Essays in Applied Economics

openUnderlying this doctoral thesis is the growing importance of the study of the relationship between cause and effect. This relationship can relate to policies, events, actions and processes. The analysis of causal relationships has developed over many years and still remains a central issue today. Indeed, in economics, the measurement of a particular causal effect is often one of the objectives of empirical analyses. When researchers are unable to conduct a randomized controlled experiment, they must necessarily rely on the observation of non-experimental data, i.e. data from the real world, as is the case with sample surveys for example. A major problem in the use of this data arises from the fact that they are not derived from an experiment specifically designed for the purpose. Therefore, there may be variable factors whose effects are difficult to separate from the specific treatment effect. The group of statistical techniques which have been developed for the assessment of causal effects from non-experimental data is therefore a very important field of applied econometrics. In this dissertation, I will face the the relationship between cause and effect and several impact evaluation methods, presenting a collection of three applications of these techniques, adapted from three different works: “Price Matching and Platform Pricing”, presented at the First NetCIEx Workshop (EU Joint Research Centre - Ispra); “Roads to Innovation: Evidence from Italy”, presented at the First NetCIEx Workshop (EU Joint Research Centre - Ispra); “Public Funded R&D as a Device for Local Innovation? Evidence from Italian I.I.T. Foundation”. In the first paper, the effects of Price Matching Guarantees (a PMG refers to the price strategy where different retailers commit themselves to match any lower price offered by competitors on the same item or product category) on U.S. online consumer electronics prices are empirically investigated, by means of a unique dataset developed through sophisticated and computerized scraping procedures. In such paper, joint use of daily price data, product characteristics derived from User Generated Contents (UGC) and the construction of a control group with a novel approach allow to implement a Difference-in-Difference analysis, aimed to assert the existence of a causal effect of PMG on prices. The paper finds evidence in favor of price reductions occurring after the PMG policy is repealed. The analysis further investigates if such effect is heterogeneous according to products characteristics, by exploiting UGC (products popularity and quality) and online search visibility measures (Google Search Rank). Estimates suggest that for high quality (visibility) products PMG policies harms competition by keeping prices high, while for low quality (visibility) products, prices decrease during the policy validity period. The second article deals on the literature on the economic impact of transport infrastructure, and in particular on the role that road infrastructure can have on innovative regional capacity. The seminal contribution by Agrawal et al. (2017) is followed to estimate a model of "roads and innovation" where the innovative activity in 1988 is linked to the length of motorways system in 1983, in order to investigate the impact of motorways endowment on the innovative capacity in each Italian NUTS-3 region. The main challenging issue about the estimation of the model arises from the possible endogeneity of highways stock. To deal with this problem, the "historical instrumental variable" approach is followed, by using the length of the ancient Roman roads system dating back to 117 AD as an instrument for the length of current motorways. Overall, the Instrumental Variable estimates indicates that 1983 highways network has a positive and significant impact on 1988 innovative capacity. Moreover, the analysis find a declining role for highways over time. Furthermore, results suggest a spatial reorganization of economic activity rather than a pure net economic effect. The third paper concludes this dissertation. In such final analysis, the effects on the regional economy of a prominent Italian place-based policy, the institution of Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, IIT, is a scientific research centre established in 2003 that conduct scientific research in the public interest), are investigated by means of a novel identification strategy, the Synthetic Control Method (SCM). Such identification approach, unlike other counterfactual impact evaluation techniques, is based on the creation of an artificial control unit that not only follows the same pre-treatment trend as the treated unit, but even overlaps the same one. In particular, through the SCM approach, the innovative and economic development (measured by patents per capita, number of local inventors and per capita GDP) of the treated region, namely Genoa, is compared with a set of Italian NUTS-3 control regions with the aim to estimate the causal effect of the location of IIT in 2006. Estimates show significant effects of IIT presence on local patent activity, highly specialised human capital endowment in research and GDP per capita, suggesting the existence of local spillovers from public research.openXXXII CICLO - ECONOMIARobbiano, Simon

Assessing the Impact of Price-Matching Guarantees and Price Fluctuations on Consumer Feedback: Insights from the Online Consumer Electronics Market

Our study investigates the impact of price matching guarantees (PMGs) on consumer behavior in online retail markets. Leveraging a Difference-in-Differences (DiD) approach, we analyze product ratings in response to price changes during PMG policy periods. Results show that PMGs alone have no significant effect on ratings, but price increases during PMG periods lead to lower ratings. Furthermore, the effect strengthens over time, particularly for cheaper and less visible products. These findings suggest that PMGs may serve as effective market signals of pricing strategy, especially for items where price sensitivity is higher or visibility is lower. This underscores the importance of signaling mechanisms in influencing consumer perceptions and responses in online retail settings. From an antitrust perspective, our results highlight the potential for PMGs to influence competition dynamics and consumer welfare. Policymakers may need to consider regulations ensuring pricing transparency and consumer protection in online markets, balancing the benefits of market signaling with the risks of anti-competitive behavior and consumer harm. Overall, our study contributes to the understanding of pricing strategies and consumer behavior in digital markets, with implications for both industry practices and regulatory interventions

