In a political economy environment, aging has opposite economic and political effects on the size of the welfare state. On one side, it tends to decrease the profitability of a welfare state that features a PAYG pension system, thus inducing individuals to prefer a smaller system; on the other...

In the last century most countries have experienced both an increase in pension spending and a decline in fertility, We argue that the interplay of pension generosity and development of capital markets is crucial to understand fertility decisions. Since children have traditionally represented...

We study an economy where agents are heterogeneous in terms of observable wealth and unobservable talent. Adverse selection forces creditors to ask for collateral. We study the two-way interaction between rationing in the credit market and the wages offered in the labour market. Both pooling and...

This paper investigates the differential response of male and female voters to competitive persuasion in political campaigns. During the 2011 municipal elections in Milan, a sample of eligible voters was randomly divided into three groups. Two were exposed to the same incumbent’s campaign but...

We study the patterns of political selection in majoritarian versus proportional systems. Political parties face a trade-off in choosing the mix of high and low quality candidates: high quality candidates are valuable to the voters, and thus help to win the elections, but they crowd out the...

We analyze political selection in a closed list proportional system where parties have strong gate-keeping power, which they use as an instrument to pursue votes. Parties face a trade-off between selecting loyal candidates or experts, who are highly valued by the voters and thus increase the...

This paper investigates the differential response of male and female voters to competitive persuasion in political campaigns. During the 2011 municipal elections in Milan, a sample of eligible voters was randomly divided into three groups. Two were exposed to the same incumbent’s campaign but...

We analyze political selection in a closed list proportional system where parties have strong gate-keeping power, which they use as an instrument to pursue votes. Parties face a trade-off between selecting loyal candidates or experts, who are highly valued by the voters and thus increase the...

Is electoral competition good for political selection? To address this issue, we introduce a theoretical model in which ideological parties select candidates between party loyalists and experts, and allocate them into the electoral districts. Non-ideological voters, who care about national and...

This paper investigates the differential response of male and female voters to competitive persuasion in political campaigns. During the 2011 municipal elections in Milan, a sample of eligible voters was randomly divided into three groups. Two were exposed to the same incumbent’s campaign but...