The rising star of scholarly publishing is Open Access. Even some traditional journals now offer this option on author payment, and many full freely accessible journals are now available to scholars, providing relief to research institutions increasingly unable to afford the escalating...

Trust is an important variable in economics, as several transactions are based on it; unfortunately it is difficult to measure. The recent economic literature on social capital shows a positive association between this concept and trust. As social capital is easier to measure than trust is, this...

According to commonsense wisdom, under proportionality a small centrist party enjoys an excess of power with reference to its share of seats (or votes) due to the possibility of blackmailing the larger ones. This hypothesis has been challenged on a theoretical ground, with some empirical...

We analyse the impact of the provision of care on the health and quality of life (QoL) of mature female informal caregivers using a representative sample drawn from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). We match each informal caregiver with a non-carer using Propensity...

Several papers in experimental economics use reaction times (RTs) to assess whether a decision is instinctive or not. This paper analyses a field experiment (the behaviour of athletes at the World Swimming Championships) in three steps, where only the (expected) payoff changes (i.e. increases)...

This paper analyses the relationship between workers’ gender and monetary incentives in an experimental setting based on a double-tournament scheme. The participants must choose between a piece-rate payment or a performance prize. The results show that women fail to reveal their type, and are...

Several selection processes use multistage tourname nts to choose the best candidates. The theoretical models predict that tournaments are efficient in selecting the best candidates, as they stimulate the best to perform relatively better than their opponents. Empirical tests are difficult, as...

Financial education is today a primary issue. We experimentally test whether a programme (“treatment”) of financial education on savings, targeted to children aged 8 and 9, is effective and to what extent. We measure the interest rate required by the children before and after the treatment...

This paper investigates the relationship between relational capital and profitability and accessibility to credit of a small firm. The extant literature shows a positive link between relational capital and other variables relevant to a firm’s development but does not cover access to credit....

The aim of this paper is to shed light on scholarly communication and its current trajectories by examining academics’ perception of Open Access, while also providing a reference case for studying social norm change. In this respect, the issue of publication choice and the role of Open Access...