2026
JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC PSYCHOLOGY - Trust behaviour of sexual minorities: Evidence from a large-scale trust game experiment - BERLINGIERI, F., KOVACIC, M., STEPANOVA, E.
Research article
Using a large-scale incentivised trust game experiment conducted across all 27 EU member states, we find that sexual minorities exhibit greater prosocial behaviour toward another vulnerable group but not toward an unknown counterpart, compared to heterosexual individuals.
The observed effects are both relationship- and context-specific. Specifically, bisexual individuals and those identifying with a sexual orientation other than lesbian, gay, or heterosexual demonstrate higher trusting behaviour toward counterparts who frequently experience loneliness.
This effect is not attributable to higher expectations of return, differences in risk preferences, or the individual's own loneliness status.
Furthermore, we find evidence that this relationship-specific prosocial behaviour among sexual minorities is more pronounced in countries with lower levels of LGBTIQ+ rights protection, suggesting that it is heightened in contexts where minorities face a greater risk of exclusion or discrimination.
We do not find statistically significant differences in overall trustworthiness across sexual orientations.
However, the results offer some evidence that bisexual individuals are more trustworthy than heterosexual trustees when they feel a strong connection to their counterpart.
JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC PSYCHOLOGY, VOLUME 116, 2026, 102926
BERLINGIERI, F., KOVACIC, M., STEPANOVA, E.
COLLABRA: PSYCHOLOGY - Evaluating Loneliness Measurements Across the European Union - PARIS, B., ROPOVIK, I., SILAN, M., D'HOMBRES, B., CASABIANCA, E., IJZERMAN, H.
Scientific report
Loneliness has been associated with several detrimental effects for individuals and societies, making it a priority for monitoring across the European Union.
While many loneliness measures exist, notable gaps exist regarding knowledge of their psychometric structure, reliability, comparability, and validity, particularly as it pertains to their suitability for EU-wide population surveys.
Relying on data from the EU Loneliness Survey covering the 27 EU member states (N=25,646), we examined the factor structure, internal consistency, measurement invariance, and construct validity of the six-item De Jong Gierveld Loneliness Scale (DJGLS-6), the three-item UCLA Loneliness Scale (T-ILS), and a single-item measure of loneliness.
Our analyses followed a two-step process, with exploratory analyses conducted in an exploratory fold, followed by pre-registered confirmatory analyses in a confirmatory fold. The DJGLS-6 showed mixed psychometric performance across countries, with adequate internal consistency, limited cross-country invariance, and generally sufficient construct validity. The T-ILS showed more robust performance, with good internal consistency, scalar invariance across all countries, and sufficient construct validity in most countries. The single-item measure showed acceptable construct validity in a smaller subset of countries.
Overall, these findings suggest that the T-ILS may currently be the most suitable measure for monitoring loneliness across the European Union. In addition, discrepancies between content-based categorizations of loneliness measures and empirical performance reveal limitations in current construct validation practices and a lack of consensus about key external correlates and their expected strength.
Addressing these gaps will require more explicit theoretical models and clearer predictions linking loneliness measures to their nomological networks.
COLLABRA: PSYCHOLOGY (2026) 12 (1): 161255
PARIS, B., ROPOVIK, I., SILAN, M., D'HOMBRES, B., CASABIANCA, E., IJZERMAN, H.
PREPRINT - Fairness or Self-Interest? An Experiment on How Communication Shapes European Views of Fairness in the EU Asylum Relocation System - BLASCO, A., ICARDI, R., KRAWCZYK, M., CABEZA MARTINEZ, B.
Preprint
Despite intense political debate over reforming the EU asylum system, there is little evidence on what drives public support for alternative solutions.
Using an experimental survey, we examine Europeans’ fairness perceptions of three mechanisms for distributing asylum seekers among EU countries: no relocation, relocation proportional to GDP, and relocation proportional to the resident populations. By varying the information provided about the consequences of these mechanisms, we explore to what extent public perceptions are driven by concerns about outcomes versus principles of fairness. We find that most respondents (76%) consider relocation to be the fairest option.
However, there are large cross-country differences, with proportional relocation schemes perceived as fairest by 58% of respondents in Germany versus 87% in Greece, which suggest a “self-serving” bias, a tendency to rank as fairer the method that results in fewer asylum seekers for their own country. When we communicate the expected number of asylum seekers for each relocation method, the self-serving bias intensifies significantly.
Moreover, by varying how such information is presented, we find a stronger effect when the communication displays absolute figures instead of figures relative to population. These findings shed new light on how public perceptions of fairness of the EU asylum system can be shaped by information.
