Compared with other European countries, the Italian labour market stands out for the low level of both female participation and fertility. In this paper we focus on the employment patterns of Italian mothers around the time of childbirth. Our hypothesis is that the difficulties involved in...

In this paper we propose and validate cheating in standardized tests as a new indirect measure of social capital. Given the low-stakes nature of most of the tests examined here, we interpret the widespread presence of cheating as a signal of limited trustin central education authorities....

In this paper we analyze the role played by self-confidence, modeled as beliefs about one�s ability, in shaping task choices. We propose a model in which fully rational agents exploit all the available information to update their beliefs using Bayes� rule, eventually learning their...

This paper estimates the impact of university teachers on their students� academic achievement and labor market outcomes using administrative data from Bocconi University matched with Italian tax records. The estimation exploits the random allocation of students to teachers in a fixed...

This paper contrasts measures of teacher effectiveness with the students� evaluations of the same teachers using administrative data from Bocconi University (Italy). The effectiveness measures are estimated by comparing the subsequent performance in follow-on coursework of students who are...