PRESENCE OF MIGRANTS AND VOTING BEHAVIOR IN EUROPE: AN OVERVIEW OF THE EMPIRICAL LITERATURE

In this study, we conduct a survey of the empirical literature that has investigated the relationship between the presence of migrants and voting behavior. Our focus is primarily on European countries, although we also present analyses related to some countries on the outskirts of Europe. The papers are grouped by individual country or group of countries, and predominantly employ counterfactual impact evaluation methods, which allow for the study of causal evidence rather than mere correlations. While the majority of the contributions are written by economists, there are also contributions from social psychologists and political scientists, providing an as comprehensive as possible view on the topic. The findings of this literature reveal a heterogeneous and intricate relationship, influenced by several factors such as economic conditions, cultural dynamics, and social aspects. While numerous studies demonstrate the existence of certain patterns, one prominent example being the nexus between immigrant presence and political backlash, the complexity and variation across different countries underscore the multifaceted nature of this phenomeno

The innovative impact of public research institutes: evidence from Italy

This paper leverages on the establishment of Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) as a policy change useful to understand the causal effect of public funded research centres on the regional innovative capacity. By relying on the Synthetic Control Method (SCM) approach and Italian NUTS-3 panel data, empirical results suggest that the establishment of IIT has positively impacted on regional innovation and high-skilled human-capital, as well as on regional growth. The paper also provides evidence of knowledge spillovers from IIT within the hosting region. Finally, these results are robust to a variety of placebo permutation tests as well as several sensitivity checks, or when considering a Difference-in-Differences (DiD) approach

Multi-Segmentation and Annotation of 3D Surface Meshes

The ShapeAnnotator is a graphical tool designed to assist an expert user in the task of annotating a surface mesh with concepts belonging to a domain of expertise. The user is first required to identify meaningful surface features; Each such feature can then be "labeled" with a concept, and the surface mesh, along with the features identified and their labels, can be saved

Price Matching in Online Retail

We analyze a sample of consumer-electronics products sold by the US NewEgg online-retailer to study the impact of Price Matching Guarantees (PMGs) policies on prices. By applying a Difference-in-Differences approach, we find that prices of the policy-adopting retailer increase by 4.7% during the policy validity period and up to five days after the treatment, while those of the major non-adopting competitor are not affected. Results are mainly driven by highly- rated, visible and expensive products, while the policy does not affect low-rated, less visible and cheaper ones. Overall findings are consistent with the hypothesis that PMGs act as price discrimination tools

Roads to Innovation: Evidence from Italy

In this study, we leverage on the ancient Roman roads network as a source of exogenous variation to identify the causal effect of the modern highways network on innovative performance of Italian NUTS\u20103 regions. Empirical findings suggest that a 10% increase in the highways stock in a region generates an increase in the number of patents of about 3%\u20134%, over a 5\u2010year period. Further analysis suggests that our findings can in part be explained by a reduction in travel costs that fosters collaborations among inventors living in different regions and by an increase in the degree of centrality in the regional innovation network associated to denser highways networks. Finally, we find that the innovation\u2010enhancing effect of highways declines over time, possibly because of the introduction of information and communication technology, or the increasing congestion on the Italian network

High-Speed Railways and Firms Total Factor Productivity: Evidence from a Quasi-Natural Experiment

The focus of this study is to assess the causal impact of the connection of a local area to a high-speed rail network (HSR) on firms' total factor productivity (TFP). The quasi-random location of the HSR station in the Italian city of Reggio Emilia is exploited in a Difference-in Differences (DiD) research design applied to a large sample of firms, observed over the period 2010-2018. The results suggest that the opening of the HSR station improved treated firms' TFP of about 5%; in particular, such effect is larger for firms closer to the HSR station and slightly increases over the sample period. We also find that the impact of the connection to the HSR station is heterogeneous across industries and depends on firms' size and past productivity. Overall results are robust to a large number of sensitivity checks and falsification tests

Price matching in online retail

We analyze a sample of consumer-electronics products sold by the US NewEgg online-retailer to study the impact of Price Matching Guarantees (PMGs) policies on prices. By applying aDifference-in-Differences approach,we find that prices of the policy-adopting retailer increase by 4.7% during the policy validity period and up to five days after the treatment, while those of the major non-adopting competitor are not affected. Results are mainly driven by highlyrated, visible and expensive products, while the policy does not affect low-rated, less visible and cheaper ones. Overall findings are consistent with the hypothesis that PMGs act as price discrimination tools