INVESTMENT AND TIME TO PLAN AND BUILD: A COMPARISON OF STRUCTURES VS. EQUIPMENT IN A PANEL OF ITALIAN FIRMS

“Time‐to‐build” models of investment expenditures play an important role in many traditional and modern theories of the business cycle, especially for explaining the dynamic propagation of shocks. We estimate the structural parameters of a time‐to‐build model using annual firm‐level investment data on equipment and structures. For expenditures on equipment, we find no evidence of time‐to‐build effects beyond one year. For expenditures on structures, by contrast, there is clear evidence of such effects in the range of two to three years. The contrast between equipment and structures is intuitively reasonable and consistent with previous results. The estimates for structures also indicate that initial‐period expenditures are low and increase as projects near completion. These results provide empirical support for including “time‐to‐plan” effects for investment in structures. More generally, these results suggest a potential source of specification error for Q models of investment and production‐based asset pricing models that ignore the time required to plan, build, and install new capital. (JEL: D24, G31, C33, C34)     

Separation and Divorce: Effect on Family Structures and Life Conditions

The aim of this paper is to supply some basic data on separations and divorces in Italy in order to evaluate their impact on the family system both from a quantitative and qualitative point of view. The focus is on the role played by marital disruption in the observed recent increase in the number of ‘new families’ and its effects on the life conditions and economic well‐being of the women and children involved.     

Nonparametric change point estimation for survival distributions with a partially constant hazard rate

Lifetime Data Analysis - We present a new method for estimating a change point in the hazard function of a survival distribution assuming a constant hazard rate after the change point and a...     

Does director capital influence board turnover after an incident of fraud? Evidence from Italian listed companies

Studies in U.S. have found that that director capital influences turnover within the board after an incident of fraud. We analyse whether there is a relationship between the probability of non-executive director turnover in Italian listed firms in which fraud has occurred and each director’s level of: (1) general business knowledge, (2) industry knowledge, and (3) relational capital. Our results suggest that non-executive director departure can be explained as a result of decisions by companies to clean their house of directors with lower expertise, industry knowledge and relational capital. These findings indicate that firms encourage the departure of these non-executive directors to signal to their stakeholders that they want to repair legitimacy and want to enhance the monitoring and resource provider tasks of the board. Indeed, in Italy, director turnover is more marked when the fraud visibility is greater. Furthermore, our study findings indicate that the cleaning house strategy is not influenced by the ownership structure and identity.     

Top incomes and the gender divide

In the recent research on top incomes, there has been little discussion of gender. A great deal is known about gender differentials in earnings, but how far does this carry over to total incomes? This paper investigates the gender divide at the top of the income distribution using tax record data for eight countries with individual taxation. It shows that women are strongly under-represented at the top of the distribution. Although the presence of women at the top has increased over time, the rise becomes smaller at the very top. The income gradient by gender has become more marked. The paper also shows that income composition differs by gender and exhibits significant changes over time, underlining the fact that it is not sufficient to look only at earned income.     

What’s left unsaid? In-group solidarity and ethnic and racial differences in opposition to immigration in the United States

Do racial and ethnic characteristics of non-immigrants play an important role in shaping attitudes toward immigrants in the U.S.? Using a 2010 survey experiment representative of the U.S. general population, this paper examines differences in opposition to immigration by the race or ethnicity of the respondent. By manipulating the amount of anonymity offered to respondents, the experiment allows explicit opposition to be distinguished from implicit opposition, which offers unique insight into the extent to which opposition is masked. Consistent with theories of in-group solidarity, we find that Hispanics, who comprise nearly half of all immigrants in the U.S., overtly express a less restrictive posture, which, relative to Black and White respondents, is not significantly masked. In contrast, White and Black respondents only overtly express more openness to immigration. When offered absolute anonymity, opposition is significantly and substantively greater. The implications are profound in that differences in the extent to which opposition is masked, rather than overtly expressed, fundamentally patterns racial and ethnic differences in opposition to immigration in the U.S.     

Methodological Choices and Data Quality Issues for Official Poverty Measures: Evidences from Italy

Social Indicators Research - The application of new technologies and the implementation of e-government have profoundly modified management systems in public administrations. In this article we...     

Usability testing with children: an application of Pedactice and Ticese methods

Graphic representation of clickable areas in computer interfaces should allow mental representations that facilitate systems navigation during the cognitive process. If it doesn't happen users can feel lost. When thinking about websites designed to children with both entertainment and educational intention these systems must stimulates this kind of users. As many other activities for children nowadays, many system are commonly used as support for contents explored in school, as a complement. The design of theses educational systems must have the compromise to allow these users navigate and feel capable to explore every part of these interfaces. This paper is focusing the results of Ticese and Pedactice methods and shows the importance of these results as an exploratory phase in a bigger research that evaluates interfaces with children. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected related to structuring the user's mental model, influenced by the graphic representation of hypertext areas in a children's educational site.     

Synchrony,Co‐Eating and Communication During Complementary Feeding in Early Infancy

The transition from milk to complementary food is a crucial but difficult process, requiring considerable adult sensitivity. We know little about the relationship between maternal feeding behaviors and infant willingness to eat at the onset of complementary feeding (CF), and we know even less about how these patterns might vary across cultures. Thirty‐seven dyads (15 from the UK and 22 from Italy) took part in a longitudinal study, during which mealtimes were video‐recorded 1 week after the onset of CF (Time 1) and at 7 months of infant age (Time 2). The first five minutes of mealtimes were coded for maternal feeding behaviors, for infant willingness to eat, and for synchrony in feeding. Maternal vocal communications (MVCs) and attention‐directing acts (ADAs) during the whole mealtime were also coded. Infant willingness to eat was significantly related to synchrony and co‐eating, suggesting the importance of sensitivity and empathy during feeding as in other parent–infant interactions. The frequency of maternal ADAs varied between nationalities and, contrary to current advice, did not relate negatively to infant willingness to eat. These patterns and variations suggest the need to consider CF as a contextually variable and sensitive foundation for feeding relationships.