SCIENTIFIC REPORT - Digital engagement and academic performance outcomes of children, adolescents and young adults: a PRISMA-guided systematic review emphasizing longitudinal and experimental evidence - VLACHOS, S., CORTESI, A., CABEZA MARTINEZ, B.
Scientific report
Digital engagement has become a pervasive feature of young people’s daily lives, promoting increasing interest in its effects on academic performance. This review synthesizes 81 longitudinal and experimental studies published from 2010 to 2025, focusing on research that strengthens causal inference.
Results consistently link unregulated and recreational digital use—especially passive social media engagement and media multitasking—to lower academic performance. Longitudinal studies suggest these effects play out over time through distraction, time substitution, and broader psychosocial pathways. Experimental studies provide causal evidence of attentional interference, task displacement, and, in structured contexts, motivational reinforcement. Notably, the effects of digital engagement vary significantly depending on the purpose and context of use. Purposeful engagement with educational digital content can enhance academic development and cognitive function, whereas entertainment-based use tends to predict poorer performance. Further, individual characteristics, socioeconomic background, educational context, and the intensity and duration of exposure all contribute to meaningful heterogeneity in outcomes.
Across the evidence base, several identified methodological inconsistencies limit comparability and causal precision. Despite this, the review provides clear, evidence-informed implications for digital-use policies, educational practices, and future research aimed at establishing stronger causal relationships.
SCIENTIFIC REPORT
VLACHOS, S., CORTESI, A., CABEZA MARTINEZ, B.
RESEARCH ARTICLE - Social media use and youth mental health and well-being: a systematic review of longitudinal and experimental evidence - CABEZA MARTINEZ, B., CORTESI, A., VLACHOS, S.
Research article
This review synthesises longitudinal and experimental evidence on social media use and well-being or mental health among adolescents and emerging adults, identifying 55 studies from 4,188 records through a PRISMA-based process (41 longitudinal and 14 experimental studies).
Overall, the evidence does not support a single uniform association between social media use and poorer mental health across all young people: findings based on time- or frequency-based measures are mixed, often small, and sensitive to modelling choices, while reverse or bidirectional pathways remain plausible in some contexts.
More consistent associations are found for problematic or dysregulated use, negative consequences, and harmful online experiences, although these measures also require cautious interpretation where they overlap conceptually with distress or impairment.
Experimental evidence is informative for short-run, mechanism-linked outcomes, particularly appearance-related self-evaluative outcomes; evidence for FoMO is more conditional, and broader symptom changes are less consistent across studies and intervention designs.
For policy, approaches focused only on reducing time online are likely to be imprecise unless they also consider dysregulated engagement, harmful online experiences, and specific risk pathways such as social comparison, appearance pressures and sleep disruption.
RESEARCH ARTICLE
CABEZA MARTINEZ, B., CORTESI, A., VLACHOS, S.
PREPRINT - Update on the umbrella review on loneliness intervention effectiveness - BARJAKOVÁ, M., CASABIANCA, E. J., KERN, T., NURMINEN, M., BUECKER, S.
Preprint
Rationale:
Loneliness is being increasingly recognised as a public health concern with serious adverse consequences. Given its prevalence, it is important to understand what kind of strategies are effective for reducing loneliness and for whom.
Objective:
This umbrella review provides a comprehensive overview of the effectiveness of loneliness interventions to date, summarising evidence from 79 systematic reviews and meta-analyses.
Method:
A systematic search for systematic reviews and meta-analyses on loneliness interventions was conducted using PsychINFO and MEDLINE in November 2024. Only studies focusing specifically on loneliness were included. No exclusion criteria on target group, intervention type or study design were applied to get the broadest possible evidence base.
Results:
The evidence on the effectiveness of loneliness interventions is mixed, with some intervention types working better than others. In line with the existing literature, we find that psychological interventions show the strongest and most consistent effects in alleviating loneliness across population groups. Providing social support or promoting social connection also show some positive impact, though their effects are generally weaker than those of psychological approaches. Interestingly, multicomponent interventions yield consistently positive results across studies but have mostly been conducted with samples of older adults. A number of limitations of the existing literature were noted, including some methodological weaknesses as well as low geographical and demographic heterogeneity.
EDUCATION ECONOMICS - Earnings of university dropouts across Europe - BERLINGIERI, F. and BOLZ, T.
Research article
This paper investigates relative earnings of individuals leaving tertiary education without a degree across 18 European countries employing survey data on adult workers.
We find that, on average, university dropouts earn 8% more than those never enrolling into tertiary education, but 25% less than university graduates.
