Wealth Distribution, Investment in Human Capital and Occupational Choice When Capital Markets Are Imperfect

In order to study the long-run effects of agents’heterogeneity we consider overlapping generations of individuals who differ from one another in wealth and inefficiency level. When young, agents choose whether to invest or not in human capital. Since the net return of human capital investment is positive, agents who can afford such an investment, do invest. In thesecond period of life, agents make an occupational choice. They choose to be workers or entrepreneurs. There exists a critical level of in efficiency be low which becoming entrepreneur is profitable. The wealth distribution and the occupational structure of agents changes overtime, the former being the cause and the effect of thelatter. Thelong run wealth distribution is stationary and can be either ergodic ornot, with long-run occupational mobility or not. We show how the economy’s structural parameters and the types of intergenerational transmission of skills affect the dynamic patterns and thelong-run equilibria.

Federalism, Education-Related Public Good and Growth when Agents are Heterogeneou

In this paper we use an endogeneous-growth model with human capital and heterogeneous agents to analyse the relationship between fiscal federalism and economic growth. Results show that federalism, which allows education-related public good levels to be tailored on the human capital of heterogeneous agents, increases human capital accumulation. This in turn leads to higher rates of growth. The benefits of federalism are stronger the larger the intra-jurisdiction variance of agents’ human capital.Fiscal Federalism, Endogenous Economic Growth, Overlapping Generations, Heterogeneous Agents

The Non-Superneutrality of Money and its Distributional Effects when Agents are Heterogeneous and Capital Markets are Imperfect

In this paper we develop an OLG model with heterogeneous agents, money and bequests, introducing occupational choice and financing constraints when capital markets are imperfect. We show how, under appropriate conditions, all the moments of the distribution are affected by changes in money growth. More precisely, if capital markets are imperfect and heterogeneous agents are liquidity constrained, investment in fixed capital is not efficient and aggregate wages and profits depend on the availability of loanable funds. An increase in money growth may imply a more efficient aggregate investment. Therefore aggregate product and wealth positively depend on an acceleration in money growth.

Measuring Tolerant Behavior

Abstract This paper addresses the issue of measuring tolerance, viewed as a multifaceted phenomenon involving several different social domains. We develop a multidimensional index for Likert-scale data, characterized by the following features: (i) it reflects the individual's intensity of tolerant attitudes towards each social domain; (ii) the index can be broken down by dimension in order to determine the contribution of each dimension to overall tolerance; (iii) the index combines the different dimensions of tolerance using a weighted scheme that reflects the importance of each dimension in determining the overall level of tolerance. To show how this new measure of tolerance works in practice, we carry out a case study using an Italian recent survey asking the opinion of university students about different subjects, such as interreligious dialog, women/religion relationship, religion/death relationship, homosexuality, and multicultural society

Wealth Distribution, Investment in Human Capital and Occupational Choice when Capital Markets are Imperfect

I develop a model in order to study long-run effects of the heterogeneity of wealth and efficiency among agents. More precisely I consider overlapping generations of agents who differ from one another in wealth and inefficiency level. Those agents, when young, choose whether to invest or not in human capital. Since the net return of human capital investment is positive, agents who can afford human capital investment, do invest. In the second period of life, agents make an occupational choice. They choose if being workers or entrepreneurs. There exists a critical level of inefficiency below which becoming entrepreneur is profitable. The wealth distribution of agents changes over time because of wealth accumulation process. The long run distribution is stationary and can be ergodic or not, with long-run occupational mobility or not. Theoretical results are analyzed in a redistributive policy perspective. When long-run distribution of wealth is ergodic, one-shot redistributive policies are ineffective, whereas repetitive redistribution are effective. When lung-run distribution collapses to a unique level of wealth and to a unique occupation, no kind of redistributive policy is possible.

The Emergence of Asymmetric Decentralization: Centrifugal and Centripetal Forces

This paper provides a simple analytical framework to explain the emergence of asymmetric decentralization as a possible institutional solution in multi-level governance. In particular, we conclude that, under certain circumstances, asymmetric decentralization, by granting some regions stronger fiscal autonomy and preserving at the same time interregional equalization, may provide a Pareto-improving solution regarding both centralization and secession

Monetary Policy and the Distribution of Wealth in a OLG Economy with Heterogeneous Agents, Money and Bequests

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Decentramento, dinamica della spesa in conto capitale e crescita; alcune considerazioni

Il capitolo presenta una rassegna della letteratura su federalismo fiscale e crescita. Si presenta un modello in cui la spesa decentrata in conto capitale ha effetti sulla crescita economic

Federalism, education-related public good and growth when agents are heterogeneous

In this paper we use an endogenous-growth model with human capital and heterogeneous agents to analyse the relationship between fiscal federalism and economic growth. The results show that federalism, which allows education-related public good levels to be tailored to the local distribution of human capital, increases human capital accumulation. This in turn leads to higher rates of growth. The benefits of federalism are stronger, the larger the intra-jurisdiction variance of agents\u2019 human capital

Federalism, Human Capital Accumulation and Inequality

We want to obtain a concise picture on the state of the economic research in this field, and therefore we review a number of studies (theoretical and empirical) that focus – directly or indirectly – on the link between federalism and growth and between federalism and inequalit