Anna Bottasso - University of Genova (original) (raw)
Papers by Anna Bottasso
Social Science Research Network, 2016
In this paper we analyse the impact of employment protection legislation (EPL) on firms' entry an... more In this paper we analyse the impact of employment protection legislation (EPL) on firms' entry and exit rates for a large sample of industries of thirteen countries selected from the most recent version of the OECD Structural and Business Statistics Database. Using a differences-indifferences identification strategy, we find that more stringent EPL is associated to lower entry and exit rates, particularly in industries characterized by higher job reallocation intensity. We also find that both collective and individual dismissal regulations reduce firms' entry and exit rates. Interestingly, our results suggest that the negative effects of EPL is stronger in the case of firms between one and nine employees while, in the case of larger ones, results are not clear-cut. An extensive sensitivity analysis confirm the robustness of our findings.
Quaderni di Dipartimento, 2011
In this paper we add to the debate on the public capital-productivity link by exploiting very rec... more In this paper we add to the debate on the public capital-productivity link by exploiting very recent developments in the panel time series literature that take into account cross sectional correlation in non-stationary panels. In particular we evaluate the productive effect of public capital by estimating various production functions for a panel of 21 OECD countries over the period 1975-2002. We find strong evidence of common factors that drive the cointegration relationship among variables; moreover, our results suggest a public capital elasticity of GDP in the range 0.05-0.15, depending on model specification. Results are robust to the evidence of spillovers from public capital investments in other countries and to controlling for other productivity determinants like human capital, the stock of patents and R&D capital.
Transport Infrastructure and Economic Activity
Labor Market Regulation and Firm Adjustments in Skill Demand
Social Science Research Network, 2023
Risk management magazine, Nov 19, 2022
The impact of negative interest rates on the pricing of options written on equity: a technical st... more The impact of negative interest rates on the pricing of options written on equity: a technical study for a suitable estimate of early termination Anna Bottasso (University of Genoa-Department of Economics-DIEC), Lorenzo Bruno (EGO Energia-Risk Management), Pier Giuseppe Giribone (Banca CARIGE, Gruppo BPER-Financial Engineering and Data Mining and University of Genoa-Department of Economics-DIEC)
Investment Appraisal
Elsevier eBooks, 2019
Consumer inertia in energy markets: Insights from behavioral economics
Economia pubblica, 2020
The transition towards deregulated energy markets requires a dynamic participation by consumers. ... more The transition towards deregulated energy markets requires a dynamic participation by consumers. Yet, in many European countries, a high degree of consumer inertia is observed: the rate of switching to new tariffs and providers is far from being satisfactory. Neoclassical consumer choice models cannot explain this phenomenon, unless assuming that perceived transactions costs are disproportionately high. This paper discusses how more realistic assumptions about consumer behavior can help interpret low switching rates. In particular, it examines psychological aspects (e.g., loss aversion, present bias, ambiguity aversion) and cognitive biases (e.g., choice overload, overconfidence) that can explain consumer stickiness in energy markets. Different behavioral traits point at different policy interventions. Therefore, such analysis illustrates how crucial it is that policy-makers aiming at reducing consumer inertia take these behavioral aspects into account and make use of experimental testing when laying out interventions.
Institutions matter: The impact of the covid‐19 pandemic on the political trust of young Europeans
Journal of Regional Science, Mar 9, 2022
In this paper, we study the short‐run evolution of political trust during the recent covid‐19 pan... more In this paper, we study the short‐run evolution of political trust during the recent covid‐19 pandemic using survey data for a sample of young individuals living in Germany, France, Italy, and Spain. In particular, we analyze whether pre‐pandemic perceptions and experiences of citizens about various dimensions of local governments and institutional quality had any mediating effect on the evolution of political trust after the outbreak of the covid‐19 pandemic. The results show a relative increase in political trust of about 9% in regions with high institutional quality (75th percentile) compared with regions with low institutional quality (25th percentile) over the period 2019−2020. This divergence can be associated with either a better performance of policymakers in high‐quality institutions regions, or to more positive attitudes toward politicians by citizens that, before the pandemic, believed to live in regions with efficient institutions. Overall results are not affected by the inclusion of regional fixed effects or by possible differential evolution of political trust according to a large set of observable regional characteristics.
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, Dec 15, 2020
In this study we leverage on the ancient Roman roads network as a source of exogenous variation i... more In this study we leverage on the ancient Roman roads network as a source of exogenous variation in order to identify the causal effect of the modern highways network on innovation using Italian NUTS-3 regional data. Our results suggest that a 10 percent increase in the highways stock in a region causes an increase in the number of patents of about 2-3 percent over a five years period. We document that this positive effect on innovation might in part be explained by a reduction in travel costs that foster collaborations between inventors living in different regions. We also find that the innovation enhancing effect of highways declines over time, possibly because of the introduction of ICT, or the increasing congestion over the Italian network. Finally, we find also evidence of important heterogeneous treatment effects associated to region population density and we cannot rule out the existence of negative spillovers across regions, suggesting possible reorganization of innovative activity across space.
