Papers by Marianna Belloc
Social Science Research Network, 2012
This report concentrates on the development of an overall strategy for promoting export growth in... more This report concentrates on the development of an overall strategy for promoting export growth in Sierra Leone. This follows a specific request from the Sierra Leone authorities, in the context of the International Growth Centre (IGC) Country Programme of Sierra Leone. This report was carried out through a fact-finding mission in May 2011. The mission received the full cooperation of the relevant ministries and agencies, in particular the Ministry of Trade and Industry and the Sierra Leone Investment and Export Promotion Agency (SLIEPA). The mission also benefitted from the views of the private sector, foreign and domestic, bilateral donors and international development agencies. A preliminary version of this report was discussed at a meeting at SLIEPA headquarters in Freetown on May 24, 2011.
Social Science Research Network, 2008
The aim of this paper is to explore the role of the institutional determinants of international c... more The aim of this paper is to explore the role of the institutional determinants of international comparative advantage. Starting from a theoretically well-founded general-equilibrium framework, where specialization depends on relative factor endowments and technological differences, we study the possible additional effect of labor unions. Using country-year panel data, we obtain that they are an important determinant of relative economic performance for a sample of manufacturing sectors. In particular low wages-labor-intensive industries turn out to be relatively disadvantaged, while high wages-capital-intensive sectors are relatively advantaged by stronger labor unions. We also allow for different institutional scenarios, letting unionization patterns interact with different regimes of bargaining coordination and social security systems. Our main conclusions are not substantially altered.
Unemployment by Gender and Gender Catching-Up: Empirical Evidence from the Italian Regions
Social Science Research Network, 2013
ABSTRACT We examine the dynamic behaviour of unemployment rates by gender and of the gender unemp... more ABSTRACT We examine the dynamic behaviour of unemployment rates by gender and of the gender unemployment gap over the 1992-2009 period by Italian regions. The results from unit root tests with unknown structural breaks indicate that the gender unemployment gap has narrowed in most cases. However, the pace of catching-up and the dynamic behaviour characterizing the individual unemployment series differ substantially from one region to another. We comment on our results in the light of the reforms applied in the Italian labour market over the last two decades.
Social Science Research Network, 2011
International Journal of Global Environmental Issues, 2008
This paper explores the way the man-nature relationship and the related environmental problems ha... more This paper explores the way the man-nature relationship and the related environmental problems have been dealt along with the history of the economic thought. We discuss a number of different theoretical frameworks (classical, Marxian and neoclassical economics, Georgescu-Roegen's approach and ecological economics) and organise the discussion around the following two crucial points: how the environment influences the economic activity and imposes constraints by means of the scarcity of natural resources; and how the human activity impacts the environment, according to the prevailing technology, and modifies the ecosystem. Throughout this examination, we stress from time to time the role technological progress is found to play according to the various paradigms analysed. Is technological progress always in contrast with environmental sustainability or it may be seen as a tool in the hands of the humankind to make development sustainable?
Social Science Research Network, 2017
In this paper, we study how the birth of the first universities in Italy affected the emergence o... more In this paper, we study how the birth of the first universities in Italy affected the emergence of the Italian free cities-states (the commune) in the period 1000-1300 a.d. Exploiting a panel dataset of 121 cities, we show that after the foundation of a new university the distance between each city in the sample and the university negatively predicts the timing of the birth of communal institutions in the city. Our evidence is consistent with the idea that universities in the Middle Ages provided the necessary juridical knowledge and skills to build legal capacity and develop broader-based institutions.
