[pt] O objetivo deste artigo é investigar se a corrupção em países em desenvolvimento está relacionada simplesmente a políticos visando à extração de renda ou se reflete um mecanismo mais complexo de retribuição aos financiadores de campanha com recursos públicos. Se os políticos decidem entre se engajar ou não na atividade ilícita de forma racional, deveríamos esperar uma queda na corrupção decorrente do aumento da punição à corrupção ou elevação na probabilidade de auditorias (Becker, 1968). Além disso, se a corrupção for uma forma de retribuição aos financiadores de campanha desses políticos, uma elevação na punição provocaria não somente uma queda na corrupção observada como também uma diminuição na demanda por recursos para projetos mais corruptíveis, como os de infraestrutura (Mauro 1998). Nesse artigo testamos essas explicações usando um experimento realizado no Brasil em 2009. Usando o fato de que alguns municípios foram aleatoriamente escolhidos para terem a probabilidade de serem auditados elevada, analisamos dados públicos dos convênios entre municípios e União. Encontramos uma queda considerável nos recursos solicitados para obras em infraestrutura. Ainda, encontramos efeitos mais pronunciados no caso em que o município foi auditado no passado, evidência de que prefeitos de fato respondem a políticas críveis. Por fim, esse efeito é mais forte se o prefeito foi fortemente financiado por construtoras. Em suma, nossos resultados sugerem que os prefeitos possuem um compromisso de retribuir financiadores de campanha e que respondem a políticas críveis contra a corrupção reduzindo os pedidos de recursos para projetos de infraestrutura. / [en] This paper proposes a test to estimate the nature of political corruption in developing countries: embezzlement by self-enriching politicians versus corruption that originates as a quid-pro-quo from campaign contributions. If politicians make their decision about being or not being corrupt rationally, then increasing the punishment for corrupt practices or the probability of getting caught should reduce corrupt practices (Becker, 1968). If corruption is a response of politicians to firms that finance their campaigns, an increase in punishment should yield not only a reduction in corruption but also a reduction in the demand for projects that are corruptible, such as projects on infrastructure. We test these explanations for corrupt practices using a randomized policy experiment in Brazil. We exploit the fact that some municipalities were randomly chosen to have their probability of being audited increased and we analyze public data of block grants. We find a significant decrease in the resources requested by the mayors to execute projects in infrastructure. Also, this effect is more pronounced if the municipality has been audited in the past, evidence that mayors respond to credible policies. Finally, this effect is larger if mayor s campaign was strongly financed by construction companies. In sum, our findings suggest that mayors are committed with campaign contributors and respond to larger probability of audits by reducing the amount of resources requested for infrastructure projects.

Questa tesi si compone di due capitoli indipendenti, ciascuno dei quali analizza il ruolo giocato dall’informazione pubblica endogenamente determinata in situazioni caratterizzate da decision-making decentralizzato e da complementarietà strategica. Il primo capitolo analizza un regime-change game, in cui un governo autoritario può influenzare il consenso popolare attraverso l’implementazione di uno strumento di policy. A policy implementata, i cittadini possono tentare di destituire il governo in carica attraverso una rivolta popolare, la cui probabilità di successo è proporzionale al numero di partecipanti, quest’ultimo proporzionale al livello medio di malcontento. Per migliorare l’efficacia del policy-making, il governo necessita di informazioni affidabili sul consenso popolare, tipicamente difficili da reperire. Tali informazioni sono potenzialmente destabilizzanti, poiché aiutano i cittadini a coordinare meglio la loro azione collettiva. I risultati suggeriscono che maggiore trasparenza è desiderabile ex ante per quei regimi che, in equilibrio, hanno maggiore probabilità di implementare delle politiche di consensus-building. Maggiori livelli di libertà di informazione dovrebbero quindi essere osservati in regimi né troppo deboli, né troppo forti. Il secondo capitolo propone un modello di bank run, in cui la presenza di un mercato secondario efficiente dal punto di vista informativo destabilizza una istituzione a priori solida, tramutando uno shock temporaneo di liquidità in una spirale di fire-sales. Gli investitori di un fondo open-ended posso richiedere la liquidazione anticipata delle proprie quote dopo aver ricevuto informazioni private riguardo alla qualità degli asset in portafogli. Per rimborsare le quote, il fund manager vende una quota di asset sul mercato secondario. I potenziali acquirenti estraggono