Voting with the Wallet

The vote with the wallet is a new, emerging feature of economic participation and democracy in the globally-integrated market economy. This expression identifies the pivotal role that responsible consumption and investment can play in addressing social and environmental emergencies which have been aggravated by the asymmetry of power between domestic institutions and global corporations. In this paper, we examine (both in general and by using examples drawn from the financial and non-financial sectors) how ÒvotingÓ for producers which are at the forefront of a three-sided efficiency which reconciles the creation of economic value with social and environmental responsibility, may generate contagion effects by triggering ethical imitation of traditional profit-maximizing actors, thereby enhancing the production of positive social and environmental externalities. Within this new framework policies which reduce the search and information costs of voting with the wallet may help socioeconomic systems to exploit the bottom-up market forces of other-regarding preferences, thereby enhancing opportunities to achieve well-being with reduced top-down government interventionsocial responsibility, other regarding preferences.

Revisiting the economy by taking into account the different dimensions of well-being

In standard economic models benevolent governments are the unique actors in charge to tackle the problem of reconciling individual with social wellbeing in presence of negative externalities and insufficient provision of public goods. Some promising practices of grassroot economics suggest however that, even a minoritarian share of concerned individuals and socially responsible corporations which internalise externalities, significantly enhance the opportunities of promoting "sustainable happiness" harmonising creation of economic, social and environmental value.well-being; sustainable happiness; role; ethical and solidarity initiatives

OPE and a low-energy theorem in QCD-like theories

We verify, both perturbatively and nonperturbatively asymptotically in the ultraviolet (UV), a special case of a low-energy theorem of the NSVZ type in QCD-like theories, recently derived in arXiv:1701.07833, that relates the logarithmic derivative with respect to the gauge coupling, or the logarithmic derivative with respect to the renormalization-group (RG) invariant scale, of an $n$-point correlator of local operators in one side to an $n+1$-point correlator with the insertion of $Tr F^2$ at zero momentum in the other side. Our computation involves the operator product expansion (OPE) of the scalar glueball operator, $Tr F^2$, in massless QCD, worked out perturbatively in arXiv:1209.1516 -- and in its RG-improved form in the present paper -- by means of which we extract both the perturbative divergences and the nonperturbative UV asymptotics in both sides. We also discuss the role of the contact terms in the OPE, both finite and divergent, discovered some years ago in arXiv:1209.1516, in relation to the low-energy theorem. Besides, working the other way around by assuming the low-energy theorem for any 2-point correlator of a multiplicatively renormalizable gauge-invariant operator, we compute in a massless QCD-like theory the corresponding perturbative OPE to the order of $g^2$ and nonperturbative asymptotics. The low-energy theorem has a number of applications: to the renormalization in asymptotically free QCD-like theories, both perturbatively and nonperturbatively in the large-$N$ 't Hooft and Veneziano expansions, and to the way the open/closed string duality may or may not be realized in the would-be solution by canonical string theories for QCD-like theories, both perturbatively and in the 't Hooft large-$N$ expansion. Our computations will also enter further developments based on the low-energy theorem.Comment: Some arguments extended and minor typos corrected, paper as published in JHE

Two-Loop Master Integrals for the Planar QCD Massive Corrections to Di-photon and Di-jet Hadro-production

We present the analytic calculation of the Master Integrals necessary to compute the planar massive QCD corrections to Di-photon (and Di-jet) production at hadron colliders. The masters are evaluated by means of the differential equations method and expressed in terms of multiple polylogarithms and one- or two-fold integrals of polylogarithms and irrational functions, up to transcendentality four.Comment: 20 pages, ancillary file

Financial education on secondary school students: the randomized experiment revisited

We analyze the effects of financial education on a large sample of secondary school students with a randomized experiment performed in the Center (Rome) and North (Milan and Genova) of Italy. Our main findings document that the course increases significantly financial literacy at both student and class level but the effect is different in different urban environments. More specifically, we document that the overall (questionnaire plus course) learning effect is significantly higher in the North than in Rome. We finally observe that high grades at final middle school exams, willingness to attend Economics at University and household borrowing status are three factors which significantly and positively affect financial education.financial education; financial literacy; demand for money balances; randomized experiment

Is Fair Trade Honey Sweeter? An empirical analysis on the effect of affiliation on productivity

We evaluate the impact of affiliation to Fair Trade on a sample of Chilean honey producers. Evidence from standard regressions and propensity score matching shows that affiliated farmers have higher productivity (income from honey per worked hour) than the control sample. We show that the productivity effect is partially explained by the superior capacity of affiliated workers to exploit economies of scale. Additional results on the effects of affiliation on training, cooperation and advances on payments suggest that affiliation contributed both to, and independently from, the economies of scale effect.Fair Trade, economies of scale, productivity.

Family money, relational life and (class) relative wealth: an empirical analysis on life satisfaction of secondary school students

We investigate factors affecting happiness on a sample of Italian secondary school students. We find that money matters since family’s house ownership, mortgages and (class) relative wealth significantly affect life satisfaction. Other crucial factors are geographical residence (those living in Milan are significantly less happy), mother’s occupation, trust on family and friendships. Even though we cannot rule out inverse causality and other forms of endogeneity, the characteristics of many of the significant regressors such as family wealth, parental job and geographical residence (not under the decisional power of the student) suggest a direct causality nexus for these factors.life satisfaction; secondary school; wealth

The dynamics of ethical product differentiation and the habit formation of socially responsible consumers

In our model of ethical product differentiation two duopolists (a zero profit socially concerned producer and a profit maximizing producer) compete over prices and (costly) socially and environmentally responsible features of their products under a given law of motion of consumer habits. In a continuous time model in which the location of the zero profit social responsible entrant is fixed and the profit maximizing producer (PMP) limits himself to price competition without ethical imitation, we show that the optimal dynamic price is always lower than his optimal static price since the PMP producer knows that, by leaving too much market share to the other producer, he will reinforce the habit of socially responsible consumption and loose further market share in the future. We inspect the properties of equilibria when the PMP can ethically imitate the entrant and when the entrant is free to choose his location. We find that, in the first case, the threshold triggering a PMP strategy of ethical imitation and minimum price differentiation is lower in the dynamic than in the static case, depending on the shadow cost of changes in consumers social responsibility.Socially responsible consumers; ethical product differentiation; profit maximizing producer

The Effects of (within and with EU) Regional Integration: Impact on Real Effective Exchange Rate Volatility, Institutional Quality and Growth for MENA Countries

institutions, exchange rate, economic policy

Microfinance and happiness

Microfinance institutions are used to claim that their impact goes beyond money since rescuing from exclusion uncollateralized poor borrowers significantly affects their dignity, self-esteem, social recognition and, through it, life satisfaction. Our paper aims to verify indirectly this claim by evaluating whether access to microfinance loans has significant impact on life satisfaction beyond its indirect impact via income changes. Our empirical findings on a sample of poor borrowers in the suburbs of Buenos Aires show that, after controlling for survivorship bias, the number of credit cycles has a significant and positive effect on life satisfaction.microfinance; happiness; impact study