Quarterly Journal of Economics, Jul 11, 2016
This article presents a unique historical experiment to explore the dynamics of institutional cha... more This article presents a unique historical experiment to explore the dynamics of institutional change in the Middle Ages. We have assembled a novel data set, where information on political institutions for northern central Italian cities between 1000 and 1300 is matched with detailed information on the earthquakes that occurred in the area and period of interest. Exploiting the panel structure of the data, we document that the occurrence of an earthquake retarded institutional transition from autocratic regimes to self-government (the commune) in cities where the political and the religious leaders were the same person (episcopal see cities), but not in cities where political and religious powers were distinct (non-episcopal see cities). Such differential effect holds for destructive seismic episodes and for events that were felt by the population but did not cause any material damage to persons or objects. Ancillary results show that seismic events provoked a positive and statistically significant differential effect on the construction and further ornamentation of religious buildings between episcopal and non-episcopal see cities. Our findings are consistent with the idea that earthquakes, interpreted in the Middle Ages as manifestation of the will and outrage of God, represented a shock to people's religious beliefs and, as a consequence, enhanced the ability of political-religious leaders to restore social order after a crisis relative to the emerging communal institutions. *We thank the editor (Robert Barro) and four anonymous referees for comments that greatly have improved the article. We are indebted to Andrei Shleifer for advice and encouragement at many stages of this project. We are grateful to Daron
Scientific Reports, Oct 16, 2019
We present an incentivized laboratory experiment where a random sample of individuals playing a s... more We present an incentivized laboratory experiment where a random sample of individuals playing a series of stag hunt games are forced to make their choices under time constraints, while the rest of the players have no time limits to decide. We find that individuals under the time pressure treatment are more likely to play stag (vs. hare) than individuals in the control group: under time constraints 62.85% of players are stag-hunters as opposed to 52.32% when no time limits are imposed. These results offer the first experimental evidence on the role of intuition and deliberation in strategic situations that entail social coordination. In interpreting our findings, we provide a discussion on ruling social conventions in daily-life interactions. The recent literature in judgment and decision-making has shown an upsurge of interest to understand prosociality from a dual process perspective 1. Dual process theories of decision-making 2 are well established in cognitive and social psychology. They suggest that humans make decisions under two modes of reasoning, namely intuition, fast and relying on heuristics, and deliberation, slow and based on careful scrutiny of costs and benefits 3-5. Following this insights, a number of recent contributions have run incetivized experiments to investigate the effects that the mode of reasoning has on prosocial behavior in a variety of games 6,7 , such as: prisoner dilemmas and public good games 8,9 , dictator games 9-11 , ultimatum games 12,13 , deception games 14 , and allocation decisions 15. In this paper we consider the stag hunt game, which can be interpreted as a social dilemma involving prosociality 16. In the basic game, the opposition between coordination on stag and coordination on hare can be seen as a parable for social situations in which coordination can be pursued on two different levels: coordinating on better rewarding, but necessarily collaborative actions, and coordinating on less rewarding actions, which do not require collaboration. Accordingly, coordinated play on either action can be interpreted as a social norm, i.e., a social convention 17,18. Even if the stag hunt game has been widely investigated with experimental methods 19,20 , to our knowledge, there is no previous attempt to empirically assess the effects that the tension between intuition and deliberation has on the choice between stag and hare. Some experimental evidence is available for pure coordination games 21 , suggesting that intuition leads to rely more on culturally focal options. In this work, we manipulate the mode of reasoning by imposing a 10-second time constraint on decision-making 6,22. While response times are related to the mode of reasoning in important respects 23 , the interpretation of results obtained under time pressure requires careful consideration 9,24. As already noted 25 , different theories of dual process cognition identify different attributes to, respectively, intuition and deliberation 5,26. A large body of this literature relates intuition to automatic and unconscious processes that occur extremely fast, possibly in less than a second 27 ; several contributions on the relationship between prosocial behavior and ego depletion 10,13,28-30 or cognitive load 12,31 take this perspective. Other contributions define intuition as a mode of reasoning that is not fully unconscious and automatic, but entails some reflection in the form of heuristics 32-34 ; in these studies, intuition is assumed to be substantially slower than in the previous approach. Different definitions of intuition can, at least in part, explain opposing results in the analysis of intuitive behavior and prosociality 1,35,36. Indeed, while some researchers contend that intuition induces cooperative behaviors while reflection stimulates selfishness 8,33,37,38 , others argue that deliberation and reflection act as a hurdle to selfish impulses and lead to prosociality and cooperation 13,39,40. Finally, some studies find no effect of the adoption of intuition on cooperation 41,42. The interpretation of intuition as a mode of reasoning well fits our experimental setting where a 10-second time constraint is used to inhibit reliance on deliberation. According to this interpretation, the distinction between intuition and deliberation recalls the distinction between instinctive and contemplative decision-making, implying that both processes involve conscious reasoning and require a minimum amount of time and reflection 43. In
Department of Economics, UCB, Jul 7, 2005
Traditional trade theory obtains that international integration always yields large potential wel... more Traditional trade theory obtains that international integration always yields large potential welfare benefits, even in a static constant returns competitive economy. Such a result however can only be maintained in a world bereft of its institutional and cultural dimensions. In this paper we show that once institutional factors are introduced into the discussion, integration may be detrimental to welfare in the long-run. Exploiting a game theoretical approach, we consider the integration between two societies that only differ in their institutional structures. Two important results are derived. First we illustrate that intercommunity integration may entail the disruption of the pre-existent internal arrangements in at least one of the two societies. This is crucial especially because in our model institutional diversity is the only reason that makes intercommunity integration profitable. Second, in the presence of gains from internal cooperation, the collapse of the domestic institutional equilibrium leads to a loss of welfare for the community as a whole.
