Despite the abundance of different econometric techniques introduced in the empirical literature on convergence, it is usually assumed that shocks are uncorrelated across countries. This is surely unlikely for most of the datasets considered and we investigate a possibility so far ignored,...

This paper describes a model and resulting simulations to assess the appropriate age structure of intervention in childhood on the theme: should we intervene early or late? We use asset theory approaches to construct a general model of state investment whose aim is to reduce inequality in human...

This paper investigates the effect of minimum wages on employment using a panel of US state-based data. We estimate a minimalist dynamic version of the specification implied by neo-classical theory. We find statistically and economically significant effects of minimum wages on youth employment....

This paper estimates an educational production function. Educational attainment is a function of peer group, parental input and schooling. Conventional measures of school quality are not good predictors for academic attainment, once we control for peer group effects; parental qualities also have...

Using Italian data on language standardized tests for three different levels of schooling we investigate if the observed gap in educational attainments in 1st generation immigrants tends to lower the longer they stay in Italy, and if younger children tend to catch up faster than their older...

Is tourism an opportunity for lagging countries in the elusive quest for growth (Easterly, 2002)‘ Recent empirical evidence suggests that the answer is a cautious yes. Aggregate cross-country data show that tourism specialization is likely to be associated with higher per capita GDP growth...

We study if Italian teachers do apply gender discrimination when judging students. To this aim, we use a difference-in-differences approach that exploits the availability of both teachers (non-blind) and standardized test (blind) scores in math and language that Italian students receive during...

We study how managerial practices of school principals affect student performance and aspirations. We link administrative data on secondary Italian students to the management scores of their school principals in 2011 and 2015 based on the World Management Survey methodology. The frequent...

We used data collected during the COVID-19 pandemic to examine how Italian upper secondary schools organized their activities for remote learning (RL). We conducted a three-level survey, administering questionnaires to each institution's students (11th and 13th graders, 11,154 students), 3,905...

We study the effects of managerial practices in schools on students' outcomes. We measure managerial practices using the World Management Survey, a methodology that enables us to construct robust measures of management quality comparable across countries. We find substantial heterogeneity in...