Few economic debates have lasted as long as the 160-year debate concerning the effects of Italian unification on the economies of Italy’s South and North. This column proposes a way to move the argument forward. The authors estimate the causal effects of unification on the agricultural share, literacy rates, and railway density in the South and the Centre-North using a rigorous counterfactual framework. Their findings challenge the idea that unification increased Italy’s North-South divide. In fact, neither region experienced widespread benefits from the unified state.

Article: Inequality and Social Ties: Evidence from 15 U.S. Data Sets | Sociological Science | Posted May 12, 2025

Unos 38.000 sevillanos sufren frecuentes cortes de luz, agravados el último lustro, sin que Endesa ni las Administraciones ofrezcan soluciones

This study investigates how actual and anticipated intergenerational wealth transfers – i.e., inter vivos gifts and inheritances – contribute to inequ…

Over the past half-century, higher education expansion and changing gender imbalances in education have reshaped the educational composition of the pa…

Tutto quello che bisogna guardare su scatole e gusci per capire come vengono allevate le galline, e fare scelte non solo economiche

Previous research on fertility by field of education has revealed stronger fertility variation than by the more frequently studied metric of educational level. However, this line of research has not ...

El Ejecutivo de Illa ata el apoyo del Parlament a dos decretos clave tras aceptar incluir en la regulación todos los alquileres de uso residencial, aunque mantiene dudas sobre su constitucionalidad

Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED). pública, Grados, posgrados, másteres, investigación, formación permanente

Salvatore Morelli, whose research was cited by The Economist in a recent article on the “return of inheritocracy,” discusses the surge in inherited wealth, what this means for wealth inequality, and p...