We explore the implications of migrants’self-selection for the determination of immigration policy in a simple model where incentives and resources to migrate vary with skills. We show how self-selection determines the response of potential migrants to immigration policy changes, which is crucial for predicting the e¤ects of such policy in the receiving country. For example, restricting immigra...

We examine whether private feedback about relative performance can mitigate moral hazard in competitive settings, by modifying agents’ self-esteem. In our experimental setting people work harder and expect to rank better when told they may learn their ranking, relative to cases when feedback will not be provided. Individuals who ranked better than expected decrease output but expect a better ra...

This paper presents a simple model of human capital, ideas, and economic growth that integrates contributions from several different strands of the growth literature. The model generates a regression specification that is very similar to that employed by Mankiw, Romer and Weil (1992), but the economics underlying the specification is very different. In particular, the model emphasizes the impor...

During the first hours of chilling, bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L., cv Mondragone) seedlings suffer severe water stress and wilt without any significant increase in leaf abscisic acid (ABA) content (P. Vernieri, A. Pardossi, F. Tognoni [1991] Aust J Plant Physiol 18: 25-35). Plants regain turgor after 30 to 40 h. We hypothesized that inability to rapidly synthesize ABA at low temperatures contribu...

We examine whether private feedback about relative performance can mitigate moral hazard in competitive environments by modifying the agents’ self-esteem. In our experimental setting people work harder and expect to rank better when told they may learn their ranking, relative to cases when feedback will not be provided. Individuals who ranked better than expected decrease output but expect a be...

This paper assesses the causal effects of education on the timing of first births allowing for heterogeneity in the effects while controlling for self-selection of women into education. Identification relies on exogenous variation in schooling induced by a mandatory school reform rolled out nationwide in Italy in the early 1960s. Findings based on Italian Census (1981, 1991) suggest that a larg...

Approximately 70 scientists met, from May 11–13 2001, in Villa Mondragone in the hills south of Rome to discuss strategies to describe the complete protein interaction network inside a cell. Very few of the participants still needed to be convinced that this is an essential step if we want to try to interpret the functional information contained in genomic databases. This was well accepted befo...