Dario Maimone Ansaldo Patti

Corruption and Referee Bias in Football: The Case of Calciopoli

Based on the Calciopoli scandal, which uncovered widespread corruption in Italian football, this paper quantifies the effect of referee bias on the performance of football teams. The impartiality of referees is often distorted by external factors which exert some emotional pressure in order to influence their decisions. On the other hand, corrupt referees consciously and deliberately try to distort the results of the sport contest, in order to favor the corrupting teams. Building on the implications of a model where performance in a sport contest depends on both effort and bribing, our results highlight the different effects of these two forms of bias, and help to shed light on several aspects of the corruption scandal.

Globalization, democratization and economic growth

Using a two-equations model we estimate whether and to what extent the interplay between FDI and democratization affects economic growth. Two results emerge. First, endogenous FDI impact significantly on economic growth. Second democracy is a substantive predictor of both FDI and growth.

Political and Economic Liberalization: Is this Relationship Non-Linear?

Why high levels of market liberalization can be supported by both repressive and liberal political regimes? Drawing from Acemoglu and Robinson (2006), we use a large dataset of world economies and document the existence of a U-shaped relationship between political and economic liberalization. This functional form explains the ongoing dynamics in the relationship between democratization and economic liberalization in the light of the political calculus that incumbent governments make when are confronted with policy decisions.

Testing the Political Replacement Effect: A Panel Data Analysis

This article tests for the existence of the political replacement effect, as suggested by Acemoglu and Robinson: [American Political Science Review, Vol. 100, pp. 115–131]. They argue that the implementation of market-oriented reform is crucially driven by the political calculus of incumbent governments: they implement economic policy change if such a choice is not expected to reduce their chances to retain power. This implies a non-monotonic relationship between the level of political competition and the extent of economic reform. We test this hypothesis using data for 102 countries over the period 1980 to 2005. Our results strongly support the theory.

Towards an equilibrium level of market reform: how politics affects the dynamics of policy change

In this article we examine the dynamics of economic reforms that are implemented by incumbent policy-makers interested in maintaining their political power. We use a sample of 86 countries over a time period going from 1980 to 2001 and find that the achievement of an equilibrium level of market liberalization is highly costly. Our results are robust to endogenity and model specification.

Autonomy Freedom and Preferences for Redistribution

In this paper we study the determinants of peoples attitudes toward income inequality and their consequences for redistributive policies. In the light of a recent literature in social choice theory, we argue that an individuals attitudes toward inequality depend upon the extent of autonomy freedom he/she enjoys. We use individual level data to validate our theory and show that the higher the extent of an individuals autonomy freedom, the greater the probability that he/she supports larger income differences as incentives for individual effort. Conversely, the lower the extent of autonomy freedom, the more likely he/she supports the view that incomes should be made more equal. These findings appear to be robust to different model specifications even after controlling for a large set of both socio-economic variables and individual characteristics.

More Choice for Better Choosers: Political Freedom, Autonomy, and Happiness

A substantial literature finds that freedom in the sense of an expanded opportunity set is positively related to happiness. A contrasting literature, however, finds that an excess of choice can have socially undesirable outcomes. We test the effect of two types of freedom—autonomy and political—on happiness using five waves of World Values Survey data (1981–2008). We find evidence supporting the claim that equipping people with the tools to direct the course of their lives (i.e. increasing autonomy freedom) incentivizes the desire to investigate alternatives (e.g. political parties) before making a decision. The effect of freedoms on happiness is diminished in contexts where individuals have less experience with evaluating alternatives, such as in authoritarian or transitional countries.

Living in the Jungle or Together and in Peace

The existing literature on conflicts extensively argues that countries may find a peaceful settlement, in which they renounce fighting. In this paper we try to formalize a model, in which countries focus on a different and more attractive solution for their disputes. More specifically, we the case in which they merge, creating a new entity, instead of simply renouncing fighting. We stress the welfareimplications of this choice, as well as the fact that the merging process is not necessarily unchangeable, but it can collapse depending on the parameters of the model. Beyond the literature on conflicts, this paper can also be linked to the one on countries secession/unification.