informazione dall’osservazione dell’offerta aggregata: maggiori volumi d’offerta corrispondono ad un maggior numero di investitori pessimisti, e suggeriscono quindi che gli asset potrebbero essere di scarsa qualità. Temendo una spirale discendente dei prezzi, anche gli investitori meno pessimisti sono indotti, ex ante, a liquidare le proprie quote, ulteriormente sostenendo il feedback negativo. Quando l’informazione privata è sufficientemente imprecisa, complementarietà strategica nelle azioni degli investitori del fondo emerge endogenamente. / This dissertation consists of two essays, aimed at providing a sound theoretical investigation of the signaling role of (observed) collective behavior in environments characterized by incomplete information and strategic complementarity. The effects of both endogenous signaling and (the disclosure of) exogenous public information on the degree of coordination failure that arises from decentralized decision-making are analyzed in-depth. In the first chapter I analyze a regime-change game, where an authoritarian government can influence popular support via the implementation of costly policies. Citizens can challenge the government via a riot, whose chances to succeed increase with the unknown average popular discontent. In order to fine-tune its policy-making, the regime needs reliable information about popular consensus. Such information, however, improves the ability of citizens to coordinate their revolt. I show that public information is ex ante beneficial for those regimes which are more likely to build consensus via policy-making in equilibrium. Higher levels of media freedom should therefore be observed in regimes that are neither too weak, nor too strong. In the second chapter I study a bank run model, where the informational efficiency of a (secondary) financial market pushes into insolvency an a priori solvent institution after a temporary, non-fundamental liquidity shock. The most pessimistic investors of an open-ended fund are allowed to ask for the early liquidation of their share after receiving private information about the economic fundamentals of the fund’s portfolio of assets. Some of the assets in portfolio are sold in the secondary market to meet those investors’ requests. Higher volumes of early redemptions decrease both the current price, via a standard law-of-demand effect, and the future price, by signaling bad news to the market. Anticipating such effect, less pessimistic investors, too, opt for early liquidation, thus further exacerbating the price spiral. Strategic complementarity arises endogenously when investors’ private information is sufficiently poor. In this case, a spiral of fire sales is observed in equilibrium.

[pt] Neste artigo, investigamos se a expansão dos investimentos em atenção primária, por meio do Programa Saúde da Família, aumentou o apoio ao prefeito incumbente nas eleições de 2008. A partir de uma descontinuidade no financiamento do programa, pudemos explorar uma variação exógena nos repasses federais e aplicar uma regressão descontínua (RDD). Usando dados administrativos de diversas fontes, obtivemos informação a respeito da implementação do programa, unidades de saúde locais e indicadores de acesso, cobrindo variados aspectos do sistema de saúde brasileiro. Resultados indicam que o programa teve impactos significativos no apoio ao incumbente. Apresentamos, ainda, evidências de que possíveis mecanismos para esse efeito foram avanços no acesso à atendimento ambulatorial e melhoras nos fatores de risco para a mortalidade infantil. Ao todo, este artigo contribui para um melhor entendimento das substanciais mudanças pelas quais o sistema de saúde brasileiro passou e seus potenciais impactos eleitorais, abrindo inúmeras possibilidades para pesquisa futura. / [en] In this study, we investigate whether the expansion of healthcare investments in Brazil, implemented through the Family Health Program (FHP), increased incumbent voting in local elections. We employ a regression discontinuity design by exploring discontinuities in funding that created a quasi-experimental assignment of FHP resources to municipalities. Using administrative data from various sources, we obtain information on program implementation, health outcomes, local-level facilities, and indicators of access, covering several aspects of the Brazilian health system to understand the evolution of underlying health conditions throughout this period. We provide evidence that FHP investments had significant effects on electoral support. Results show that for a 50 percent increment in FHP annual transfers, the incumbent s vote share increases by roughly 9 pp. We also show that possible mechanisms for these electoral effects were better access to primary care and consequent improved outcomes at birth. Overall, this paper contributes to a better understanding of the substantial changes the Brazilian health system has undergone and its potential electoral effects, opening many possibilities for future research.