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, Jun 1, 2018
In this study we consider a sample of the largest UK airports in order to estimate, for the first... more In this study we consider a sample of the largest UK airports in order to estimate, for the first time for this sector, a multiproduct cost function using a flexible technology that nests most of the specifications commonly employed in the empirical literature. Another novelty of this work is that we provide estimates of quasi-scope economies for the airport industry, defined as the cost advantage for a diversified firm of jointly providing a set of outputs/services with respect to the costs of their provision through a set of firms quasi-specialized in a single production. Our main results suggest the existence of quasi-scope economies that tend to decline with the size of the airport. This finding, coupled with the results of a set of cost complementarity tests, suggest that cost savings mainly arise from the joint provision of services for national and international passengers and, to a lesser extent, to the addition of cargo transport activities. In turn, pairs of outputs that include (a proxy of) commercial revenues seem to be characterized by anti-cost complementarities. Finally, global economies of scale seem to be exhausted at about five million passengers.
Economic Role of Transport Infrastructure: Theory and Models
Social Science Research Network, 2002
This paper provides empirical evidence on the relation between the identity of ultimate owners an... more This paper provides empirical evidence on the relation between the identity of ultimate owners and technical (in)efficiency by estimating stochastic production frontiers on Italian firm level panel data for twelve manufacturing industries over the 1978-93 period. Privately-owned independent firms are used as reference group and their efficiency is assessed against three alternative forms of ownership: subsidiaries of (privately owned) national business groups, subsidiaries of foreign multinationals, and state owned firms. Even if cross-industry differences obviously exist a common pattern can however be identified. Overall, subsidiaries of foreign multinationals (state owned firms) are found to be more (less) efficient than the reference group. On the contrary, no systematic difference is found between independent firms and subsidiaries of national business groups.
Investment certificates pricing using a Quasi-Monte Carlo framework: Case-studies based on the Italian market
International Journal of Financial Engineering
The Monte Carlo method, thanks to its flexibility in designing even extremely complex payoffs, is... more The Monte Carlo method, thanks to its flexibility in designing even extremely complex payoffs, is assuming an increasingly important role in quantitative analysis. Its main limitation is the high computational cost linked to its modest speed of convergence to the fair value of the product. One of the best-known statistical techniques is to replace the random number generator with “low discrepancy” deterministic numerical sequences, producing a Quasi-Monte Carlo. Through its implementation for the analysis of three investment certificates featuring different characteristics and different stochastic processes used for the underlying simulation, the study demonstrates the possibility of achieving interesting results in terms of performance even for pricing these structured products ever more popular in the financial industry.
RISK MANAGEMENT MAGAZINE
Certificates are structured financial instruments that aim to provide investors with investment s... more Certificates are structured financial instruments that aim to provide investors with investment solutions tailored to their needs. Certificates can be modeled using a bond component and a derivative component, typically an options strategy. The pricing of certificates is typically performed using the Monte Carlo numerical methodology. Such method allows for projections of the underlying using series of random numbers. The results obtained display an error (standard deviation) that depends on the number of simulations used and on the specific characteristics of the structured product. This work has the objective of minimizing the experimental error, and, consequently, of accelerating the speed of convergence using statistical techniques known in the literature as variance reduction methods. The most popular stochastic dynamics have been analyzed, like the classical Black and Scholes model, the Local Volatility model and the Heston model. Three certificates are analyzed in the paper a...
Economic Role of Transport Infrastructure
VAT Cuts as Emergency Policy Intervention: Evidence from the UK Case
SSRN Electronic Journal
Journal of Regional Science, 2022
In this study, we leverage on the ancient Roman roads network as a source of exogenous variation ... more In this study, we leverage on the ancient Roman roads network as a source of exogenous variation to identify the causal effect of the modern highways network on innovative performance of Italian NUTS-3 regions. Empirical findings suggest that a 10% increase in the highways stock in a region generates an increase in the number of patents of about 3%-4%, over a 5-year period. Further analysis suggests that our findings can in part be explained by a reduction in travel costs that fosters collaborations among inventors living in different regions and by an increase in the degree of centrality in the regional innovation network associated to denser highways networks. Finally, we find that the innovation-enhancing effect of highways declines over time, possibly because of the introduction of information and communication technology, or the increasing congestion on the Italian network.