Moreover, university dropouts do not appear to have better employment chances than other upper secondary graduates while they have a significantly lower employment probability than those graduating from tertiary education.
However, we document substantial heterogeneity across countries concerning whether university attendance without completion is rewarded in the labour market.
EDUCATION ECONOMICS, 34, 3, 2026, p. 406–427
BERLINGIERI, F., BOLZ, T.
THE JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC INEQUALITY - Taxation for development: the impact of the Ebola epidemic on citizen support across Western Africa - CABEZA MARTINEZ, B., DA COSTA, S. M.
Research article
We explore the impact of the Ebola epidemic on attitudes towards taxation for development in West Africa.
Utilising representative surveys from before and after the peak of the crisis, we estimate the impact of Ebola using both objective (recorded case rates) and self-reported (knowing a friend/relative who was infected/died from Ebola) measures of exposure.
In addition, we consider the indirect impact of Ebola on redistributive preferences through disruption to different domains of life, including: school, work, social gatherings and medical care.
Our empirical analysis demonstrates that higher levels of Ebola exposure and disruption are associated with greater levels of support for taxation for development.
J ECON INEQUAL 24, 231-260 (2026)
CABEZA MARTINEZ, B., DA COSTA, S. M.
SSM - MENTAL HEALTH - Social media use, loneliness and emotional distress among young ain Europe - D'HOMBRES, B., KOVACIC, M., CABEZA MARTINEZ, B.
Research article
Highlights
- Intensive use of social networking sites correlates positively with loneliness and emotional distress whereas excess use of messaging tools plays a very limited role.
- Gender and the strength of offline social networks moderate the association between intensive social media use and loneliness and emotional distress.
- Social Media engagement patterns—namely the distinction between passive and active use—play a limited mediating role.
SSM - MENTAL HEALTH, 9, 100621 (2026)
D'HOMBRES, B., KOVACIC, M., CABEZA MARTINEZ, B.
2025
PREPRINT - What contributes to effectiveness of loneliness interventions? Cross-EU investigation based on expert interviews - NURMINEN, M., CASABIANCA, E.
Preprint
Loneliness has a negative impact on mental and physical health and it is associated with inequalities at a societal level. In this context, interventions that can effectively alleviate loneliness are urgently needed. Yet, research on intervention effectiveness still has several unknowns.
Objective : To examine characteristics and factors that contribute to effectiveness of loneliness interventions using expert knowledge.
Methods : We conducted semi-structured interviews with 28 experts in 12 EU countries who implement and/or design loneliness interventions. Thematic analysis was applied to identify patterns in the data.
Results : Based on the expert interviews, five main areas that contribute to loneliness intervention effectiveness are identified: create connection, inclusiveness, role of facilitators, format of intervention, and evaluation. The study also allows to analyse concepts such as ‘tailoring’ and ‘stigma’ that are often referenced in intervention studies, but yet have missed a qualitative discussion about their meanings and practical implications. The findings are discussed within a three-level conceptual framework for understanding intervention effectiveness, emphasising that success can hinge on three key areas: the participant level, the implementation process, and the broader context in which the intervention is situated.
Conclusions : The analysis identified a set of characteristics that can contribute to intervention effectiveness to address loneliness across the EU. Policymakers may consider elements that support an enabling environment for effective interventions including ensuring resources for long-term interventions instead of short programmes, promoting public awareness raising campaigns to de-stigmatise loneliness, and supporting collaboration and coordination of services in the community.
JOURNAL OF REGIONAL SCIENCE - Local Labor Market Resilience: the Role of Digitalisation and Working from Home - BEN YAHMED, S., BERLINGIERI, F., BRUELL, E.
Research article
This article shows that digital capital and working from home were essential for the resilience of local labour markets in the context of the COVID-19 crisis in Germany.
Employment responses differed widely across local labour markets, with differences in short-time work rates of up to 30 percentage points at the beginning of the pandemic.
Using recent advancements in the difference-in-differences approach with a continuous treatment, we find that digital capital potential higher by one standard deviation led to a short-time work rate that was lower by 1.5 percentage points on average at the onset of the shock.
The effect was nonlinear, disproportionately disadvantaging regions at the lower end of the digital capital distribution. We also find that working from home potential led to lower short-time work, especially during the first lockdown period.
However, digital capital smoothed the employment shock beyond the effect of remote work, extending into 2021.
Moreover, local digital capital potential increased the adoption of remote work after the shock.
JOURNAL OF REGIONAL SCIENCE, 65: 1506-1532
BEN YAHMED, S., BERLINGIERI, F., BRUELL, E.
