Raffaele Miniaci

• PhD
• Professor at University of Brescia

Purpose By combining structural contingency theory and socio-emotional wealth (SEW) theory, this study aims to identify the organizational determinants of collective performance-related pay (PRP) adoption by examining the interplay between a firm's ownership characteristics (i.e. family or non-family ownership) and other organizational characterist...

Energy poverty (EP) is a multidimensional issue and its definition and measurement significantly impact policymaking. In developed countries, EP has gained increasing attention because low-income households allocate a larger proportion of their income to energy bills than wealthier households. Concerns over this issue have grown in the past decade...

Nonprofit firms can be multi-stakeholder organizations, in which employees, clients, volunteers, public institutions, and funders can have formal or informal power to affect corporate strategy. This paper focuses on nonprofit firms’ orientation toward clients and investigates its role in shaping capital structure. We first develop a theoretical fra...

Most of the empirical literature on tax competition has been using panel models in which each country’s tax rate responds to a weighted average of other countries’ tax rates, where weights are given. This approach imposes the reaction functions to be such that all tax rates are either strategic complements or strategic substitutes for all the count...

The mothballing option has been studied in the literature, but mainly in decision theoretic frameworks. This paper looks at it from a strategic point of view and applies it to an incumbent-entrant framework. In particular, based on the recent strategic interactions between OPEC and the shale oil industry, we conduct a case study where the incumbent...

We use a statistical micro matching procedure to obtain a synthetic dataset to investigate the risk of fuel poverty in small areas. Specifically, we link 19,174 homes with Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) in the Italian province of Treviso with information - from the General Census of Population and Housing and Household Budget Survey - about...

Introduction The increase in access to Emergency Departments (ED) worldwide causes inefficiencies, but also signals its importance. The Coronavirus (Covid-19) outbreak allows to study the reactions of patients to the news about the spreading of the infection, which may have generated the fear that ED was no longer safe. Methods We study access to...

Per studiare, misurare e definire la povertà energetica e disegnare politiche per combatterla la Commissione europea ha finanziato la creazione dell’EU Energy Poverty Observatory (EPOV). Analogamente, l‘8 febbraio 2019 è stato costituito, presso il Centro Levi-Cases dell’Università di Padova, l’Osservatorio Italiano sulla Povertà Energetica (OIPE)....

This paper investigates the determinants of editorial board membership, for 17 leading journals in economics, from 1997 to 2009. We find that the researcher's scientific profile and connections to the editors in charge are significant predictors of editorship. Ceteris paribus, after controlling for unobserved researcher heterogeneity, scholars with...

In this paper, we unveil a disregarded benefit of product market competition for firms. We introduce the probability of bankruptcy in a simple model where firms compete à la Cournot and apply for collateralized bank loans to undertake productive investments. We show that the number of competitors and the existence of outsiders willing to acquire th...

In a model where firms rely on bank financing to build capacity, put up specialized productive assets as collateral, and then compete á la Cournot, we introduce a probability of default. We investigate how the number of competitors affects the equilibrium amount of bank credit and derive conditions under which an inverted U-shaped relationship occu...

We analyse whether individual financial risk propensity changes over time with background financial conditions, as well as personal and subjective portfolio risk exposure. We elicit risk propensity from six different self-assessed facets collected in a long panel data set from the DNB Household Survey, annually covering the period 1995–2015. Risk p...

We develop a structural econometric model to elicit household-specific expectations about future financial asset returns and risk attitudes by using data on observed portfolio holdings and self-assessed willingness to bear financial risk. Our framework assumes that household portfolios are subject to short-selling constraints in stocks and bonds, a...

We discuss alternative approaches to define and measure the affordability of energy consumption. We then focus on energy vulnerability in Italy and on the benefit schemes that compensate households in needs for their spending on energy services. We identify the potential beneficiaries of these subsidies in 2012 and investigate if their eligibility...

We conduct an “artefactual” field experiment to incorporate three different risk preferences measures within the Innovation Panel (IP) of the UK Household Longitudinal Survey (UKHLS). We randomly allocate to an experimental module a nationally representative sample of 661 adult respondents to the IP Wave 6 (IP6). These subjects respond to the incen...

Negli ultimi anni, nell'Unione Europea (UE), gli incrementi nei prezzi dell'energia e il perdurare della crisi economica internazionale hanno richiamato l'attenzione sui vulnerable consumers, ovvero quei consumatori con basso reddito, e/o con caratteristiche particolari -per esempio, famiglie numerose e/o con portatori di handicap, anziani disabili...