Socioeconomic disparities in life outcomes is a widely observed occurrence. In particular, low socioeconomic status (SES) has been related to a variety of behaviours that tend to perpetuate or even exacerbate the conditions that individuals of such social standing are already facing. The last two decades have been marked by a growing number of studies seeking to disentangle behavioural differences associated with one’s socioeconomic status that fuel the persistence of these differences. This Doctoral thesis joins the discussion by investigating a subset of behaviours associated with low SES. Three empirical chapters and one literature review seeks to answer the following questions: first, what are the consumer behaviour patterns exhibited by low SES individuals? Second, how do poverty-related thoughts influence consumption of (un)taxed temptation goods? Third, what is the effect of perceived individual control on intertemporal preferences? And fourth, how does salient socioeconomic status affect intertemporal choices regarding effort? Chapter 1 overviews literature on socioeconomic status and consumer happiness. We discuss channels through which low SES can impact consumption decisions and present main behavioural patterns of low SES consumers. Low SES has been found to have a significant impact on dietary patterns that include consumption of fruits and vegetables, foods with high calorie content, as well as consumption of temptation goods like alcohol, tobacco, and sugar-sweetened beverages. Moreover, low SES individuals also tend to engage in status-signalling behaviours, despite the scarcity of financial resources. We discuss how SES can delineate consumer happiness, in particular, regarding experiential and material goods. Finally, we review evidence on socioeconomic disparities in satisfaction with product-specific characteristics and health care as well as consumer loyalty. Chapter 2 presents an empirical investigation of the intersection between socioeconomic status and consumer behavior. In particular, we study demand for temptation goods such as alcohol, tobacco or high-calorie foods. One of the most conventional ways that governments control the consumption of these products is through taxes; however, a growing body of research shows the presence of numerous behavioral biases that might prove such fiscal policies less effective. One of these biases is related to financial worries - a concept familiar to deprived individuals. Previous studies have shown that increasing worries shift attention towards pressing needs, potentially at the cost of forward-looking decisions. We run an online experiment in which we manipulate financial worries and ask participants to choose between necessities and temptation goods in the experimental market. We also randomly impose taxes on temptation goods for a subset of participants. Results suggest that under financial worries and no taxes participants demand less temptation goods and this effect is stronger for lower income individuals. However, when taxes are introduced and financial concerns are salient, lower income participants do not react to taxes. This suggests that, on the one hand, financial worries can protect against over-consumption of temptation goods when there are no tax changes; however, low income consumers can be hurt the most when additional taxes are implemented. Chapter 3 investigates another psychological occurrence - a feeling of control - and its impact on intertemporal preferences. Generally, low SES individuals have less chances to exert control in their lives compared with high SES people. If perceived control has a substantial impact on the intertemporal choice, these disparities may have a long lasting impact that might make it harder to move up in terms of social status. In an online experiment we manipulate the feeling of control by asking participants to remember a certain situation. We vary control in terms of level - not having control vs being in full control – and type – being in a situation involving other people or a non-social situation. Afterwards, we ask participants to make intertemporal allocation decisions - either regarding a monetary experimental budget or a number of real effort tasks. We find no evidence of present bias in monetary discounting for either of the control treatments. Results are different for effort discounting: on aggregate level, participants in this condition reverse their preferences more often as they choose to perform more tasks sooner when the decision involves only future points in time, but less when the decision involves also present. Moreover, we find evidence of significant present bias in the low control condition. Allocation decisions are mediated by emotional states activated in the feeling of control manipulation: for money condition, the strongest mediator is the feeling of fear, while for effort discounting it is sadness. Overall, the results suggest that although recalling a situation of (no) control does not influence intertemporal allocation decisions regarding windfall money, it can impact decisions about the allocation of effort. Chapter 4 continues the discussion on intertemporal preferences and socioeconomic status. It is a well established that low SES is related to impatient behaviours. While many works have analyzed psychological channels which mediate this effect, such as cognitive load, stress, emotional affects, and self-control issues, this work seeks to test whether the mere salience of one’s subjective SES has an impact on intertemporal preferences regarding effort. In an online experiment, I prime participants on their SES and ask to make effort allocation decisions. I find that priming affects only low status participants: this group made more present-biased choices by postponing effort to the future even if it mean higher workload. No effect was found for nonprimed low SES participants or higher status individuals in both treatment and control groups. I conclude that even a mere act of making SES salient in your mind can have an adverse effect to low SES individuals by pushing them to postpone work to the future.

