Research

Machine Data: Market and Analytics

With Giacomo Calzolari and Riccardo Rovatti

This study offers a theoretical analysis of the Machine Data (MD) market, emphasizing its growing importance over personal data. It examines challenges like data fragmentation, unclear property rights, and the public good nature of MD. The analysis focuses on machine users generating data and aggregators providing MD analytics, identifying key properties—Scale, Scope, and Synergy—that influence the value of MD. The study explores various market scenarios, uncovering inefficiencies and market failures, and suggests the need for targeted policy interventions.

The Transformation of the European Parliament’s Voting Dimensions: Agenda-Driven or Secular Change?

With Nicolò Fraccaroli

This study explores whether pro-/anti-European integration stances have become the dominant dimension of voting in the European Parliament, surpassing the traditional left-right axis. Analyzing over 41 million roll-call votes from 1979-2022, the authors find that the pro-/anti-European axis became prominent during the eurozone crisis. Contrary to the belief that this shift was temporary and limited to specific policy areas, the study reveals that the European dimension has grown across all policy areas. This suggests a secular change in the EP, where pro-/anti-European positions now consistently drive voting behavior, independent of the legislative agenda.

Foreign Television, Language Proficiency and Brain Drain: Evidence from a Natural Experiment

With Damiano Argan

We study how foreign language proficiency affects brain drain by exploiting the exposure of parts of Albania to Italian television in the second half of the twentieth century. At that time, Albania was isolated from the rest of the world, with controlled internal migration and prohibited international migration. As the Italian TV transmitter accidentally reached Albania, Albanians' exposure to the signal was as good as random conditional on geographical variables. We find that exposure to Italian TV led to a considerable increase in Italian proficiency rates. It also strongly increased the probability of emigration of highly skilled individuals, but did not affect other skill groups. We rule out other channels through which TV might affect migration and interpret our findings as the effect of foreign language proficiency on brain drain.

Estimating Demand with Multi-Homing in Two-Sided Markets

With Pauline Affeldt, Elena Argentesi and Lapo Filistrucchi

We empirically investigate the relevance of multi-homing in two-sided markets. First, we build a micro-founded structural econometric model that encompasses demand for differentiated products and allows for multi-homing on both sides of the market. We then use an original dataset on the Italian daily newspaper market that includes information on double-homing by readers to estimate readers’ and advertisers’ demand. The results show that an econometric model that does not allow for multihoming is likely to produce biased estimates of demand on both sides of the market. In particular, on the reader side, accounting for multi-homing helps to recognize complementarity between products; on the advertising side, it allows to measure to what extent advertising demand depends on the shares of exclusive and overlapping readers.

Price Discrimination and Tacit Collusion: An Empirical Analysis of the U.S. Airline Industry

Multi-homing in digital markets

With Elena Argentesi, Nestor Duch-Brown, Lapo Filistrucchi and Carlo Reggiani

Getting Closer: Netflix Series and Global Culture

With Ruben Durante and Giorgio Gulino