The Effects of the Affordable Care Act on Labour Supply and Other Uses of Time
SSRN Electronic Journal
Higher order risk attitudes of financial experts
Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance
Social Science Research Network, 2016
In this paper we analyse the impact of employment protection legislation (EPL) on firms' entry an... more In this paper we analyse the impact of employment protection legislation (EPL) on firms' entry and exit rates for a large sample of industries of thirteen countries selected from the most recent version of the OECD Structural and Business Statistics Database. Using a differences-indifferences identification strategy, we find that more stringent EPL is associated to lower entry and exit rates, particularly in industries characterized by higher job reallocation intensity. We also find that both collective and individual dismissal regulations reduce firms' entry and exit rates. Interestingly, our results suggest that the negative effects of EPL is stronger in the case of firms between one and nine employees while, in the case of larger ones, results are not clear-cut. An extensive sensitivity analysis confirm the robustness of our findings.
Quaderni di Dipartimento, 2011
In this paper we add to the debate on the public capital-productivity link by exploiting very rec... more In this paper we add to the debate on the public capital-productivity link by exploiting very recent developments in the panel time series literature that take into account cross sectional correlation in non-stationary panels. In particular we evaluate the productive effect of public capital by estimating various production functions for a panel of 21 OECD countries over the period 1975-2002. We find strong evidence of common factors that drive the cointegration relationship among variables; moreover, our results suggest a public capital elasticity of GDP in the range 0.05-0.15, depending on model specification. Results are robust to the evidence of spillovers from public capital investments in other countries and to controlling for other productivity determinants like human capital, the stock of patents and R&D capital.
Transport Infrastructure and Economic Activity
Labor Market Regulation and Firm Adjustments in Skill Demand
Social Science Research Network, 2023
Risk management magazine, Nov 19, 2022
The impact of negative interest rates on the pricing of options written on equity: a technical st... more The impact of negative interest rates on the pricing of options written on equity: a technical study for a suitable estimate of early termination Anna Bottasso (University of Genoa-Department of Economics-DIEC), Lorenzo Bruno (EGO Energia-Risk Management), Pier Giuseppe Giribone (Banca CARIGE, Gruppo BPER-Financial Engineering and Data Mining and University of Genoa-Department of Economics-DIEC)
Investment Appraisal
Elsevier eBooks, 2019
Consumer inertia in energy markets: Insights from behavioral economics
Economia pubblica, 2020
The transition towards deregulated energy markets requires a dynamic participation by consumers. ... more The transition towards deregulated energy markets requires a dynamic participation by consumers. Yet, in many European countries, a high degree of consumer inertia is observed: the rate of switching to new tariffs and providers is far from being satisfactory. Neoclassical consumer choice models cannot explain this phenomenon, unless assuming that perceived transactions costs are disproportionately high. This paper discusses how more realistic assumptions about consumer behavior can help interpret low switching rates. In particular, it examines psychological aspects (e.g., loss aversion, present bias, ambiguity aversion) and cognitive biases (e.g., choice overload, overconfidence) that can explain consumer stickiness in energy markets. Different behavioral traits point at different policy interventions. Therefore, such analysis illustrates how crucial it is that policy-makers aiming at reducing consumer inertia take these behavioral aspects into account and make use of experimental testing when laying out interventions.
Institutions matter: The impact of the covid‐19 pandemic on the political trust of young Europeans
Journal of Regional Science, Mar 9, 2022
In this paper, we study the short‐run evolution of political trust during the recent covid‐19 pan... more In this paper, we study the short‐run evolution of political trust during the recent covid‐19 pandemic using survey data for a sample of young individuals living in Germany, France, Italy, and Spain. In particular, we analyze whether pre‐pandemic perceptions and experiences of citizens about various dimensions of local governments and institutional quality had any mediating effect on the evolution of political trust after the outbreak of the covid‐19 pandemic. The results show a relative increase in political trust of about 9% in regions with high institutional quality (75th percentile) compared with regions with low institutional quality (25th percentile) over the period 2019−2020. This divergence can be associated with either a better performance of policymakers in high‐quality institutions regions, or to more positive attitudes toward politicians by citizens that, before the pandemic, believed to live in regions with efficient institutions. Overall results are not affected by the inclusion of regional fixed effects or by possible differential evolution of political trust according to a large set of observable regional characteristics.
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, Dec 15, 2020
In this study we leverage on the ancient Roman roads network as a source of exogenous variation i... more In this study we leverage on the ancient Roman roads network as a source of exogenous variation in order to identify the causal effect of the modern highways network on innovation using Italian NUTS-3 regional data. Our results suggest that a 10 percent increase in the highways stock in a region causes an increase in the number of patents of about 2-3 percent over a five years period. We document that this positive effect on innovation might in part be explained by a reduction in travel costs that foster collaborations between inventors living in different regions. We also find that the innovation enhancing effect of highways declines over time, possibly because of the introduction of ICT, or the increasing congestion over the Italian network. Finally, we find also evidence of important heterogeneous treatment effects associated to region population density and we cannot rule out the existence of negative spillovers across regions, suggesting possible reorganization of innovative activity across space.
