Politics in the Family Nepotism and the Hiring Decisions of Italian Firms

This paper studies the effect of family connections to politicians on individuals' labor market outcomes. Using data for Italy spanning more than three decades on a sample of almost one million individuals plus data on the universe of individuals holding political office, we show that politicians extract significant rents, in terms of private sector jobs, for their family members. We present evidence consistent with the hypothesis that this phenomenon is a form of corruption, i.e., a quid pro quo exchange between firms and politicians, although arguably an inferior substitute for easier-to-detect modes of rent appropriation on the part of politicians

Dependent self-employment: workers between employment and self-employment in the UK

Analysing the British Labour Force Survey, we highlight that dependent self-employed workers constitute a group distinct from both employees and independent self-employed workers in the labour market group. Dependent self-employed workers show characteristics of a more volatile labour market attachment than employed or self-employed workers. We provide empirical evidence that dependent self-employed workers are rather pushed than pulled into this labour market status, making dependent self-employment an example of 'necessity' rather than 'opportunity' entrepreneurship. Although data limitations only allow a limited longitudinal analysis, we provide evidence that the majority of dependent self-employed workers remain in the labour market in the short run - either as self-employed or employed - and that only few leave the labour market. In addition, dependent self-employment does not create jobs for others; in our data, dependent self-employed individuals stop being dependent and self-employed because they increase their customer base or return to paid employment

A Low Cost Concept for Data Acquisition Systems Applied to Decentralized Renewable Energy Plants

The present paper describes experiences of the use of monitoring and data acquisition systems (DAS) and proposes a new concept of a low cost DAS applied to decentralized renewable energy (RE) plants with an USB interface. The use of such systems contributes to disseminate these plants, recognizing in real time local energy resources, monitoring energy conversion efficiency and sending information concerning failures. These aspects are important, mainly for developing countries, where decentralized power plants based on renewable sources are in some cases the best option for supplying electricity to rural areas. Nevertheless, the cost of commercial DAS is still a barrier for a greater dissemination of such systems in developing countries. The proposed USB based DAS presents a new dual clock operation philosophy, in which the acquisition system contains two clock sources for parallel information processing from different communication protocols. To ensure the low cost of the DAS and to promote the dissemination of this technology in developing countries, the proposed data acquisition firmware and the software for USB microcontrollers programming is a free and open source software, executable in the Linux and Windows® operating systems

Moderating Political Extremism: Single Round vs. Runoff Elections under Plurality Rule

We compare single ballot vs dual ballot elections under plurality rule, assuming sincere voting and allowing for partly endogenous party formation. Under the dual ballot, the number of parties is larger but the influence of extremist voters on equilibrium policy is smaller, because their bargaining power is reduced compared to a single ballot election. The predictions on the number of parties and on policy volatility are consistent with data on municipal elections in Italy, where cities with more (less) than 15,000 inhabitants have dual (single) ballots respectively

Interaction effects of region-level GDP per capita and age on labour market transition rates in Italy

Abstract The aim of this paper is to measure the effect of the interaction between age for the population of males and females aged 18 to 74 and region-level GDP per capita on labour market transition probabilities in Italy. We compare different occupational states in a sample of males and females who remained in their region of residence at two points in time (12 months apart). We estimate the transition probabilities using a flexible hierarchical logit model with interaction effects between worker age and region-level GDP per capita. We apply this model using longitudinal data from the Italian Labour Force Survey that cover the 2004–2013 period. We find empirical support for the assumption that people in the same age cohort have different labour market opportunities based on the level of GDP per capita in their region of residence. These differences are particularly relevant among younger workers

When Can We Trust Population Thresholds in Regression Discontinuity Designs?

A recent literature has used variation just around deterministic legislative population thresholds to identify the causal effects of institutional changes. This paper reviews the use of regression discontinuity designs using such population thresholds. Our concern involves three arguments: (1) simultaneous exogenous (co-)treatment, (2) simultaneous endogenous choices and (3) manipulation and precise control over population measures. Revisiting the study by Egger and Koethenbuerger (2010), who analyse the relationship between council size and government spending, we present new evidence that these three concerns do matter for causal analysis. Our results suggest that empirical designs using population thresholds are only to be used with utmost care and confidence in the precise institutional setting

Starting Your Career with a Temporary Job: Stepping-Stone or 'Dead End?'

This paper uses panel data from the UK (BHPS) and Germany (GSOEP) to investigate the wage effect of entering the labour market with a temporary job. Further than the previous literature that studied the effect of the contract type on wage dynamics in the explained part of a wage regression, we also investigate the effect of the starting contract on the variance of unobserved individual effects and random earnings shocks. For this purpose, we decompose earnings into a component determined by initial unobserved earnings ability and experience-related heterogeneity and a component determined by earnings shocks. Our results for Germany, verify the existence of a wage penalty for entering the labour market with a temporary contract. This penalty disappears after 12.5 years for male workers and after 6.5 years for the female workers. In the UK, a similar wage penalty is found for male workers that persists over their working career. In contrast, no wage penalty is found for the British female workers. In the UK, the initial unobserved earnings capacity is higher for workers starting off with a permanent job, while no such difference emerges in Germany. However, this initial unexplained wage inequality decreases faster for workers starting their career with a temporary contract than their colleagues that entered the labour market with a permanent job. Finally, the persistence of earnings shocks is higher for workers entering the labour market with a temporary contract

Divided Government Versus Incumbency Externality Effect: Quasi-Experimental Evidence on Multiple Voting Decisions

This paper explores the interdependency of political institutions from the voter's perspective. Specifically, we are interested in: (1) Does the partisan identity of the mayor influence the voter's decision in the subsequent town council election?; (2) Does this partisan identity influence the vote in ensuing higher level elections?; and (3) Do voters condition their vote for the mayor on the result of the last council election? We rely on a regression discontinuity design focusing on close election outcomes based on municipal level data for Germany. We find (1) that the party of the mayor can receive a bonus of 4-6 percentage points in vote share in the next town council election (depending on the timing of the local elections). (2) The mayor partisan identity does not affect federal or European election outcomes within the same municipality. And (3), we show that voters punish mayor candidates of parties that performed strongly in earlier council elections. Throughout the paper, we explore how the findings can be related to an incumbency externality effect and to the theory of voter preferences for divided government