Suchergebnisse

We investigate the effectiveness of European Structural Funds on employment, population and house prices in Local Labor Markets (LLM) located in Southern Italy. We exploit the variability in disbursements between 2007 and 2013 and estimate the impact of the interventions by allowing for LLM-specific fixed features and LLM-specific time trends. We find that the ability of these funds to offset the negative consequences of the economic crisis seems to have been limited.

The paper investigates the effect of local electoral rules on the political participation of the residents, as reflected in voter turnout. It focuses on Italy, where municipal voting schemes are differentiated by the size of the city: a single ballot system applies to municipalities with less than 15,000 inhabitants, while a dual ballot system is in place above that threshold. By exploiting this discontinuity, the paper finds that the dual ballot increases political participation. The magnitude of the effect is estimated at between 1 and 3 percentage points.

This paper studies the role of the expansion of higher education (HE) in increasing the equality of tertiary education opportunities. It examines Italy's experience during the 1990s, when policy changes prompted HE institutions to offer a wider range of degrees and to open new sites in neighbouring provinces. Our analysis focuses on non-mature full-time students and the results suggest that the expansion might have had only limited effects in terms of reducing existing individual inequality in HE achievement as the greater availability of courses had a significantly positive impact only on the probability of university enrolment but not on that of obtaining a university degree.