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, Aug 1, 2009
Cultural and institutional differences among nations may result in differences in the ratios of m... more Cultural and institutional differences among nations may result in differences in the ratios of marginal costs of goods in autarchy and thus be the basis of specialization and comparative advantage, as long as these differences are not eliminated by trade. We provide an evolutionary model of endogenous preferences and institutions under autarchy, trade and factor mobility in which multiple asymptotically stable cultural-institutional conventions may exist, among which transitions may occur as a result of decentralized and un-coordinated actions of employers or employees. We show that: i) specialization and trade may arise and enhance welfare even when the countries are identical other than their cultural-institutional equilibria; ii) trade liberalization does not lead to convergence, it reinforces the cultural-institutional differences upon which comparative advantage is based and may thus impede even Pareto-improving cultural-institutional transitions; and iii) by contrast, greater mobility of factors of production favors decentralized transitions to a superior cultural-institutional convention by reducing the minimum number of cultural or institutional innovators necessary to induce a transition.
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, 2008
This paper develops a NATREX (NATural Real EXchange rate) model for two large economies, the Euro... more This paper develops a NATREX (NATural Real EXchange rate) model for two large economies, the Eurozone and the United States. The NATREX approach has already been adopted to explain the medium-long term dynamics of the real exchange rate in a number of industrial countries. So far, however, it has been applied to a one-country framework where the "rest of the world" is treated as given. In this paper, we build a NATREX model where the two economies are fully specified and allowed to interact. Our theoretical model offers the basis to empirical estimation of the euro/dollar equilibrium exchange rate that will be carried out in future research.
Public Investment and Economic Performance in Highly Indebted Poor Countries: An Empirical Assessment
Social Science Research Network, Aug 30, 2005
ABSTRACT Understanding how public investment affects economic performance in highly indebted low-... more ABSTRACT Understanding how public investment affects economic performance in highly indebted low-income countries is crucial in order to implement effective fiscal policies for adjustment with growth. In this paper we provide an empirical analysis to investigate the relationship between public investment, private investment and output. A dynamic econometric procedure is implemented on a selected group of Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPCs). Our results provide empirical support for the crowding-in hypothesis and a positive relation between public investment and output.
HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific r... more HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés.
Social Science Research Network, 2009
Traditional trade theory obtains that international integration always yields large potential wel... more Traditional trade theory obtains that international integration always yields large potential welfare benefits, even in a static constant returns competitive economy. Such a result however can only be maintained in a world bereft of its institutional and cultural dimensions. In this paper we show that once institutional factors are introduced into the discussion, integration may be detrimental to welfare in the long-run. Exploiting a game theoretical approach, we consider the integration between two societies that only differ in their institutional structures. Two important results are derived. First we illustrate that intercommunity integration may entail the disruption of the pre-existent internal arrangements in at least one of the two societies. This is crucial especially because in our model institutional diversity is the only reason that makes intercommunity integration profitable. Second, in the presence of gains from internal cooperation, the collapse of the domestic institutional equilibrium leads to a loss of welfare for the community as a whole.
Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Dec 1, 2015
This paper empirically explores the role of informational lobbying in shaping the EU trade policy... more This paper empirically explores the role of informational lobbying in shaping the EU trade policy. To this purpose, we construct an original dataset by collecting information on the participation of national and international organizations in the European Commission consultations on trade issues and by merging it with newly released data on non-tariff measures aggregated at the tariff-line level between 1999 and 2007. Our results suggest that European lobbies exert a major influence on policy-makers. Drawing upon the panel structure of the dataset, we find that participation in consultation meetings increases the probability of a protectionist policy, even after controlling for product fixed effects and a number of control variables. Moreover, actual attendance turns out to be more effective than simple registration and organizations representing more than one industrial category are more likely to obtain protection than singlesector organizations. These findings are interpreted in light of a political economy model of lobbying with (possibly endogenous) costs.
