We analyze minute-by-minute, individual level data on viewership for Italian TV news broadcasts, matched with detailed data on content. We study viewer behavior, especially the decision of viewers to switch away from a news program as a function of the type of story being broadcast. Somewhat...

During the last decade the internet has been the fastest growing segment in advertising. Exploiting Nielsen data, we analyze the advertising pattern displayed by the population of organizations (i.e. companies, non-profit institutions and public entities) that were active on the Italian national...

Illegal immigration has been the focus of much debate in receiving countries, but little is known about the drivers of individual attitudes towards illegal immigrants. To study this question, we use the CCES survey, which was carried out in 2006 in the USA. We find evidence that-in addition to...

Gender norms, i.e. the role of men and women in the society, are a fundamental channel through which culture may influence preferences for redistribution and public policies. We consider both cross-country and individual level evidence on this mechanism. We find that in countries that are...

We challenge the “OECD view” (Arnold et al. 2011) according to which a shift from direct to indirect taxation is associated with higher long-run economic growth. We study the relationships between per capita GDP, overall tax revenue and tax composition (in particular direct vs. indirect...

Are labor markets in higher-income countries more meritocratic, in the sense that worker-job matching is based on skills rather than idiosyncratic attributes unrelated to productivity? If so, why? And what are the aggregate consequences? Using internationally comparable data on worker skills and...

Until recently, most policy debates on pensions — especially in Europe — focused on public responsibilities and the difficulties that many publicly funded schemes have in meeting their obligations. However, recent events, not least declines in stock markets, have increased the salience of...

What are the equilibrium features of a financial market where a sizeable proportion of traders face reputational concerns? This question is central to our understanding of financial markets, which are increasingly dominated by institutional investors. We construct a model of delegated portfolio...

We study the information flows that arise among a set of agents with local knowledge and directed payoff interactions, which differ among pairs of agents. First, we study the equilibrium of a game where, before making decisions, agents can invest in pairwise active communication (speaking) and...