Research

We explore the impact of childhood environment on the earnings penalties that mothers face at the birth of their first child. Using administrative data from Denmark, we classify municipalities based on the motherhood penalties experienced by permanent residents. High-penalty places offer fewer human capital development opportunities and have a lower labor supply of women in the previous generation. We use a movers’ design to distinguish the causal effect of childhood environment from the sorting of families. Our findings indicate that women who spent a longer period of their childhood in a high-penalty area experience lower earnings after childbirth, even though they have similar earnings the years before the birth of their first child. Next, we find that policies that impact the childhood environment can influence motherhood penalties; increases in childcare availability during childhood lower motherhood penalties decades later. We show suggestive evidence that higher childhood exposure to working women can act as a mechanism.

This paper studies the impact of a reduction in funding to primary reception centers on the crime propensity of asylum seekers in Italy. We exploit a natural experiment created by a policy implemented in 2019 that led to reductions in funding to primary reception centers hosting asylum seekers that were staggered across different provinces. We compare the crime propensity of migrant cohorts from asylum seekers’ nationalities in treated and untreated provinces over time. Our findings indicate that the crime propensity of asylum-seeker cohorts increased by 11% following the reform in exposed provinces, while there is no significant effect for cohorts composed mainly of economic migrants. Leveraging detailed data on service providers between 2016 and 2020, we find suggestive evidence that changes in the composition and characteristics of reception providers with large profit seeking low-quality reception providers gaining market share contributed to the crime increases for asylum seekers.

Using a unique combination of administrative data, surveys, and incentivized experiments, we provide evidence of discrimination in teachers’ advice for students’ career trajectories based on family background. Keeping students’ capabilities and interests constant, teachers generalize low expectations on future educational achievement and labor market prospects for students from economically disadvantaged families. These expectations occur without information about parental involvement and financial constraints for each student.

Using rich administrative data on the population of Italian students, we document stark SES gaps in high-school track choice that mirror the track recommendations by teachers. Students from low SES families are less likely to be recommended (and to choose) top-tier high school tracks as compared to students from high SES families with the same standardized test scores and grades. To address this issue, we are implementing an intervention in schools that provides teachers with personalized reports detailing their past students’ post-middle school outcomes and containing information on the SES disparities in their past recommendations. Our objective is to assess the impact of this intervention on teachers’ track recommendations and students’ choices.

Do potential migrants have accurate information about the costs and benefits of international migration? In a survey of potential migrants in Senegal, we find that potential migrants overestimate the benefits of migrating to Italy when they have peers who already migrated. We test one potential mechanism explaining this pattern: social image concerns may lead migrants to overreport their earnings and socio-economic conditions to friends in their home country, potentially distorting their migration decisions. In an experiment with Senegalese migrants living in Italy, we plan to study whether migrants overreport their earnings and socio-economic conditions when there is a higher chance that the information will be shared with their friends. In a second experiment with potential migrants in Senegal, we plan to assess whether providing information on living conditions and earnings of their peers in Italy changes beliefs and migration intentions for subjects with friends who already migrated and whether the impacts are larger for those who use social media.