Alessandra Bonfiglioli
Pompeu Fabra University
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Publication
Featured researches published by Alessandra Bonfiglioli.
Archive | 2004
Alessandra Bonfiglioli; Caterina Mendicino
This paper studies the effects of financial liberalization and banking crises on growth. It shows that financial liberalization spurs on average economic growth. Banking crises are harmful for growth, but to a lesser extent in countries with open financial systems and good institutions. The positive effect of financial liberalization is robust to different definitions. While the removal of capital account restrictions is effective by increasing financial depth, equity market liberalization affects growth directly. The empirical analysis is performed through GMM dynamic panel data estimations on a panel of 90 countries observed in the period 1975-1999.
The Economic Journal | 2013
Alessandra Bonfiglioli; Gino Gancia
In this paper, we study the determinants of political myopia in a rational model of electoral accountability where the key elements are informational frictions and uncertainty. We build a framework where political ability is ex-ante unknown and policy choices are not perfectly observable. On the one hand, elections improve accountability and allow to keep well-performing incumbents. On the other, politicians invest too little in costly policies with future returns in an attempt to signal high ability and increase their reelection probability. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, uncertainty reduces political myopia and may, under some conditions, increase social welfare. We use the model to study how political rewards can be set so as to maximise social welfare and the desirability of imposing a one-term limit to governments. The predictions of our theory are consistent with a number of stylised facts and with a new empirical observation documented in this paper: aggregate uncertainty, measured by economic volatility, is associated to better ...scal discipline in a panel of 20 OECD countries.
The Economic Journal | 2018
Alessandra Bonfiglioli; Rosario Crinò; Gino Gancia
We study the equilibrium determinants of firm-level heterogeneity in a model in which firms can affect the variance of their productivity draws at the entry stage and explore the implications in closed and open economy. By allowing firms to choose the size of their investment in innovation projects of unknown quality, the model yields a Pareto distribution for productivity with a shape parameter that depends on industry-level characteristics. A novel result is that export opportunities, by increasing the payoffs in the tail, induce firms to invest in bigger projects with more spread-out outcomes. Moreover, when more productive firms also pay higher wages, trade amplifies wage dispersion by making all firms more unequal. These results are consistent with new evidence on how firm-level heterogeneity and wage dispersion vary in a panel of U.S. industries. Finally, we use patent data across U.S. states and over time to provide evidence in support of a specific mechanism of the model, namely, that export opportunities increase firm heterogeneity by fostering innovation.
Archive | 2000
Carlo A. Favero; Alessandra Bonfiglioli
In this paper we concentrate on the potential consequences for the European stock market of a correction of the US stock market. We conduct our analysis by explicitly considering the distinction between interdependence and contagion. By considering a Vector Error Correction Model, in which stock returns tend to restore an equilibrium relationship between the forecast earnings yield on common stocks and the yield on bonds, we provide separate answers to the following questions: Is there long-term interdependence between the US and Europe, i.e. does the equilibrium for European shares depend on the equilibrium for US shares? Is there short-term interdependence and contagion between US and European stock markets, i.e. do short-term fluctuations of the US share prices spill over to European share prices and is such co-movement stable in the event of high volatility episodes?
Journal of the European Economic Association | 2018
Alessandra Bonfiglioli; Rosario Crinò; Gino Gancia
We study how financial frictions affect firm-level heterogeneity and trade. We build a model where productivity differences across monopolistically competitive firms are endogenous and depend on investment decisions at the entry stage. By increasing entry costs, financial frictions lower the exit cutoff and hence the value of investing in bigger projects with more dispersed outcomes. As a result, credit frictions make firms smaller and more homogeneous, and hinder the volume of exports. Export opportunities, instead, shift expected profits to the tail and increase the value of technological heterogeneity. We test these predictions using comparable measures of sales dispersion within 365 manufacturing industries in 119 countries, built from highly disaggregated US import data. Consistent with the model, financial development increases sales dispersion, especially in more financially vulnerable industries; sales dispersion is also increasing in measures of comparative advantage. These results can be important for explaining the effect of financial development and factor endowments on export sales.
Archive | 2007
Alessandra Bonfiglioli
This paper studies the relationship between investor protection, financial risk sharing and income inequality. In the presence of market frictions, better protection makes investors more willing to take on entrepreneurial risk while lending to firms. This implies lower cost of external finance and better risk sharing between financiers and entrepreneurs. Investor protection, by boosting the market for risk sharing plays the twofold role of encouraging agents to undertake risky enterprises and providing them with insurance. By increasing the number of risky projects, it raises income inequality. By extending insurance to more agents, it reduces it. As a result, the relationship between the size of the market for risk sharing and income inequality is hump-shaped. Empirical evidence from a cross-section of sixty-eight countries, and a panel of fifty countries over the period 1976-2000, supports the predictions of the model.
Journal of International Economics | 2008
Alessandra Bonfiglioli
Journal of International Money and Finance | 2005
Alessandra Bonfiglioli; Carlo A. Favero
2004 Meeting Papers | 2005
Alessandra Bonfiglioli
Journal of Development Economics | 2012
Alessandra Bonfiglioli