Social Science Research Network, 2007
This paper presents estimation of the Grossman-Helpman (1994) model for the EU. We try to address... more This paper presents estimation of the Grossman-Helpman (1994) model for the EU. We try to address a number of pitfalls that surround the previous empirical literature. First, we suggest a new identification strategy that enables to single out politically organized sectors with specific regard to trade policy. Second, we utilize two alternative measures of trade protection (ad-valorem equivalent of non-tariff barriers and overall restrictiveness) and adopt industrial and trade data at a high level of disaggregation. Finally, we directly obtain the structural coefficients of the model by estimating a nonlinear simultaneous equations system that is tightly linked to theory. We find that the theoretical model is broadly consistent with data and conclusions turn out internally coherent.
Journal of International Money and Finance, Mar 1, 2010
This paper develops a NATREX (NATural Real EXchange rate) model for two large economies, the Euro... more This paper develops a NATREX (NATural Real EXchange rate) model for two large economies, the Eurozone and the United States, which are fully specified and allowed to interact. After description of the theoretical framework grounding on dynamic disequilibrium modelling approach in continuous time, we implement empirical analysis. First, we estimate the model in its structural form as a simultaneous nonlinear differential equation system for the 1975-2003 period. Second, we simulate the Euro/USD NATREX series in-and out-ofsample by using parameters estimates. The simulated equilibrium real exchange rate enables us to determine a benchmark against which the dynamics of the actual real exchange rate can be measured.
Social Science Research Network, 2009
We present a model in which specialization and trade occur not as a result of exogenous differenc... more We present a model in which specialization and trade occur not as a result of exogenous differences in factor endowments or technologies, but because of endogenous differences in culture (preferences including social norms) and institutions (contracts). Goods differ in the kinds of contracts that are appropriate for their production, and so strategic complementarities between contracts and the nature of social norms may result in a multiplicity of cultural-institutional equilibria that provide the basis for comparative advantage and specialization. In our evolutionary model of endogenous preferences and institutions under autarchy, trade and factor mobility, transitions among multiple asymptotically stable cultural-institutional conventions may occur as a result of decentralized and un-coordinated contractual or behavioral innovations by employers or employees. We show that: i) specialization and trade may arise and enhance welfare even when the countries are identical other than their culturalinstitutional conventions; ii) trade liberalization does not lead to convergence, it reinforces the cultural-institutional differences upon which comparative advantage is based and may thus impede even Pareto-improving cultural-institutional transitions; and iii) by contrast, greater mobility of factors of production favors decentralized transitions to a superior cultural-institutional convention by reducing the minimum number of cultural or institutional innovators necessary to induce a transition as well as the cost of innovating.
Review of International Economics, Feb 1, 2009
The aim of this paper is to explore the role of the institutional determinants of international c... more The aim of this paper is to explore the role of the institutional determinants of international comparative advantage. Starting from a theoretically well-founded general-equilibrium framework, where specialization depends on relative factor endowments and technological differences, we study the possible additional effect of labor unions. Using country-year panel data, we obtain that they are an important determinant of relative economic performance for a sample of manufacturing sectors. In particular low wages-labor-intensive industries turn out to be relatively disadvantaged, while high wages-capital-intensive sectors are relatively advantaged by stronger labor unions. We also allow for different institutional scenarios, letting unionization patterns interact with different regimes of bargaining coordination and social security systems. Our main conclusions are not substantially altered.
Social Science Research Network, 2014
This paper empirically explores the connection between two recent phenomena in the European scena... more This paper empirically explores the connection between two recent phenomena in the European scenario: the dramatic upsurge of non-tariff trade measures and the remarkable rise in the role of European business lobbies. While these two facts have been widely recognized by the international trade and the political economy literature, empirical investigation into the connection between the two has so far been impeded by the lack of data. To identify European special interest groups and their influence on policy decisions, we construct an original dataset by collecting information on the participation of national and international organizations in the European Commission consultations on trade issues and by merging it with newly released information on non-tariff measures aggregated at the tariff-line level. Drawing upon the panel structure of the dataset, we find that European lobbies exert an important influence on the policy-makers, even after controlling for product fixed effects and a number of product and industrial variables. Between two possible interpretations of this finding, either that participation in meetings captures political pressure (possibly including the supply of biased information) on policy-decisions or that it involves, rather, transmission of true information, our empirical results tend to favor the former. Nonetheless, we are inclined to rule out the possibility that registration in consultations is in itself just signaling for active involvement in lobbying action, since we find evidence that actual meeting attendance has a larger impact on policy decision than registration only.
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Papers by Marianna Belloc