Public education provision,private schooling and income redistribution

Availability of free public education induces a transfer in kind among households with school age children. We provide evidence of the redistributive character of public education provision. We estimate structural quantile treatment effects of household income on the distribution of expected educational transfers in kind. Under the assumption that education quality is a normal good, better services (ancillary to the core education mission) supplied by private schools increase quality therein and reduce the incentives for wealthy households to enroll in public education. Because of these incentives, rich families benefit less from educational transfers in kind and the public education system is redistributive. Using household survey data from Italy, we find that an increase in net income reduces the value of the expected educational in kind transfers for compulsory education.     

Online Social Networks and Trust

Social Indicators Research - We use Italian data from the Multipurpose Household Survey to explore how participation in social networking sites (SNS) such as Facebook and Twitter affects the most...     

Extending Bayesian back-calculation to estimate age and time specific HIV incidence

Lifetime Data Analysis - CD4-based multi-state back-calculation methods are key for monitoring the HIV epidemic, providing estimates of HIV incidence and diagnosis rates by disentangling their...     

Is a loosely specified regulatory intervention effective in disciplining management commentary? The case of performance indicator disclosure

This paper offers a contribution to the call for research on the effectiveness of regulatory interventions governing management commentary disclosure. Specifically, we focus on the mandatory requirement concerning performance indicator disclosure introduced by the Modernisation Directive (2003/51/EC). In keeping with other regulators, the European legislator opted to implement a regulatory approach based on a rule with loose specifications. To understand the effects of this Directive, we have investigated the Italian context, in which neither the national legislator nor the standard setter have supported companies with detailed specifications or guidelines aimed at integrating the European provision. We have compared companies’ disclosure practices before and after the adoption of the Directive, investigating the number of disclosed indicators and also their modalities of presentation, as they are considered essential to guaranteeing the quality of this disclosure. Our results document that a mandatory intervention, even if based on loose specifications, is associated with an increase in disclosure practices. Nevertheless, such regulation does not seem able to guarantee high quality disclosure practices. In fact, before and after the regulation, companies primarily disclose common financial measures. Moreover, the usefulness of such disclosure is undermined by a limited compliance with the international guidelines concerning the modalities of presentation. These results reveal some weaknesses in the European approach to performance indicator regulation. In general, the EU legislator fails to explain the purpose and the objective of performance indicator disclosure and does not take into account the differences between financial and non-financial indicators. Furthermore, it does not provide firms with clear guidelines concerning the presentation modalities.     

Association between long-term erectile dysfunction and biochemical recurrence after permanent seed I125 implant brachytherapy for prostate cancer. A longitudinal study of a single-institution

We aimed to investigate the predictive factor of erectile dysfunction (ED) in prostate cancer (PCa) patients who underwent low-dose permanent I¹²⁵ seed implant brachytherapy and to investigate if ED could represent a patient’s reported outcome measures (PROMs) of efficacy of BT and indirectly associated with biochemical recurrence free survival (BRFS). From 2000 to 2012, 176 consecutive patients with low-risk PCa underwent BT. ED was evaluated with the International Index of Erectile Function (IIEF-5). Cox regression analysis was performed to assess significant predictors of mild-to-severe ED and BRFS after BT, including covariates. The 10-year actuarial rate of ED was 66%. Subjects with severe ED had higher values of D90 (183.0 versus 177.0; p?p?p?p?=?0.20), while D90?≤?180?Gy independently predicted BCR (HR: 4.65; [95%CI: 1.25–17.34]; p?125 implant, but it is not associated with better BRFS.     

The younger, the better? Age-related differences in academic performance at university

In this paper, we investigate differences in academic performance among students of different ages within the same cohorts using a unique database of students at Bocconi University. Our data allow to control for potential selection effects as well as for differences in cognitive ability, as measured by an attitudinal entry test. Contrary to most of the existing evidence for younger pupils, we document that at the undergraduate level, youngest students perform better compared with their oldest peers. This finding is only partly explained by differences in cognitive ability and rather seems to be associated with differences in social activities.     

Very Preterm and Full‐Term Infants’ Response to Socio‐Emotional Stress: The Role of Postnatal Maternal Bonding

Very preterm (VPT) infants are at risk for altered socio‐emotional stress regulation, even in the absence of perinatal complications. Moreover, becoming a mother of a VPT infant is a traumatic event, which might affect the establishment of a bonding relationship toward the infant during the postnatal period. The main aim of the present study was to assess the association between maternal postnatal bonding and socio‐emotional stress response in 3‐month‐old VPT infants, compared to full‐term (FT) controls. Thirty‐three VPT and 28 FT infant‐mother dyads underwent the maternal Face‐to‐Face Still‐Face (FFSF) procedure to assess socio‐emotional stress regulation. Maternal postnatal bonding was measured through the Maternal Post‐Natal Attachment Scale (MPAS), which includes three scales: Quality of attachment, Absence of hostility, and Pleasure in interaction. The VPT infants exhibited less self‐directed and other‐directed regulatory behaviors during the Still‐Face episode. Mothers of VPT infants reported lower Quality of attachment compared to FT counterparts. Importantly, higher levels of Quality of attachment were associated with more other‐directed behaviors during the Still‐Face episode in FT dyads, whereas this was not observed in VPT dyads. In conclusion, VPT infants might be exposed to a double‐risk condition for socio‐emotional development, encompassing both difficulties in stress response and the exposure to a less‐than‐optimal maternal bonding.     

Hybrid social and news media protest events: from #MarchinMarch to #BusttheBudget in Australia

Public protest events are now both social media and news media events. They are deeply entangled, with news media actors – such as journalists or news organisations – directly participating in the protest by tweeting about the event using the protest hashtag; and social media actors sharing news items published online by professional news agencies. Protesters have always deployed tactics to engage the media and use news media agencies’ resources to amplify their reach, with the dual aim of mobilising new supporters and adding their voice to public, mediatised debate. When protest moves between a physical space and a virtual space, the interactions between protesters and media stop being asynchronous or post hoc and turn instantaneous. In this new media-protest ecosystem, traditional media are still relevant sources of information and legitimacy, yet this dynamic is increasingly underpinned by a hybrid interdependency between traditional news and social media sources. In this paper we focus on an anti-austerity government movement that arose in Australia in early 2014 and was mobilised as a series of social media driven, connective action protest events. We show that there is a complex symbiotic interdependency between the movement and the traditional media for recognition and amplification of initial protest events, but that over time as media interest wanes, the movements’ network becomes disconnected and momentum is lost. This suggests that the active role traditional media play in protest events is being underestimated in the current research agenda on connective action.