This thesis is composed by four independent chapters. Their common denominator is the process of human capital accumulation analyzed under different perspectives and using different techniques. In the following I will shortly describe each chapter in more detail. Chapter 1 addresses an important...

This thesis consists of an analysis of different aspects of optimal fiscal policy in dynamic economies, with a special emphasis on the consequences of dropping the assumption of full commitment to future policies: the Third Best environment. As is now well known in the dynamic optimal taxation...

This thesis contains several lines of research conducted during my four years at the European University Institute. It consists of three chapters that analyze the link between parental inter-vivos transfers, education and inequality. In the first chapter, "Accounting for the Changing Role of...

In this thesis I aim to contribute to the labor economics literature by casting more light on i) measurement errors regarding data on occupational affiliations, ii) worker mobility across occupations and iii) wage differentials between part-time and full-time workers with comparable skills....

The aim of this dissertation is to answer three real life economic questions with the following three chapters. Chapter 1, (joint with Matteo Bobba), deals with the problems of weak instruments in identifying the effects of education on democracy. This chapter shows that when the problems caused...

This dissertation examines the trade reform experience in South Africa's (SA) manufacturing sector during the first post apartheid decade, from 1994 until 2004. During this period SA implemented an intensive trade reform policy particularly in the manufacturing sector. Average Nominal Tariff...

The traditional trade models, which rely on a comparative advantage based on regions’ technology or endowments, or the new trade theory, designed to explain trade between the countries at a similar level of development, fail to replicate recent evidence on world trade patterns and prices. This...

Why people comply with rules, why they contribute to public goods and why they behave prosocially in general is a fundamental question of social science. In the tradition of Gary Becker and the chicago school, economists have traditionally considered punishment by the authorities as the main or...

This thesis presents three papers in macro labor theory. All of them share the particular approach to the theory of unemployment pioneered by Dale Mortensen and Chris Pissarides. In these models unemployment is frictional, and emerges as an equilibrium outcome in an economy where workers and...

Does financial globalisation increase inequality? Should households with little financial wealth still hold foreign assets? Are consumption patterns of low income earners more dispersed than those of the rich? Do aggregate savings rise or fall when a society becomes more unequal? These are some...