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, Jun 1, 2018
In this study we consider a sample of the largest UK airports in order to estimate, for the first... more In this study we consider a sample of the largest UK airports in order to estimate, for the first time for this sector, a multiproduct cost function using a flexible technology that nests most of the specifications commonly employed in the empirical literature. Another novelty of this work is that we provide estimates of quasi-scope economies for the airport industry, defined as the cost advantage for a diversified firm of jointly providing a set of outputs/services with respect to the costs of their provision through a set of firms quasi-specialized in a single production. Our main results suggest the existence of quasi-scope economies that tend to decline with the size of the airport. This finding, coupled with the results of a set of cost complementarity tests, suggest that cost savings mainly arise from the joint provision of services for national and international passengers and, to a lesser extent, to the addition of cargo transport activities. In turn, pairs of outputs that include (a proxy of) commercial revenues seem to be characterized by anti-cost complementarities. Finally, global economies of scale seem to be exhausted at about five million passengers.
Economic Role of Transport Infrastructure: Theory and Models
Social Science Research Network, 2002
This paper provides empirical evidence on the relation between the identity of ultimate owners an... more This paper provides empirical evidence on the relation between the identity of ultimate owners and technical (in)efficiency by estimating stochastic production frontiers on Italian firm level panel data for twelve manufacturing industries over the 1978-93 period. Privately-owned independent firms are used as reference group and their efficiency is assessed against three alternative forms of ownership: subsidiaries of (privately owned) national business groups, subsidiaries of foreign multinationals, and state owned firms. Even if cross-industry differences obviously exist a common pattern can however be identified. Overall, subsidiaries of foreign multinationals (state owned firms) are found to be more (less) efficient than the reference group. On the contrary, no systematic difference is found between independent firms and subsidiaries of national business groups.
Investment certificates pricing using a Quasi-Monte Carlo framework: Case-studies based on the Italian market
International Journal of Financial Engineering
The Monte Carlo method, thanks to its flexibility in designing even extremely complex payoffs, is... more The Monte Carlo method, thanks to its flexibility in designing even extremely complex payoffs, is assuming an increasingly important role in quantitative analysis. Its main limitation is the high computational cost linked to its modest speed of convergence to the fair value of the product. One of the best-known statistical techniques is to replace the random number generator with “low discrepancy” deterministic numerical sequences, producing a Quasi-Monte Carlo. Through its implementation for the analysis of three investment certificates featuring different characteristics and different stochastic processes used for the underlying simulation, the study demonstrates the possibility of achieving interesting results in terms of performance even for pricing these structured products ever more popular in the financial industry.
RISK MANAGEMENT MAGAZINE
Certificates are structured financial instruments that aim to provide investors with investment s... more Certificates are structured financial instruments that aim to provide investors with investment solutions tailored to their needs. Certificates can be modeled using a bond component and a derivative component, typically an options strategy. The pricing of certificates is typically performed using the Monte Carlo numerical methodology. Such method allows for projections of the underlying using series of random numbers. The results obtained display an error (standard deviation) that depends on the number of simulations used and on the specific characteristics of the structured product. This work has the objective of minimizing the experimental error, and, consequently, of accelerating the speed of convergence using statistical techniques known in the literature as variance reduction methods. The most popular stochastic dynamics have been analyzed, like the classical Black and Scholes model, the Local Volatility model and the Heston model. Three certificates are analyzed in the paper a...
Economic Role of Transport Infrastructure
VAT Cuts as Emergency Policy Intervention: Evidence from the UK Case
SSRN Electronic Journal
Journal of Regional Science, 2022
In this study, we leverage on the ancient Roman roads network as a source of exogenous variation ... more In this study, we leverage on the ancient Roman roads network as a source of exogenous variation to identify the causal effect of the modern highways network on innovative performance of Italian NUTS-3 regions. Empirical findings suggest that a 10% increase in the highways stock in a region generates an increase in the number of patents of about 3%-4%, over a 5-year period. Further analysis suggests that our findings can in part be explained by a reduction in travel costs that fosters collaborations among inventors living in different regions and by an increase in the degree of centrality in the regional innovation network associated to denser highways networks. Finally, we find that the innovation-enhancing effect of highways declines over time, possibly because of the introduction of information and communication technology, or the increasing congestion on the Italian network.
The Effects of the Affordable Care Act on Labour Supply and Other Uses of Time
SSRN Electronic Journal
Higher order risk attitudes of financial experts
Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance