Abstract:

In the almost 40 years since the initiatives in Australia for gender budgeting, scholarship, institutional engagement, and civil society campaigning have been burgeoning. Has gender budgeting ‘stuck’ as an approach to feminist policy making or gender mainstreaming? Is it sufficiently robust as a concept? Are there weaknesses in implementation? Are there institutional resistances that are deliberate or about weaknesses in knowledge building and implementation? Has the concept of gender budgeting been lost in the mix with the increase in other alternative approaches to budgeting? These are among the series of questions for policy makers, feminist activists, and academic and institutional research arising from recent research and commentary. Gender budgeting seeks to integrate gender analysis in the analytical process of policy development and the process of revenue raising, and resource allocation and spending. Human Rights budgeting aims to secure that international human rights standards and treaty obligations are respected, protected and fulfilled in the formulation of government budgets and management of public finances to secure the maximisation of available resources for the progressive realisation of rights. Both these approaches require and aim to support participation of women and other marginalised voices. Participatory budgeting has increased in popularity as a mechanism to boost community engagement in local decision. making, but does participatory budgeting have an equality and human rights lens, in its design and implementation?

Abstract:

Student learning is a complex process whereby inputs are converted into outputs. Heterogeneity in student performance arises from various sources, including the students themselves, the class, the school and the geographical area. We propose tree-based mixed-effects models to analyze educational data with the goal of untangling the effects stemming from different levels of grouping and to flexibly and efficiently model the educational production function. In particular, we develop and describe innovative Classification And Regression Trees and Random Forest for hierarchical data and generalized response variables. We then leverage the potential of these methods in two primary contexts: analyzing 15-year-old students across countries using the OECD-PISA dataset and predicting student dropout at the university level using the Politecnico di Milano dataset. Results demonstrate that tree-based mixed-effects methods enable the modeling of non-linearities and interactions among covariates, capturing diverse forms of the educational production function. Moreover, these methods produce interpretable and transparent evidence while still accounting for the nested structure of the data.

Abstract:

This paper aims at studying the Digital Euro project, its compliance with the EU legislative framework and its potential impact on the European economy. In this regard, firstly, we will examine the overall concept of Central Bank Digital Currency — describing also the diffusion of the instrument de quo around the world — and we will analyse the first three progress reports published by the ECB about the topic. Secondly, we will deepen the issue related to the possible legal basis of this innovative tool and we will investigate the content of the Regulation proposals presented by the European Commission on 28 June 2023. Then, there will be an assessment of the fourth progress report of Frankfurt and, finally, we will underline the main reasons, according to our view, at the basis of the Digital Euro project.

Abstract:

This Large-scale movement of animals through trade can spread diseases to places where they are not endemic. In this paper, we identify the causal effect of global livestock trade on the spread of infectious animal diseases through an exogenous increase in the demand for imported livestock. The instrumental variable approach exploits an increase in halal livestock imports in Muslim countries during Eid-al-Adha to determine the effect of livestock imports on related infections. Using a dataset that covers 123 countries and five livestock categories in the months between 2004 and 2019, we find an imports-to-infections elasticity of about 0.75. The relationship is stronger for countries that are likely to import infected livestock from their partners. There is also evidence that infections spread through interaction between imported livestock, some of which might be infected, and domestic livestock. These results highlight transmission-through-trade from the origin to the destination.

Abstract:

This study investigates the emotional experiences of immigrants and native-born individuals in the United States, exploring the relationship between daily activities and feelings of happiness, stress, and meaningfulness. We analyze the entire range of daily activities and their durations, utilizing data from the American Time-Use Survey (ATUS) Well-Being modules. The results reveal that when viewed through the evaluation lenses of the general US population, immigrants engage in less happy, more stressful, and less meaningful activities compared to natives. However, when considering subjective emotional assessments, immigrants are more optimistic and perceive these activities as associated with higher levels of happiness and meaningfulness. The study also finds evidence of emotional assimilation over time, with happiness disparities between immigrants and natives diminishing. However, this process appears incomplete for second-generation immigrants. The findings highlight the importance of recognizing the different perspectives of immigrants to formulate inclusive policies that facilitate integration.

