A Reflection on Economic Uncertainty and Fertility in Europe: The Narrative Framework

none5openVignoli, Daniele; Guetto, Raffaele; Bazzani, Giacomo; Pirani, Elena; Minello, AlessandraVignoli, Daniele; Guetto, Raffaele; Bazzani, Giacomo; Pirani, Elena; Minello, Alessandr

A test of racial bias in capital sentencing

We collect a new dataset on capital punishment in the US and we propose a test of racial bias based upon patterns of sentence reversals. We model the courts as minimizing type I and II errors. If trial courts were unbiased, conditional on defendant's race the error rate should be independent of the victim's race. Instead we uncover 3 and 9 percentage points higher reversal rates in Direct Appeal and Habeas Corpus cases, respectively, against minority defendants who killed whites. The pattern for white defendants is opposite but not statistically significant. This bias is confined to Southern States

Preferences for Redistribution in the Land of Opportunities

This paper explores how individual preferences for redistribution depend on future income prospects. In addition to estimating the impact of individuals' socio-economic background and of their subjective perceptions of future mobility, we employ panel data to construct `objective' measures of expected gains and losses from redistribution for different categories of individuals. We find that such measures have considerable explanatory power and perform better than `general mobility' indexes. We also find that preferences for redistribution respond to individual beliefs on what determines one's position in the social ladder. Ceteris paribus, people who believe that the American society offers `equal opportunities' are more averse to redistribution

Who trusts others?

Issued under Research Programme in Public PolicyAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:3597.9512(no 2646) / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreSIGLEGBUnited Kingdo