I am an applied microeconomist and Post-Doctoral fellow at Luiss Department of Economics and Finance. I have obtained my PhD from the European University Institute in 2024.
I will be on the 2024-2025 academic Job Market
Research Interests: Micrometrics, Labour, Migration, Education and Media
References: Fabiano Schivardi, Andrea Mattozzi, Andrea Ichino, Robert Gary-Bobo
Affiliations: Luiss Guido Carli, European University Institute, Copenhagen Business School
Scroll down to see my research!
Research
Working Papers:
"Plurilingualism and Brain Drain: Unexpected Consequences of Access to Foreign TV", (with Anatole Cheysson) [E.U.I WP]
Job Market Paper
We study how foreign language proficiency affects brain drain by exploiting the heterogeneous exposure of Albania to Italian television in the second half of the twentieth century. We document that, due to geographical proximity, the Italian TV signal accidentally reached Albania and, conditional on geographic conditions, Albanians' exposure to the signal was as good as random. We find that exposure to Italian TV led to a considerable increase in Italian proficiency rates and strongly increased the probability of migrating of highly skilled individuals while not affecting other skill groups. We rule out other channels through which TV might affect migration and interpret our findings as the effect of foreign language proficiency on brain drain.
Presented at: European Winter Meeting, EWMES (Palma de Mallorca 2024, Scheduled) ,The 1st International Conference of the Georgian Economic Association (Tbilisi 2024), DEF LUISS Internal Seminar (Rome 2023), The Junior Workshop on the Economics of Migration (Paris 2023), EUI Migration Working Group (Florence, 2022), IFO CEMIR Junior Economist Workshop (Munich 2022), Barcelona School of Economics (Barcelona 2022), Economics of Migration Junior Seminar (Florence 2022), EUI Multidisciplinary Research Workshop (2022), Applied Young Economist Webinar (2022), EUI Microeconometrics Working Group (2021).
We show that the expected real wages commanded by some higher-education degrees decreased in absolute terms in France, in the past two decades, and that this drop is not due to adverse selection. To study the returns to degrees and experience, we assume the existence of a finite number of latent types and estimate a finite-mixture model. Each type has its own log-wage equation, experience-accumulation and education-choice equation. This allows us to decompose the treatment effects of education as an average of type-dependent effects. We then show that some unobserved types experienced a real-wage drop while others benefited from an increase, with the same degree. The observed “flattening” of returns to experience is also heterogeneous. In the case of Master degrees, the estimated distribution of latent types indicates that student selection improved with time, in spite of the fact that the number of graduates increased substantially. An excess supply of graduates might therefore be a likely explanation for the devaluation of Master’s degrees.
Presented at: ESEM (Rotterdam 2024-scheduled 29 of August), EUI Microeconometrics Working Group (2022).
Using Danish administrative data, we study how individuals' skill set composition affects self-selection into entrepreneurship. We measure analytical and communication skills with high school grades in math and Danish. We observe a positive complementarity between math and Danish language grades in predicting individuals' self-selection into entrepreneurship: for students with high math grades, the probability of starting a business is monotonically increasing with their oral grade in Danish, while this is not the case for the rest of the population. We exploit within-school, across-cohort variation in students' exposure to peers whose fathers have a university degree in the humanities to causally estimate the effect of increasing communication skills on the probability of becoming an entrepreneur for the population of high-performing math students. We find that the individual at the 90th percentile of the treatment distribution has a 0.34 percentage point higher probability of becoming an entrepreneur in her late thirties than the individual at the 10th percentile of the treatment distribution. This effect is equal to 9\% of the share of entrepreneurs in the economy. As students who perform well in math run, on average, more profitable and larger businesses, we highlight the importance of improving the communication skills of individuals with high analytical abilities to incentivize the creation of high-performing firms.
Presented at: The 1st International Conference of the Georgian Economic Association (Tbilisi 2024), DEF LUISS Internal Seminar (Rome 2023), EUI Microeconometrics Working Group (Florence 2024).
Ongoing Projects:
"The Short and Long Run Effects of Brain Drain on Stayers", (with Anatole Cheysson)
The effect of brain drain on stayers (those who did not migrate) has been found in the literature to be both positive and negative. In this research, we exploit the as good as random exposure of part of Albania to Italian TV during the second half of the 20th century (Argan, Cheysson 2022) as an instrument for high human capital migration. Using multiple data sources (LSMS for Albania 2002, 2005, 2008, 2012), we can study the many effects of brain drain on the stayers over time. In particular, we can examine whether the welfare effects on stayers are negative in the short run but positive in the long run.
Publications:
"Les diplômes français se sont-ils dévalorisés ? Les rendements de l’éducation et de l’expérience en France 1992-2017" , with (Robert Gary-Bobo) Revue économique, 2023/2 (Vol. 74), pages 95 à 137
Nous étudions l’évolution des salaires des jeunes diplômés français entre 1992 et 2017, en nous appuyant sur les enquêtes Génération du Céreq. La dévalorisation des diplômes est définie de manière simple comme la baisse des salaires réels moyens des diplômés d’une même catégorie, et nous observons qu’une telle dévalorisation des diplômes s’est bien produite, de l’ordre de 10%, pour les diplômes universitaires de master et pour les diplômes des écoles d’ingénieur, entre 1997 et 2015. Il n’y a en revanche pas de dévalorisation pour les diplômes de niveau inférieur au baccalauréat, et nous rapprochons ce dernier résultat de la hausse du Smic. En mettant les données sous la forme d’un panel nous estimons des équations de salaire en contrôlant pour l’expérience (potentielle et effective) et le niveau de diplôme des individus. Les estimations confirment les résultats et montrent que la dévalorisation observée est due en partie à une baisse des rendements de l’expérience. Avec ces méthodes, on ne sait pas ce qui est dû à des changements inobservables dans la sélection des diplômés, mais il semble vraisemblable que la dévalorisation est principalement le résultat de la hausse substantielle du nombre des diplômés du supérieur dans la période étudiée, et non un effet de la conjoncture ou de l’anti-sélection.
Teaching
Managerial Economics
LUISS Department of Business and Management, Master Level, Fall2024, Class A & B
Principal Instructor
Advanced Corporate Finance
LUISS Department of Economics and Finance, Master Level, taught by Matteo Escudé, Spring 2024 & 2023
Teaching Assistant
Econometrics II: Models for Micro Data
European University Institute PhD core course, taught by Sule Alan and Thomas Crossley, Winter 2022
Mentor for Master Students
Econometrics I: Regression Analysis
European University Institute PhD core course, taught by Andrea Ichino, Fall 2022
Mentor for Master Students
Background course to Probability and Statistics
European University Institute PhD core course, taught by Cristina Lafuente, Fall 2022
Teaching Assistant
Microeconomics II, Game Theory
European University Institute PhD core course, taught by David K. Levine, Fall 2019
Teaching Assistant
Non-Refereed Publications
"L’importanza del fattore linguistico nell’integrazione dei migranti nel mercato del lavoro", (With Anatole Cheysson) [In: Il fenomeno immigratorio in Lombardia: uno sguardo di lungo periodo, ORIM, 2023]
"Les diplômes français se devalorisent-ils?", (with Robert Gary-Bobo) [Commentaire, automne 2019]