F1 drivers

Estimating the effect of aging on productivity requires clean measures of productivity. Additionally, one needs to control for unobserved heterogeneity at the worker, firm and worker/firm level, to account for the role of experience and to correct for selection bias. We tackle these issues exploiting a panel of Gran Prix Formula One drivers, which provides a unique setting to single out the data requirements needed to credibly estimate the effect of age on productivity. Results robust to the inclusion of worker, firm and match effects show that the age-productivity link has an inverted U-shape profile with a peak at the age of 30-32. The use of repeated cross-sections of individuals also produces consistent results provided that cohort effects are properly accounted for. Relying on team-average measures of productivity makes instead inference harder.     

A test of the rational expectations hypothesis using data from a natural experiment

Data on contestants’ choices in Italian Game Show Affari Tuoi are analysed in a way that separates the effect of risk attitude (preferences) from that of beliefs concerning the amount of money that will be offered to contestants in future rounds. This separate identification is possible by virtue of the fact that, at a certain stage of the game, beliefs are not relevant, and risk attitude is the sole determinant of choice. The rational expectations hypothesis is tested by comparing the estimated belief function with the ‘true’ offer function which is estimated extraneously using data on offers actually made to contestants. We find a close correspondence, leading us to accept the rational expectations hypothesis. The importance of belief formation is confirmed by the estimation of a mixture model which establishes that the vast majority of contestants are forward looking as opposed to myopic.     

New Evidence on the Politics and Economics of Multiparty Cabinets Duration

A Proportional Hazards Specification for cabinet duration data is estimated by mean of a flexible parametric approach. The hazard rate is found to be significantly affected by the majority status, the degree of fragmentation and ideological homogeneity of the coalition, the stability and the polarisation of the legislature and the time horizon at the moment of cabinet formation. Interesting innovative results concern the higher stability of cabinets supported by coalitions ideologically closer to the median party and/or left–oriented. The overall state of the economy also has a role. Graphical evidence suggests that the underlying distribution of duration data might be a Gompertz distribution.     

Capital Requirements in a Financially Driven Business Cycle Model

We consider a simple overlapping generations economy where, because of asymmetric information and limited liability both in the loan and the deposits markets, firms have the incentive to undertake less efficient investment projects, while intermediaries have the incentive to monitor a smaller number of firms. Because of the positive relationship between the deposit interest rate and the level of monitoring, the lending activity of intermediaries may cause endogenous fluctuations in the level of economic activity.
In this economy, a higher capital requirement, introduced to render deposit contracts incentive compatible, implies a higher steady state stock of capital, fewer bankruptcies among intermediaries and smaller fluctuations in the level of economic activity.
(J.E.L. E32, D82, G28)     

Parents’ Use of Subsidiaries to “Push Down” Earnings Management: Evidence from Italy

We find evidence consistent with Italian nonlisted subsidiaries engaging in accrual and real earnings management, so that their listed parents can meet or beat benchmarks. Thus, the parent firm drives the earnings management of the subsidiaries. We identify parents that are more likely to have managed earnings as the ones that avoid a small loss or meet or beat analyst forecast by a few cents. Cross‐sectional analysis reveals that Big 4 auditors mitigate accrual earnings management at the subsidiary level and that family‐owned firms use earnings management through nonlisted subsidiaries mainly to avoid reporting losses. Finally, we find that parent firms communicate earnings management strategies to their subsidiaries using board proximity. Our evidence shows that business groups manage earnings differently from single firms, pushing earnings management down to subsidiaries. It also supports the monitoring role of Big 4 auditors in a business group setting and contributes to understanding financial reporting decisions in family‐owned firms.     

Seeds of distrust: conflict in Uganda

We study the effect of civil conflict on social capital, focusing on Uganda’s experience during the last decade. Using individual and county-level data, we document large causal effects on trust and ethnic identity of an exogenous outburst of ethnic conflicts in 2002–2005. We exploit two waves of survey data from Afrobarometer (Round 4 Afrobarometer Survey in Uganda, 2000, 2008), including information on socioeconomic characteristics at the individual level, and geo-referenced measures of fighting events from ACLED. Our identification strategy exploits variations in the both the spatial and ethnic intensity of fighting. We find that more intense fighting decreases generalized trust and increases ethnic identity. The effects are quantitatively large and robust to a number of control variables, alternative measures of violence, and different statistical techniques involving ethnic and spatial fixed effects and instrumental variables. Controlling for the intensity of violence during the conflict, we also document that post-conflict economic recovery is slower in ethnically fractionalized counties. Our findings are consistent with the existence of a self-reinforcing process between conflicts and ethnic cleavages.     

A POSITIVE THEORY OF GEOGRAPHIC MOBILITY AND SOCIAL INSURANCE*

This article presents a tractable dynamic general equilibrium model explaining cross‐country data on geographical mobility, unemployment, and labor market institutions. Rational forward‐looking agents vote on unemployment insurance (UI). Agents with higher moving costs (larger attachment to their location) prefer more generous UI. Attachment is assumed to increase with the duration of residence. UI mitigates incentives for moving and increases, therefore, the fraction of attached agents and the political support for UI. This self‐reinforcing mechanism can yield two steady‐states: one “European” and one “American.” The former (latter) features high (low) unemployment, low (high) geographical mobility, and high (low) UI.     

The mediating role of work engagement on the relationship between job involvement and affective commitment

This study examines job involvement and work engagement as predictors of affective commitment. Specifically, we test the proposal of Hallberg and Schaufeli (2006) that work engagement is a mediator of the relationship between job involvement and affective commitment using a survey of 405 Italian working adults. To test the model, mediation effects technique and structural equation modelling were applied to the collected data. Our hypothesis that work engagement fully mediates the relationship between job involvement and affective commitment was supported. This is the first study to demonstrate the importance of job involvement in promoting affective commitment via three dimensions of work engagement. We therefore assert that HR managers should direct their available resources to promoting job involvement and work engagement in their employees.     

Estimation of Residential Water Demand with Imperfect Price Perception

Using data from a household survey carried out in the French overseas territory of Réunion, we investigate the price of drinking-water perceived by households faced with an increasing, multi-step pricing scheme. To this purpose we use an improved version of the method introduced by Shin (Rev Econ Stat 67(4):591–598, 1985) to estimate the demand for residential water when consumers are imperfectly informed about their pricing schedule. The empirical results suggest that Réunion households underestimate the price of water and thus consume more than what is economically rational. Providing information to households about the marginal price of water may be an innovative means of inducing them to respond to pricing policies designed to promote water conservation.     

The Minimum Economic Dividend for Joining a Currency Union

A two‐country model is developed to show how the optimality of a currency union depends on whether it brings an economic dividend in terms of potential growth and the Balassa–Samuelson (BS) effect (the steady appreciation of the real exchange rate due to cross‐country differences in intersectoral productivity gaps). The model shows that such dividend needs to be larger, the higher the BS effect, the smaller the size of the economy, the larger the cross‐country difference in the standard deviation of the supply shocks, the smaller their correlation and the larger the standard deviation of real exchange rate shocks. We calibrate the model to quantify such dividend as a function of plausible ranges of the parameter values. The results suggest that both the BS effect and the size of real exchange rate shocks play a key role in evaluating the optimality of accessing the currency union.