A multidimensional poverty assessment requires a weighting scheme to aggregate the well-being dimensions considered. We use Alkire and Foster's J. Public Econ. 95, 476-487 (2011a) framework to discuss the channels through which a change of the weighting structure affects the outcomes of the analysis in terms of overall poverty assessment, its dimen...

The aim of the paper is twofold: to describe the interactions between public and private organizations involved in the implementation of active inclusion policies in Italy, and to evaluate the savings for the public budget originated by activities of the Work Integration Social Enterprises (WISE). We illustrate the features of the Italian active in...

In this paper we discuss a number of ways to define and measure the affordability of energy consumption, and we examine the emergence of fuel poverty in Italy in the period from 1998 to 2011. The paper examines the eligibility criteria for claiming the benefits available to support energy consumption for vulnerable families and it identifies the po...

This article aims to analyze the link between subsidiary capital structure and taxation in Europe. First we introduce a trade-off model, which looks at a MNC’s financial strategy and in particular debt shifting from low-tax to high-tax jurisdictions. By letting the MNC choose both leverage and the profit shifting percentage, we depart from the rele...

This paper presents a model where bank credit depends upon borrowers' product market structure. We show that a larger number of competitors in the industry may increase credit availability by enhancing the resale value of the collateralized productive assets. We also study how this benefit of competition is affected by the existence of outsiders wi...

A multidimensional poverty assessment requires a weighting scheme to aggregate the well-being dimensions considered. We use Alkire and Foster’s (2011a) framework to discuss the channels through which a change of the weighting structure affects the outcomes of the analysis in terms of overall poverty assessment, its dimensional and subgroup decompos...

We exploit the US Survey of Consumer Finances from 1998 to 2010 to study households' portfolio risk. We compare alternative measures of ex-ante risk, based on a financial portfolio including deposits, bonds, and stocks, or a broader portfolio also including real estate, business wealth, and related debt. The measures provide different rankings of p...

We use a panel dataset from the Dutch Household Survey, covering annually the period 1995-2011, to analyze whether individual financial risk attitude changes over time with the background macroeconomic conditions. Considering six different measures of self-assessed risk attitude covering different aspects of risk, our results show that in general r...

This paper presents a model where bank credit depends upon borrowers.product market structure. We show that a larger number of competitors in the industry may increase credit availability by enhancing the resale value of the collateralized productive assets. We also study how this bene.t of competition is affected by the existence of outsiders will...

In this paper, we investigate whether capital structure differs between for-profit and nonprofit sectors by focusing on two key aspects of the latter: the non-distribution constraint and the stakeholder oriented governance system. We develop a theoretical model and show that the former negatively affects leverage, defined as the amount borrowed ove...

Our empirical analysis studies the impact of computer use on out of employment transitions of older workers, disentangling the effect of using a Personal Computer (PC) at work from that of being PC literate. Data are drawn from the 2000, 2002 and 2004 waves of the Bank of Italy Survey on Household Income and Wealth. We provide empirical evidence th...

We derive the distribution of a proxy for the risk tolerance in a representative sample of U.S. households. Our measure is deduced from the willingness to bear risk as indicated by the variance of returns of each household's observed portfolio. The estimates, obtained assuming constraints on portfolio composition, show substantial heterogeneity acr...

We derive the distribution of a proxy for the risk tolerance in a representative sample of U.S. households. Our measure is deduced from the willingness to bear risk as indicated by the variance of returns of each household's observed portfolio. The estimates, obtained assuming constraints on portfolio composition, show substantial heterogeneity acr...

We exploit the US Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) from 1998 to 2007 to provide new insights on the evolution of US households’ willingness to undertake portfolio risk. Specifically, we consider four alternative measures of portfolio risk, based on two definitions of portfolio – a narrow one, including financial assets, and a broad one, also inclu...

We exploit the US Survey of Consumer Finances from 1998 to 2007 to study households’ portfolio risk bearing. We compare four alternative measures of risk, two based on a financial portfolio and two based on a broader portfolio also including – as illiquid assets – human capital, real estate, business wealth and related debt. The measures provide a...

This paper reports a three-phase experiment on a stylized labor market. In the first two phases, agents face simple games, which we use to estimate subjects' social and reciprocity concerns. In the last phase, four principals compete by offering agents a contract from a fixed menu. Then, agents "choose to work" for a principal by selecting one of t...

