Life satisfaction and household production in a collective model: Evidence from Italy

The model takes into account the household production and self reported information is interpreted in relation with the sharing rule governing the bargaining process in the family. Considering that the theoretical framework implies a wide concept of full income, which includes the allocation of time between the spouses, we used the self reported information on whole satisfaction in life. We demonstrate that self reported data on satisfaction are useful in recovering the individual share of the household full income and the relevance of the wages in this bargaining process. We find also that non strictly economic individual variables and some household characteristics are important in explaining the Italian sharing rule.Collective model, Within-household income comparisons, Subjective data, Italy.

Voting by Ballots and Feet in the Laboratory

This paper provides laboratory evidence on the efficiency-enhancing properties of the Tiebout model as a decentralized system of public goods provision. Tiebout (1956) shows that if a sufficient number of local communities exist to accommodate different types of preferences, individuals sort themselves in a way that provides an efficient allocation of public goods and taxes. Our experiment aims to disentangle the effect of voting participation and is composed of two treatments. In the non-participation treatment, local public good provision is chosen by only one subject, while the other members of the community can only stay in or move to another community. In the participation treatment, all the community members have the right to vote as well as to move to another community and collective decisions are taken by majority rule. Our findings show that social welfare is greater in the participation than in the non-participation treatment. We conclude that voting with one’s feet increases efficiency if all the community members vote and that the influence of voting participation on the allocation of local public goods should be taken into account to assess the viability of the Tiebout model.Tiebout model, local public goods, voting participation, federalism, experiment.

Does Italy need family income taxation?

The possible implications of using the family as opposed to the individual as the unit of taxation are not clear. This applies both to work incentives and distributional outcomes. In this paper we evaluate the effects of a hypothetical reform for Italian income taxation with respect to labour supply. In particular, we analyze potential labour supply effects by considering a shift from the current system of individual taxation to a system of family taxation similar to the French family splitting approach. The analysis is based on an econometric model of labour supply that is embedded in a tax–benefit model. Using data from the Bank of Italy Survey of Household Income and Wealth, our simulation results show relatively small effects on the total labour supply but a decrease in female labour supply.tax benefit system, fiscal reform, labour supply, microsimulation

Immigrant Student Performance in Math: Does It Matter Where You Come From?

The performance gap in math of immigrant students is investigated using PISA 2012. The gap with respect to non-immigrant schoolmates is first measured. The hypotheses that first (second) generation students coming from (whose parents come from) countries with a higher performance in math fare better than their immigrant peers coming from lower-ranked countries are then tested on a sample of about 13,000 immigrant students. The estimated average immigrant-native score gap in math amounts to -12 points. The results show that immigrant students coming from higher-ranked origin countries have a significantly lower score gap, and are thus relatively less disadvantaged. For example, coming from a country in the top quintile for math and having attended school there for one year improves the absolute score gap by nearly 39 points, the highest coefficient among the variables that reduce the gap, such as parental education and socio-economic status

The Intergenerational Transmission of Math Culture

In this study, we provide evidence that parents' beliefs about the value of math, in terms of successful employment, have a positive impact on children's math scores. This result is robust to the reverse causality issue that characterizes the relationship between parental attitude and children's performance. We adopt an identification strategy that relies on two pillars. First, using PISA 2012, we estimate this relationship on a sample of immigrants that includes second-generation students and first-generation students who migrated before starting primary education. Second, we instrument the parental attitude with the country of origin math performance, under the assumption that country of origin math performance affects children's performance only through parents. We find that one additional score point in the origin country performance in math increases student performance by 21 percent of one standard deviation of the student math score. For an indirect transmission mechanism through parents math culture, this can be considered a quite substantial effect. Disentangling the effect of one of the factors that shape the family background, we contribute to the empirical literature on the explanations of individual educational achievements