RELATIONSHIP LENDING DURING A FINANCIAL CRISIS

This paper studies whether relationship lending mitigates the transmission of the Lehman default shock to the supply of credit in Italy. Exploiting the presence of multiple banking relationships, we control for banks' and firms' unobserved characteristics. Results show that the growth of credit itself is higher and its cost lower the shorter the distance between the bank and the firm, the longer the relationship, and the higher the share of credit held by the bank. Credit growth by relationship lenders is 4.6% higher than that by transactional lenders; the increase in the cost of credit is 50 basis points lower. The positive effect of relationship lending on credit supply increased during the crisis, compared to a pre‐crisis period. The beneficial effect of relationship lending is weaker if the relationship lender is more exposed to the financial crisis, especially when lending to weaker borrowers.     

Unemployment Duration of Spouses: Evidence From France

This paper analyses the conditional probability of leaving unemployment of French married individuals from 1991 to 2002. We find that the effect of spousal labor income on unemployment duration is asymmetric for men and women. In particular, the probability of men to find a job is increasing in wife's labor income, while it is decreasing in husband's earnings for women. To adjust for endogenous selection into marriage, we use the quarter of birth as an instrumental variable for the spousal wage. Finally, we show that introducing a breadwinner stigma in a joint job search model generates the positive correlation observed for men in the data.     

Two-stage adaptive cluster sampling

Adaptive cluster sampling is usually applied when estimating the abundance of elusive, clustered biological populations. It is commonly supposed that all individuals in the selected area units are detected by the observer, but in many acutal situations this assumption may be highly unrealistic and some individuals may be missed. This paper deals with the problem of handling imperfect detectability in adaptive cluster sampling by using a pure design-based approach. A two-stage adaptive procedure is proposed where the abundance in the selected units is estimated by replicated counts.     

Female sterilizing operations in New South Wales: A demographic perspective

This paper examines trends in female sterilizing operations from a demographic perspective. These operations have declined in New South Wales since 1981, with a substantial drop in tubal ligation and hysterectomy, particularly among younger women. The decline in sterilization of women of childbearing age has been due to postponement of births. Younger women have avoided terminal methods of birth control and continued to use methods, such as oral contraceptives and back-up abortion, which allow for a pregnancy at a later age. Sterilizing operations still remain the most commonly reported means of birth control by women over age 35.     

Predictive control of posterior robustness for sample size choice in a Bernoulli model

In this article we consider the sample size determination problem in the context of robust Bayesian parameter estimation of the Bernoulli model. Following a robust approach, we consider classes of conjugate Beta prior distributions for the unknown parameter. We assume that inference is robust if posterior quantities of interest (such as point estimates and limits of credible intervals) do not change too much as the prior varies in the selected classes of priors. For the sample size problem, we consider criteria based on predictive distributions of lower bound, upper bound and range of the posterior quantity of interest. The sample size is selected so that, before observing the data, one is confident to observe a small value for the posterior range and, depending on design goals, a large (small) value of the lower (upper) bound of the quantity of interest. We also discuss relationships with and comparison to non robust and non informative Bayesian methods.     

Paying for permanence: Public preferences for contaminated site cleanup

We use conjoint choice questions to investigate the preferences of people in four cities in Italy for income and future/permanent mortality risk reductions delivered by contaminated site remediation policies. The VSL is €5.6 million for an immediate risk reduction. If the risk reduction takes place 20 years from now, the implied VSL is €1.26 million. Respondents’ implicit discount rate is 7%. The VSL depends on respondent characteristics, familiarity with contaminated sites, concern about the health effects of exposure to toxicants, having a family member with cancer, perceived usefulness of public programs and beliefs about the goals of government remediation programs.

The Interpretative Dimension of Transformative Events: Outrage Management and Collective Action Framing After the 2001 Anti-G8 Summit in Genoa

By focusing on the aftermath of the 2001 G8 counter-summit in Genoa, this paper aims to provide a comprehensive insight into the interpretative dimension of transformative events leading to backfire. First, in line with the existing literature on transformative events, the study shows that after the violent events, Italian authorities employed all possible strategies to inhibit public outrage (i.e., cover-ups of the situation, stigmatizations of targets to legitimate repressive action, reinterpretations of police violence as different from direct attacks, presence of authoritative assessments and intimidation of participants and witnesses). Second, a multidimensional scaling of symbolic devices from 70 social forum websites shows that after 2001, Italian social movement actors used the narrative of the Genoa events in deliberative (i.e., bridging, extension) or negotiating (i.e., punctuation, articulation) framing processes to build new collective action frames.