We develop a theoretical framework, based on a moneylender–firm relationship with moral hazard, to investigate whether enterprise capital structure differs between for-profit and nonprofit sectors. The nondistribution constraint of the nonprofit organizations increases the fraction of own capital on total investment: according to our theoretical pr...

We investigate households' portfolio choice using a microeconometric approach derived from mean-variance optimization. We assume that households have heterogeneous expectations on the distribution of excess returns and that they can't take short positions in the risky assets. Assuming two such assets, we derive an explicit solution of the model cha...

Using a longitudinal data set of balance sheets of 504 non profit and for-profit firms operating in the social residential sector in Italy, we investigate the relationship between capital structure and type of enterprise. The nondistribution constraint typical of nonprofit organizations increases the fraction of own capital on total investment: thi...

In this paper, we investigate the way consumption changes around retirement in Italy. Using micro data covering the 1985–1996 period, we document the existence of a one-off drop in consumption at retirement of the household head, as in the UK and the US, but (at 5.44%) smaller in size, and show that consumption of work-related goods falls around re...

This paper reports a 3-phase experiment on a stylized labor market. In the Þrst two phases, agents face simple games, which we use to estimate subjects� social and reciprocity concerns, together with their beliefs. In the last phase, four principals, who face four teams of two agents, compete by o ering agents a contract from a Þxed menu. Then, eac...

The quality of consulting services informing project decisions is crucial for the effectiveness of public investments. We analyze the ability of the consulting industry to provide adequate services to government agencies in Italy. At the aggregate level we observe that the value of the public demand for consulting services is a small and highly var...

We derive from a sample of US households the distribution of the risk aversion implicit in their portfolio choice. Our estimate minimizes the distance between the certainty equivalent return generated with observed portfolios and portfolios that are optimal in a mean-variance framework. Taking into account real wealth and constraints in portfolio c...

In this paper, we analyse some distributional effects of the reforms to water and energy services in Italy. We first document the new regulation setting in these services, illustrating the dynamics of utility prices and of household expenditure in the period 1998-2005. We then propose a way to measure the affordability of public utilities, in order...

In this paper we analyse the affordability of water and energy for Italian households. We first document how the regulatory reform has changed the system of price setting, illustrating the dynamics of utility prices and of household expenditure in the period 1998-2005. We then discuss current indices adopted to measure the affordability of public u...

In our work we study the role of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) skills and their utilization in the retirement decision. We provide empirical evidence based on Italian panel data in favour of the hypothesis that - ceteris paribus - better educated male employees with ICT know-how retire later. Such effect is stronger the longer the...

We develop a model of optimal asset allocation based on a utility framework. This applies to a more general context than the classical mean-variance paradigm since it can also account for the presence of constraints in the portfolio composition. Using this approach, we study the distribution of a measure of wealth compensative variation, we propose...

In the light of recent policies aiming at raising the computer literacy of young generations and at reducing the digital divide, this paper analyzes to what extent the probability of an individual having computer abilities is affected by the computer skills of her household's other members, i.e. if there are significant within household peer effect...

Competition in public utility sectors has been encouraged in recent years throughout Europe. In this paper we try and analyse the welfare effects of these reforms in Italy, with particular attention to water and energy goods. The first step is to introduce a sensible measure of affordability of public utilities and to see how many households fall b...

In the light of recent policies aiming at raising the computer literacy of young generations and at reducing the digital divide, this paper analyzes to what extent the probability of an individual to have computer abilities is affected by the computer skills of her household's other members, i.e. if there are significant within household peer effec...

This paper analyzes the effect of implementing technological policies like computer donations or subsidization on the probability of an individual to have computer abilities, when this is affected by the computer skills of her household's other members, i.e. when there are significant within household peer effects. Our application for a sample of I...

We use Italian micro-data to estimate the economic returns to computer use. The existing empirical literature shows that both in the US and in Europe wage premium for PC use tends to vanish as soon as computer abilities and detailed job descriptions are taken into account, given the presence of unobserved heterogeneity and the difficulty to cut the...

In this paper we investigate the way consumption changes around retirement in Italy. Using micro data covering the 1985-96 period, we find that consumption age patterns are similar to those found in the US and other developed countries, despite the much more wide-spread cohabitation of different generations. We also document the existence of a one-...

In this paper we use two complementary Italian data sources (the 1995 Istat and Bank of Italy household surveys) to generate household-specific non-durable expenditure in the Bank of Italy sample that contains relatively high-quality income data. We show that food expenditure data are of comparable quality and informational content across the two s...

