This paper uses an original dataset covering the presence of local news in medium-large Italian cities in the period 1993–2010 to evaluate the effects of newspaper entry and exit on electoral participation, political selection, and government efficiency. Exploiting discrete changes in the...

Innovation, Unemployment and Policy in the Theories of Growth and Distribution increases our understanding about the more relevant economic determinants and policy aspects of the interdependence between economic growth and income distribution.

The Collective Clemency Bill passed by the Italian Parliament in July 2006 represents a natural experiment to analyze the behavioral response of individuals to an exogenous manipulation of prison sentences. On the basis of a unique data set on the postrelease behavior of former inmates, we find...

In this paper we test for the theory of deterrence. We exploit the natural experiment provided by the Collective Clemency Bill passed by the Italian Parliament in July 2006. As a consequence of the provisions of the bill, expected punishment to former inmates recommitting a crime can be...

Recent research in economics suggests a positive association between self-esteem and earnings. Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY), which administered the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale during its 1980 and 1987 interviews, I provide further evidence for the existence of a...

We exploit the 2006 Italian prison pardon to evaluate peer effects in criminal behavior. The pardon randomly commutes actual sentences to expected sentences for 40 percent of the Italian prison population. Using prison and geographical origin to construct reference groups for former inmates, we...