Abstract:

The paper presents an assessment of the distinct wage and spillover effects between outsourced and in-house workers, resulting from a 20% increase in the Spanish statutory minimum wage in 2019. Our empirical approach is based on the standard diff-in-diff estimator applied to matched employer-employee administrative data sourced from social security and tax records. Findings reveal that the minimum wage increase has a positive and significant impact on workers' wages, with a stronger effect observed among outsourced workers compared to in-house workers. We also observe a spillover effect extending up to the median of the wage distribution. Similarly, this effect is more pronounced among outsourced workers compared to in-house workers. Additionally, we provide insights into specific labour market segments, such as migrants and female workers, and discuss potential mechanisms driving the primary effect. In particular, we focus on the likelihood of changing employers and sectors of employment, as well as the probability of transitioning out of sectors providing labour services to other firms.

Abstract:

The aim of this paper is twofold. First, we assess the impact of attention, sentiment and uncertainty on cryptocurrency returns, trading volume and volatility. Second, we analyze if the relationship varies across cryptocurrency exchanges. The analysis is conducted on both volatile and stable cryptocurrencies traded on three different cryptocurrency exchanges. The study employs attention, sentiment and uncertainty proxies obtained from both the financial market and the cryptocurrency market. The results may be useful for investors for trading purposes and for selecting the cryptocurrency exchange.

Abstract:

School-based policies are promoted to improve, among all, also children's non-cognitive development, a strong predictor of future life outcomes. Relying on a cross-sectional sample of children aged five from the UK Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS), we investigate the impact of the Universal Infant Free School Meal Policy on children's non-cognitive development. We exploit identifying variations in the timing and location of switching from means-tested to a universal provision of free school lunches using a difference-in-difference strategy. Our results show that exposure to universal free school lunches improves children's Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) and Internalizing Difficulties. The effect seems to be driven by young boys, and children living in medium-income households. This suggests that universal lunch provision policies may help to compensate for gender gaps in early childhood and enhance the non-cognitive skills of middle-class income pupils.

Abstract:

We investigate how specific components of job satisfaction influence overall work happiness. We use the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS), which includes measures of satisfaction with total pay, job security, the nature of work, and hours worked. Our analysis employs a multi-level model to assess the variations in job satisfaction among different types of occupations. This approach allows for a clear comparison of both monetary and non-monetary aspects of job satisfaction. Our findings indicate that the importance of satisfaction with salary in explaining overall satisfaction is lower compared to other non-monetary aspects. This result holds true even when we narrow down the sample by considering factors such as gender (males or females), employment type (full-time or part-time), further job satisfaction components (available for fewer years), and examining income as a second-level factor rather than job occupation.

Abstract:

The aim of this paper is to compare two philosophically different strategies to obtain (Environmental, Social, Governance) ESG-compliant portfolios and to propose a third one. We confront the risk-adjusted performance of three optimal portfolios: the first results from optimization on an ESG-screened sample, the second is obtained by including a portfolio ESG-score constraint in the optimization on an unscreened sample, the third results from our proposal of taking pros of both by optimizing with an ESG constraint (so as to reach a target) over a slightly screened sample (so as to eliminate companies with lowest sustainability). The optimization approach rests on minimizing portfolio residual risk, it does not require a balanced dataset and it is implemented with Bloomberg ESG scores over a stock sample from the EURO STOXX Index in the period January 2007 – August 2022. Two are the main results. First, the performance of an ESG-compliant portfolio depends not only on the strategy taken (optimizing after screening, constraining optimization, mixed strategy) but also on the feature of the initial investment set in terms of relationship between ESG scores and the risk-reward (monotone, convex, concave). Second, the comparative performance of the three strategies over time does not change much with the financial cycle. The most interesting implication is that, the third strategy we propose, allows sustainable investors to do well by doing good in the presence of both a convex and a monotone investment set, being thus able to attract a larger pool of investors towards ESG-compliant optimal portfolios.