CLEAN participates at the 34th EALE Conference in Padua

CLEAN went at the 34th Conference of the European Association of Labour Economists (EALE) that took place in Padua on September 8-10! 

Paolo Pinotti gave the first keynote lecture of the conference by presenting joint work with Federico Cingano (Bank of Italy), Filippo Palomba (Princeton), and Enrico Rettore (Padua). In a recent working paper, “Making Subsidies Work: Rules vs. Discretion”, they show that a large program of public subsidies to private firms implemented by the Italian government during the period 1996-2007 – Law 488/92 – substantially increased investment and employment in disadvantaged areas. However, the program was less effective when transfers were allocated at the discretion of local politicians, as opposed to following objective rules. 

Diego Zambiasi, Diogo Britto, and Olivier Marie presented other projects by CLEAN researchers in the Flash Talk on Crime.

Diego Zambiasi (Newcastle) presented ongoing work with Silvia Pedersoli and Paolo Pinotti showing that the unprecedented spike in murders witnessed in the United States in 2020 (+27% over the previous year) can be attributed to soaring gun purchases in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak. 

Diogo Britto (Bocconi) showed that job loss by both men and women leads to an increase in domestic violence, which is stronger when displaced male workers are eligible for unemployment benefits. This last finding, which may seem surprising, is due to the fact that unemployment benefits increase unemployment duration, leading in turn to greater exposure of female spouses to the risk of domestic violence. The complete results can be found in the working paper “Job Displacement, Unemployment Benefits and Domestic Violence” by Sonia Bhalotra, Diogo Britto, Paolo Pinotti, and Breno Sampaio, which is currently Revise & Resubmit for The Review of Economic Studies.  

Finally, in ongoing work with Paolo Pinotti, Oliver Marie (Rotterdam) addressed the puzzling observation of having overrepresentation of immigrants among criminals with the null effect of immigrants on crime by providing evidence of substitution between natives and immigrants in committing crimes.