Projects

December 17, 2023   

Publications

  • The Genesis and Evolution of the Blue Banana Region (History of Economic Thought and Policy, 2022, with L. Capoani, G. Bortoletto, S. Fratini, and C. Imbesi)

This article aims to present a balanced bibliographic review on the genesis of the Blue Banana and its further developments. Different contributions have been collected to obtain a comprehensive picture of the European regional concept from both historical and theoretical perspectives. Besides the review of the litera-ture, this article contributes to the existing research on the Blue Banana with a comprehensive investigation of its current features, including urbanization, infra-structures, labor market, productivity, and competitiveness. These aspects raise significant implications at the EU level in terms of promoting policies aimed at the reduction of disparities among the European regions, whose development strate-gies could be further scrutinized, thus benefiting the continent as a whole.

Policy

  • Fertility, employment and family policy: A cross-country panel analysis (OECD Working Papers, 2023, with J. Fluchtmann and W. Adema)

This paper analyses the association of labour market outcomes and family policies with fertility trends between 2002 and 2019 in 26 OECD countries. While the average age of mothers at birth of their children continued to increase over the entire period, these years have been marked by an initial catching-up of total fertility rates after marked declines in previous decades. Furthermore, after peaking in 2008, total fertility rates declined substantially, fueling concerns about demographic, economic and fiscal implications. Using panel data models and building on prior work, this paper links these changes in fertility outcomes to changes in the labour market position of men and women as well as with changes in family policies, such as parental leaves and early childhood education and care. This paper provides insights into the complex dynamics between family policies, employment and fertility, shedding light on the factors influencing overall population dynamics in OECD countries.

Academic Projects

  • “Grade repeaters: Pygmalion in the French educational system?”
  • “A microeconomic model of reproductive labor”
    • Microeconomics modelling project at Paris School of Economics
    • PDF of the paper
  • “Female Migrant Workers’ Contribution to Sri Lanka Growth”
  • Replication study of Hatton (2016)
    • Project for the Econometrics course at Tilburg University
    • PDF
    • R code
  • Gender-based division of labor and fertility: from Becker (1960)’s theory to recent debates
  • Gender equality in Italian honors colleges
    • Paper for the Gender Equality and Social Inclusion at Collegio Superiore
    • PDF, Italian
  • On the Perception of Taxes
    • Paper for the Public Economics course at University of Bologna
    • PDF, Italian