This thesis examines three main themes, firms productive efficiency, internationalisation of African firms, and effect of liberalisation policies on market power and market imperfections. The thesis combines two main strands in economics literature in accessing the three main themes of the papers. The first strand regards methodological approaches to estimate a production function from which productive efficiency can be computed. Consistent estimation of productive efficiency is a necessary condition to analyse firm behaviour and their response to trade policies. The thesis critically examines methodologies to estimate productive efficiency. The second strand, international trade and industrial development, analyse firms behaviour in foreign market as well as firms responses to trade liberalisation policies and their overall impact on structural transformation. The two strands of literature examined in this thesis resulted in three independent papers, each of which addresses specific issues along the spectrum of productive efficiency estimation, internationalisation, and market power.

The analysis of the complex and fast changing technological processes which today are summarized in the term ‘Industry 4.0’ reveals that the industrial system is shifting towards a new technological paradigm (Perez, 2009; 2010), implying systemic transformations at micro, meso and macro levels of analysis (Geels, 2005). These radical transformations are deeply changing the way products, production processes and business models are conceived, questioning the traditional separation between manufacturing and services, and making it more and more important for firms to adopt a collaborative approach to innovation (Hagedoorn et al., 2000). This rapid technological advance implies the need for the socio-economic players to adopt new strategic and operational measures in order to prevent the loss of competitive advantage of national and regional innovation systems. The recent debate on industrial policies shows that a mission-oriented industrial policy approach (Mazzucato, 2014; European Commission, 2018) may provide interesting inspirational principles able to guide these transformations, since it places at the centre of its reasoning the key role of the public actor able to stimulate the strategic coordination between multiple socio-economic players at different levels (Mazzucato and Perez, 2014; Rodrik, 2004). According to this approach, Public-Private research Partnerships, are assumed to be effective vehicles of governance able to improve technological development, stimulating strong links between the relevant socio-economic players and thus increasing the national and regional systems’ overall innovative potential (Mazzucato, 2014; Rodrik, 2004; 2014; Robin and Schubert, 2013; Kristensen and Scherrer, 2016). The aim of the present work is to understand how the strategic coordination between public and private players may be an opportunity for the definition of effective innovation policies in the context of the current socio-technical transition. In order to reach this purpose, a multilevel approach (Geels, 2005) is adopted, taking into account both the national and the regional levels of analysis. A quantitative analysis is provided at national level in order to understand the relationship between a specific approach to innovation and technology policy, the overall innovation performance and the level of diffusion of cooperative innovation activities in a National Innovation System (Lundvall, 1988); moreover, it contributes to the existing literature on Public-Private research Partnerships (Hagedoorn et al., 2000) by testing the effectiveness of some main variables at industry and company level explaining the propensity of companies to get involved in formal cooperative innovation activities. This analysis is made taking into account data stemming from the 8th wave of the Community Innovation Survey, 2010-2012. Moreover, the results of a field research conducted at regional level are presented, aiming at understanding the elements of an institutional/organizational framework which are able to positively influence technological local development. In this case, the analysis takes into account a Regional Innovation System (Cooke et al., 1997): the Autonomous Province of Trento. Data have been gathered through both primary sources, based on 57 semi-structured interviews to local institutions and firms, and secondary sources, based on relevant documents and reports. The major conclusion of the present work is that, given the systemic nature of this socio-technical transition, only a mission-oriented policy approach to innovation policy based on strategic Public-Private research Partnerships may be able to trigger the necessary cross-level synergies between the different socio-economic players involved, managing the important challenges lying behind these transformations.

