The spatial sorting and matching of skills and firms

Using a matched employer-employee database for Italy we look at the spatial distribution of wages across provinces. This rich database allows us to contribute at opening the black box of agglomeration economies exploiting the micro dimension of the interaction among economic agents, both individuals and firms. We provide evidence that firm size and particularly skills are sorted across space, and explain a large portion of the spatial wage variation that could otherwise be attributed to aggregate proxies of agglomeration externalities. Our data further support the assortative matching hypothesis, that we show not to be driven by co-location of "good" workers and firms. Finally, we point out that this assortative matching is negatively related to local market size.Spatial Externalities; Panel-Data; Skills; Firms' Heterogeneity; Sorting; Matching

Employment protection, job-tenure and short term mobility wage gains - A new explanation for the Italian case

This paper investigates theoretical and empirical links between job tenure and short-term mobility wage gains. Standard theoretical approaches examining this subject predict a negative correlation between these variables. Furthermore, this result has been confirmed in different applied researches for US. However, European labour market institutions appear to be quite di??erent from US ones, especially for employment protection and turnover costs. Taking this feature into account we develop a theoretical model, evaluated through analytical and simulation procedures, where optimal switching conditions determine a positive correlation between job-tenure and short-term mobility wage gains. Our main proposition is confirmed for the Italian case using an administrative panel database (INPS) and different econometric specifications.Job-tenure, Employment Protection, MobilityWage Gains, Risk Aversion, Panel Data Estimation

Short and long term evaluations of Public Employment Services in Italy

In the last decade the European Employment Strategy strongly recommended reforms of active labour market policies, reforms that have generated a spread of evaluation exercises for most of European countries. This paper fills the gap in the literature concerning the Italian case, assessing the efficacy of Public Employment Services (PESs) -after the reforms of 1997, 2000, 2003- in increasing the unemployment to employment transition probabilities, through matching techniques. Exploiting the longitudinal dimension of the Labour Force Survey data we design an evaluation structure that allows observing outcomes in both the short (at most 3 months) and the long run (at most 12 and 15 months). In this framework, PES users show a lower probability of finding a job in the short term, because of a lock-in effect, while in the long term this probability turns out to be positive. We also show that PES effects in the long term are much less pronounced when considering as outcome variable the probability of finding a permanent job, a proxy for the quality of the job, suggesting that PES impacts are to a large extent driven by the use of temporary contracts. Furthermore, to deal with issues related to selection on unobservables we carry out two different sensitivity analysis, which confirm our baseline findings.Public Employment Services, Active Labour Market Policies, European Employment Strategy, Matching, Policy Evaluation

Wage distribution and the spatial sorting of workers and firms

Spatial sorting plays an important role in accounting for disparities in average wages among locations. This paper shows that sorting also matters when addressing the relation between spatial externalities and wage distribution, i.e. across workers located at dierent percentiles of the wage distribution. Using Italian employer-employee panel data we can control for individual and firm heterogeneity as well as for unobserved individual heterogeneity by means of quantile fixed eects estimates. After controlling for the sorting of workers the spatial externality impacts dampen along the whole wage distribution and generally remain positive only in the upper tail. As for firm sorting, it becomes uniform along the wage distribution once individual fixed effects are considered. We also point out that the impact of worker sorting is not homogeneous across sectors: along the density dimension it occurs mainly in skill-intensive sectors, while along the specialization dimension it is concentrated in the unskill-intensive sectors.Spatial Externalities, Spatial Sorting, Wage Distribution, Quantile Fixed Effects

Is There Rent Sharing in Italy? Evidence from Employer-Employee Data

Using a unique employer-employee panel database, we investigate the extent of rent sharing in Italy from 1996 to 2003. We derive the following findings. First, after controlling for the national bargaining level, there is robust evidence of rent sharing at firm level. Second, by means of fixed effects estimates we show that the sorting of high-ability workers into high-profit firms appears to play a substantial role, since it captures a significant amount of cross sectional estimates of rent sharing. Third, in accordance to the related literature the endogeneity of profits causes a severe underestimation of rent sharing. Our final IV estimate of the elasticity of wages with respect to profits per employee amounts to 6%, with a "Lester" range of 24%. Moreover, we point out that the impact of rent sharing is not homogeneous across several dimensions (gender, occupation, sector and macroarea).Rent Sharing, Sorting, Wage, Italy

