This paper investigates the determinants of success and failure of crowdfunding. We have drawn a random sample of 120 crowdfunding initiatives from the crowdfunding platforms Kickstarter and Indiegogo. We extracted relevant characteristics of the project and tracked their performance over a 30 day period. Using probit models, GLS estimators and dynamic panel methods, we estimated success probabilities. We found that crowdfunding is extremely persistent, and early success in attracting financing will improve the chance to get funded in the end. Presentation and instant gratification matters, as do moderate financial goals. We have not found any sectoral bias, which would be a direct indication of market inefficiencies. However, we observe a bias towards projects launched by all male project teams. There are no obvious explanations for this gap, so we must conclude that crowdfunding exhibits a gender bias.
In this paper, we identify some of the key sources of underestimation of Italy’s potential growth within the EU commonly agreed methodology for the calculation of output gaps and potential ouptut and we make two country-specific proposals to resolve or mitigate those empirical issues. Such changes concern: 1) the ‘‘statistically optimal’’ calibration of the variances of the innovation processes of the NAWRU model through a Grid Search tool that we developed; 2) the estimation of the TFP cycle via the introduction of a labour hoarding index. We show that small adjustments would significantly improve the realism of potential growth estimates and yield a wider output gap, with a slower pace of closure. Such alternative estimates would have a substantial impact on the compliance of Italian public finances with the requirements of the Stability and Growth Pact.
Following the 2005 regulations emending the Stability and Growth Pact, the EU fiscal governance is based on the concept of Potential Output, the highest level of production an economy can sustain without incurring inflationary pressure. The method used by the European Commission and EU Member States to estimate potential output, while consistent with most of the recent economic and econometric theory, is still not robust enough to give a unique and irrefutable measure on which to base EU’s fiscal framework. In this paper, we challenge the EC’s approach showing its failure to adequately capture the relation between inflation and cyclical unemployment, the Phillips curve, in estimating the trend unemployment. Should fiscal policy continue to be based on this concept, further extension of the methodology must be implemented in order to obtain more robust estimates.
While an extensive literature based on analysis conducted in developed countries shows that primary school children develop prosocial attitudes as they grow older, with school acting as the main driver of the socialisation process, there is little evidence of what may happen in very different socio-cultural and economic context. The paper aims at testing the relation between age and prosocial attitudes and behaviours by focusing on a sample of about 400 children attending 10 primary schools located in pheripheral areas of Goma, capital city of the North Kivu province in the northeast region of Democratic Republic of Congo. The evidence of behavioural experiments shows that schoolchildren attitude to truthfully report their choices tends to decrease with age (i.e. cheating increases); we also explore the relationship between other prosocial attitudes and age, finding mixed and weak evidence.
R. TARGETTI LENTI (S. Beretta - A. Berkofsky - L. Zhang (eds.), Understanding China Today. An Exploration of Politics, Economics, Society, and International Relations)