This thesis includes three main chapters that are the outcome of different research projects. All chapters stand as independent papers, but they are linked by the common focus on firm financial factors and export behavior, and by the use of microeconometric methodologies applied to firm-level data. The first two chapters investigate, respectively, the impact of export activity on firms’ access to credit and the role of corporate financial structure as a determinant of exporters’ ability to compete on foreign markets through quality. The third chapter looks instead at the scope for promoting investment and exports of small and medium enterprises through the introduction of more favorable Corporate Taxation rates.

Improving agricultural productivity, agricultural commercialization and improving the livelihoods of the population are the main challenges in the Sub-Saharan Africa region where the majority of the population are poor and live in rural areas. Several factors including lack of improved farming practices, poor infrastructure, low level of market integration to the world market and within countries, climate change, and inadequate policy support restrained the performance of the agricultural sector in the region. This thesis consists of four chapters, three empirical and one theoretical chapter. Each of the empirical chapters deals with selected topics pertinent to the agriculture sector in Ethiopia. The theoretical chapter reviews the agricultural policies adopted by the existing government and implemented over the past two decades. After the introductory chapter, the second chapter analyzes the impacts of climate change on crop yields and yield vari-ability in Ethiopia. The impacts of climate change appear to be different across crops and regions. However, the future crop yield levels largely depend on future technological development in farming practices. The third chapter aims to understand the extent of price transmissions from the world markets to domestic grain markets, and the extent of market integration in domestic grain markets. The fourth chapter investigates and compares the volatilities of oilseeds prices in the world and domestic markets. The data used in the second, third and fourth chapters are obtained from various secondary sources. The fifth chapter reviews major agricultural policies implemented over the last two decades and identifies policies that either enhanced the growth of the agricultural sector or holding back its performance. The sixth chapter underlines the main conclusions and indicates future research areas.

[pt] O campo da Economia Política Internacional (EPI) é tradicionalmente composto por acadêmicos ocidentais e concentra-se na literatura clássica europeia, com três abordagens clássicas, que são o liberalismo, o nacionalismo e o marxismo. Tendo em mente que o termo internacional pressupõe um alcance global da disciplina, é relevante compreender os esforços de teorização do campo por parte de acadêmicos do Sul Global, que entendem temas como mercado, Estado e desenvolvimento a partir da perspectiva de fora da Europa, influenciados inclusive pelas suas próprias filosofias autóctones e milenares. Sendo a China um poder hegemônico em ascensão e dispondo de uma bagagem filosófica e científica antiga, é importante compreender como os acadêmicos chineses da área entendem a EPI, de forma que o pensamento chinês possa ser definido seja em aspectos ocidentais clássicos ou mesmo compondo novos aspectos específicos para a China, o que potencialmente pode transformar a disciplina como um todo. Esta dissertação tem como objetivo analisar temas da Economia Política Internacional, como desenvolvimento, promoção da indústria, protecionismo, mais-valia, relações entre Estado e mercado à luz do pensamento moderno e antigo dos próprios chineses, em diálogo com a EPI tradicional (majoritariamente anglo-saxã, mas não apenas), especialmente o Nacionalismo Suniano, Confucionismo, Taoísmo e do sistema Tiangxia de ordem mundial. Essa análise nos permite concluir que o pensamento autóctone da China é muito mais do que uma mistura de abordagens ocidentais: ele compõe a sua própria abordagem única que pode mudar a disciplina em direção a novas formas de compreensão da Economia Política Internacional. / [en] The field of International Political Economy (IPE) is traditionally comprised of Western scholars and focuses on classical European literature, composed of three classical approaches, which are liberalism, nationalism and