Urban wage premia, cost of living, and collective bargaining

In this paper, we estimate the urban wage premia (UWP) in Italy, with its economy characterized by the interplay between collective bargaining and spatial heterogeneity in the cost of living. We implement a reduced-form regression analysis using both nominal and real (in temporal and spatial terms) wages. Our dataset for the 2005-2015 period includes, for workers’ characteristics, unique administrative data provided by Italian Social Security Institute and, for the local CPI computation, housing prices collected by Italian Revenue Agency. For employees covered by collective bargaining, we find a zero UWP in nominal terms and a negative and non-negligible UWP in real terms (-5%). To capture the role played by centralized wage settings, we also consider various groups of self-employed workers, who are not covered by national labour agreements, while living in the same locations and enjoying the same amenities as employees. We find that the UWP for self-employed workers are up to 25 times greater than for employees. Moreover, sorting proves more notable in the case of self-employed workers, i.e. the larger UWP provide the higher incentives for high-skilled individuals and better firms to locate in cities. Our findings are confirmed on extending the analysis along the wage distribution

Outside income and moral hazard : the elusive quest for good politicians

In most modern democracies elected officials can work in the private sector while appointed in parliament. We show that when the political and market sectors are not mutually exclusive, a trade-off arises between the quality of elected officials and the effort they exert in political life. If high-ability citizens can keep earning money outside of parliament, they will be more likely to run for election; for the same reason, they will also be more likely to shirk once elected. These predictions are confronted with a unique dataset about members of the Italian Parliament from 1996 to 2006. The empirical evidence shows that bad but dedicated politicians come along with good but not fully committed politicians. There is in fact a non-negligible fraction of citizens with remarkably high pre-election income who are appointed in parliament. These citizens are those who gain relatively more from being elected in terms of outside income. Conversely, they are less committed to the parliamentary activity in many respects, like voting attendance and bills sponsorship

Employment protection and regional worker flows in Italy

In this paper we point out that the theoretical predictions concern-ing Employment Protection Legislation (EPL) are not fully confirmed by empirical evidence in Italy, a strict EPL country in the nine-ties, according to OECD indexes. In particular, worker and job flow rates are remarkably high, also in comparison with the other Euro-pean countries. Furthermore, the differences in regional worker flow rates -computed on both the social security database and the LFS- are relevant, no matter which measure of worker flows is considered. While EPL is the same across regions, the highest worker flow rates are observed in the South, an area generally recognised as the least dynamic of the country, followed by the Northeast, the Centre and the Northwest. For possible alternative explanations of regional differences investigation focuses on economic structural composi-tion, the black labour market, non-standard contracts, the public sector and self-employment incidence, labour productivity and firm seniority. Using Logit estimates we find that none of these factors can fully explain these differences. Moreover, the predicted nega-tive relation between worker flows and unemployment duration does not seem to hold in the case of Italy.Worker Turnover and Reallocation; Employment Protection; Regional Economics; Italy

Outside income and moral hazard : the elusive quest for good politicians

In most modern democracies elected officials can work in the private sector while appointed in parliament. We show that when the political and market sectors are not mutually exclusive, a trade-off arises between the quality of elected officials and the effort they exert in political life. If high-ability citizens can keep earning money outside of parliament, they will be more likely to run for election; for the same reason, they will also be more likely to shirk once elected. These predictions are confronted with a unique dataset about members of the Italian Parliament from 1996 to 2006. The empirical evidence shows that bad but dedicated politicians come along with good but not fully committed politicians. There is in fact a non-negligible fraction of citizens with remarkably high pre-election income who are appointed in parliament. These citizens are those who gain relatively more from being elected in terms of outside income. Conversely, they are less committed to the parliamentary activity in many respects, like voting attendance and bills sponsorship.Politicians, Moral hazard, Adverse selection, Absenteeism, Outside income

Electoral Rules and Politicians’ Behavior: A Micro Test

Theory predicts that the majoritarian electoral system should produce more targeted redistribution and lower politicians’ rents than proportional representation. We test these predictions using micro data for the mixed-member Italian House of Representatives, which allow us to sidestep the identification problems of previous studies based on country-level data. In particular, we address the nonrandom selection into different electoral systems by exploiting a distinctive feature of the Italian two-tier elections from 1994 to 2006: candidates could run for both the majoritarian and the proportional tier, but if they won in both tiers they had to accept the majoritarian seat. Focusing on elections decided by a narrow margin allows us to generate quasi-experimental estimates of the impact of the electoral rule. The main results confirm theoretical predictions, as majoritarian representatives put forward a higher proportion of bills targeted at local areas and show lower absenteeism rates than their proportional colleagues.electoral rule, politicians, targeted redistribution, rent-seeking, regression discontinuity design, treatment effect