Using data from three waves of PIRLS, this paper examines the effect of teacher quality on fourth-grade students' literacy test scores by exploiting variations induced by reforms in teachers' selection and/or reward schemes. We construct an original data set of relevant reforms taking place at...

Using data from three waves of PIRLS, this paper examines the effect of teacher quality on fourth-grade students' literacy test scores by exploiting variations induced by reforms in teachers' selection and/or reward schemes. We construct an original data set of relevant reforms taking place at...

The paper investigates the effectiveness of the median voter as a decisive agent in the process of redistribution. According to the previous literature, it tests several assumptions finding interesting results: The positive relation between inequality and redistribution is confirmed, but the...

Homelessness represents the most extreme form of poverty in industrialized countries and a critical consequence of economic crisis. The economic research on homelessness is almost non-existent because of the lack of reliable data. By interviewing homeless people in Milan and with a response rate...

In this paper we analyse the effects of changes in the institutional design of the educational system on school attainment. In particular, we test whether alternative reforms have increased the average educational attainment of the population and whether various deciles of the education...

This paper estimates the impact of college teaching on students' academic achievement and labor market outcomes using administrative data from Bocconi University (Italy) matched with Italian tax records. The estimation exploits the random allocation of students to teachers in a fixed sequence of...