Marxism. Bearing in mind that the term international presupposes a global reach of the discipline, it is relevant to understand the efforts to theorize the field by academics from the Global South, who understand themes such as market, State and development from the perspective of outside Europe, even influenced by their own indigenous and ancient philosophies. As China is a rising hegemonic power and has ancient philosophical and scientific background, it is important to understand how Chinese academics in the field understand IPE, so that Chinese thought can be defined either in classical Western aspects or even composing new aspects specific to China, which could potentially transform the discipline. This dissertation aims to analyse themes of International Political Economy, such as development, promotion of industry, protectionism, surplus value, relations between State and market in the light of the modern and ancient thought of the Chinese themselves, in dialogue with traditional IPE (mostly Anglo-Saxon, but not only), especially Sunian Nationalism, Confucianism, Taoism and the Tiangxia system of world order. This analysis allows us to conclude that China s indigenous thought is much more than a mixture of Western approaches: it composes its own unique approach that can shift the discipline towards new ways of understanding International Political Economy.

La presente tesi di dottorato è articolata in tre capitoli a se stanti che riguardano l’ambito dell’economia applicata e dell’economia dello sviluppo. Il primo capitolo analizza l’impatto intergenerazionale di shock idiosincratici alla situazione lavorativa dei genitori sull'istruzione secondaria dei figli, utilizzando un’indagine longitudinale condotta in Bosnia Erzegovina. Il secondo capitolo tratta delle potenziali conseguenze di lungo termine della guerra civile sulla partecipazione politica. In particolare, l’analisi utilizza le statistiche ufficiali disponibili relative alle elezioni in Bosnia Erzegovina e mostra che nelle municipalità più intensamente colpite dal conflitto, misurato in termini di perdite civili, l’affluenza elettorale e il capitale sociale sono minori. Il terzo capitolo contribuisce alla letteratura sulla “auto-selezione” in termini di salute della popolazione Indiana migrante presente in Inghilterra. L'analisi fornisce evidenza empirica delle differenze in termini di statura ed altri indicatori di salute delle prime e seconde generazioni di migranti in relazione alla popolazione nativa del paese di destinazione, e a quella del paese di origine. / This dissertation is a collection of three self-contained essays in applied and development economics. In the first chapter I evaluate whether educational investments of adolescent offspring are vulnerable to idiosyncratic shocks to parental employment. Specifically, I estimate the short-term impact of parental job loss on children’s enrollment in post-compulsory schooling, introducing a focus on paternal and maternal unemployment, and analysing differential gender specific effects. I further discuss the potential channels of inter-generational transmission with a specific focus on the role played by female labor supply in contexts of developing economies. Using panel data estimation techniques based on four waves of longitudinal household data from Bosnia and Herzegovina, the results show that maternal involuntary employment shocks affects school enrollment of daughters aged 15-18. In the second chapter I analyze the consequences of exposure to civil conflict on voters’ turnout and social participation. Our source of variation in violence exposure is given by war-related civilian fatalities recorded at the municipality level. In a “difference in differences” estimation framework, our results show that the intensity of civil conflict reduces turnout in the medium and long run, up to twenty years after the end of the war. War exposure is also associated with lower generalised trust and worse measures of social participation. The third chapter evaluates height performances of first and second generation migrants of Indian origins in England, with respect to adults and children in India, and the native population at destination. We provide evidence of migrants’ “self selection” on health, and we show that the circumstances in which individuals are born and raised can contribute to the definition of body size, in addition to the genetic channel and to the traits transmitted by maternal characteristics through gestation.