We consider as a measure of efficiency the wealth compensative variation necessary to make the investor indifferent between the observed investment and the optimal restricted portfolio. We derive the asymptotic distribution of this measure, its finite sample properties, and propose an efficiency test. We suggest a procedure to estimate the implicit...

In this chapter, we explain why household survey data on wealth and portfolio choice should be of interest to the financial community. We argue that there are two major advantages in using household survey data. First, the investigator can distinguish between two potentially different decisions: the decision of whether to hold any stocks and the de...

We use SHAW data to assess whether household wealth falls in old age, and what factors affect the shape of the wealth age profile. We find that Italian households fail to run down their financial assets after retirement, but let their total wealth decline past age 60. This fall is largely due to the decrease in home wealth: using information from a...

This paper investigates the causes of the Italian consumption decline of the early 1990’s by estimating deviations from normal consumption for 1985-94. The paper uses household data from the Survey of Family Budgets (SFB) from ISTAT, a particularly rich but relatively unexplored source containing detailed demographic and expenditure information for...

Theoretical and empirical analysis of the structure of household portfolios. Until recently, researchers in economics and finance paid relatively little attention to household portfolios. Reasons included the tendency of most households to hold simple portfolios, the inability of the dominant asset pricing models to account for household portfolio...

In this paper we use the 1989- 1998 Bank of Italy surveys to analyze the evolution of Italian household portfolios in terms of participation to the risky …nancial market. Our main aim is twofold: we want to show how standard assumptions on unobservable heterogeneity and strict exogeneity of income a¤ect the estimates the parameters of interest, and...

In this paper a rich and innovative dataset, the International Adult Literacy Survey, is used to examine the impact of functional literacy on earnings. The IALS surveys 12 OECD countries and sub-regions via a consistent questionnaire and includes a number of tests of numeracy and literacy, as well as basic labour market information. This paper exam...

We use household-level data covering a ten-year period (1984 to 1993) to investigate the likely determinants of the Italian recession of 1993, the first year after WWII when private consumption fell. Consumption fell most for working-age households and for the self-employed. Our evidence is consistent with the response to permanent negative shocks...

We study the relationship between (log) hourly earnings and schooling for male household heads in Italy, using cross-sectional data from the 1993 and 1995 waves of the Bank of Italy (BI) survey on the income and wealth of Italian households. In line with international evidence, we find that OLS under-estimate the return to schooling. When the endog...

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the retirement decision in the United Kingdom. We distinguish four retirement routes: retirement, unemployment, long-term sickness and other states. The focus of the paper is the impact of pension benefits on retirement transitions. We estimate multinomial logits and Cox proportional hazard rate models, s...

This paper exploits an Italian microeconomic data set to study retirement behaviour of women and men using survival analysis techniques. After a brief introduction to the Italian pension system and to the Bank of Italy survey, different specifications of a Cox proportional hazard model are estimated. These show clearly that younger generations reti...

We study the relationship between (log) hourly earnings and schooling for male household heads in Italy, using cross-sectional data from the 1993 and 1995 waves of the Bank of Italy (BI) survey on the income and wealth of Italian households. In line with international evidence, we find that OLS under-estimate the return to schooling. When the endog...

This paper uses administrative data on mobility lists in the largest economic region of Italy, Lombardia, to test whether the more favourable treatment of older workers, who can draw benefits longer and transfer a larger sum to potential employers, affects in a positive way their hazard from unemployment into a permanent job. Our reduced form estim...

Competition in public utility sectors has been encouraged in recent years throughout Europe. In this paper we analyse some distributional effects of the reforms of water and energy services in Italy. We firstly document the development of liberalisation reforms in Italy and the new regulation in water and energy, presenting the dynamics of public u...

In this paper we firstly present a survey of the different standard mea- sures of affordability proposed in the literature to study the effects of price reforms in the public utility markets on household budgets. We then sug- gest a new measure that overcomes the main theoretical and practical difficulties faced by the standard practice. Finally, w...

This paper reports experimental evidence on a stylized labor market. The experiment is designed as a sequence of three treatments. In the last treatment, TR3, four principals, who face four teams of two agents, compete by offering the agents a contract from a fixed menu. In this menu, each contract is the optimal solution of a (complete information...

Competition in public utility sectors has been encouraged in recent years throughout Europe. In this paper we try and analyse the welfare effects of these reforms in Italy, with particular attention to water and energy goods. The first step is to introduce a sensible measure of affordability of public utilities and to see how many households fall b...