ECONSTORE - Disentangling loneliness and trust in populist voting behaviour in Europe - BERLINGIERI, F., D'HOMBRES, B., KOVACIC, M.
Research article
This paper explores the relationship between loneliness, trust, and populist voting across both extremes of the ideological spectrum.
The contribution of this research is mainly two-fold.
First, it considers different dimensions of loneliness and accounts for its predetermined component stemming from social isolation in childhood and adverse childhood experiences.
Second, it disentangles the effects of loneliness and trust by incorporating actual trust behaviour from a large-scale trust game experiment conducted in 27 European member states, involving more than 25,000 individuals. The richness of the data allows to account for and disentangle the impact of competitive explanatory factors such as emotions, objective social isolation, social media use and economic preferences.
The main findings suggest the following:
- Social loneliness significantly impacts populist voting, particularly on the extreme right, whereas the emotional dimension of loneliness is associated with more left-leaning, but non-populist, voting preferences;
- Higher levels of actual trust are associated with lower support for right-wing populist parties;
- Loneliness and trust operate through distinct channels: loneliness exerts a greater impact on women and older individuals, while trust plays a more significant role among men and middle-aged individuals;
- The effect of social loneliness on support of populist parties is significantly attenuated in contexts with a history of recurrent economic crises, suggesting a potential experience-based learning mechanism.
BERLINGIERI, F., D'HOMBRES, B., KOVACIC, M.
POLICY BRIEF - Gender Attitudes in the EU: Uneven Progress and Partial Polarisation - BERLINGIERI, F., CASABIANCA, E., NURMINEN, M., SMALLENBROEK, O., ZULUAGA, P.
Policy Brief
This Policy Brief uses data from several Eurobarometer surveys and shows that gender attitudes in the EU and their change over time are domain specific and uneven: these need to be studied as a multidimensional phenomenon.
Regarding the area of leadership, EU citizens feel increasingly comfortable with having women in the highest decision making roles since 2009. This trend is particularly pronounced for young men in Northern and Southern EU countries. In the area of economy, the belief that the family suffers when mothers work full-time has become less common over the past decade.
However, the beliefs of young men lag behind, leading to an attitude polarisation compared with young women. While the large majority of EU citizens does not accept acts of physical and sexual violence against women, there are higher rates of acceptance for online violence, such as non-consensual image sharing and sexist, demeaning or abusive comments.
Moreover, young men are more likely to accept violence than older men in particular contexts.
Policy recommendations include addressing stereotypes about gender roles in the economy as well as raising awareness about all forms of violence against women, especially among young men.
POLICY BRIEF
BERLINGIERI, F., CASABIANCA, E., NURMINEN, M., SMALLENBROEK, O., ZULUAGA, P.
THE JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC INEQUALITY - How information about effort and luck shapes altruism of social preferences: a survey experiment - CABEZA MARTÍNEZ, B., DECANCQ, K.
Scientific report
This paper introduces a test to compare the levels of altruism of social preferences over the decision maker’s own and another person’s monetary pay-off.
We propose a straightforward adaptive bisectional method for eliciting social preferences, applied in an online survey experiment with 573 decision makers. In the experiment, we provided randomized information about the other person’s effort and luck to assess how this information influences the altruism of the social preferences.
Our results reveal that decision makers exhibit greater altruism when informed of high effort and reduced altruism when the other person is perceived as lucky.
J ECON INEQUAL 23, 695–716 (2025)
CABEZA MARTÍNEZ, B., DECANCQ, K.
GLOBAL SOCIAL CHALLENGES JOURNAL - Work–life conflict in the European Union from 2010 to 2020: what explains levels and changes? - NURMINEN, M.
Scientific report
The reconciliation of work and personal life remains a global challenge for gender equality with important consequences for women’s employment, family and personal outcomes. Using data from the European Social Survey, this study examines perceived work–life conflict (WLC) in 21 EU countries comparing 2010 with 2020.
In the first part, the descriptive analysis shows an increase in the average WLC over the time period. The absolute increase is larger for women compared to men, and parents exhibit a higher level of WLC than non-parents in both time points, illustrating a persistent struggle to reconcile work and family.
Building on the framework of job demands and resources, three perspectives that could potentially account for changes in WLC are analysed:
(1) work intensity,
(2) non-standard employment
(3) work empowerment.
Applying a series of regression estimations, the analysis leads to the rejection of each of the three.
The second part examines alternative aspects using 2020 cross-sectional data.
Manager and collegial support are found to be associated with lower WLC. Digital communication with the line manager and expectation to be responsive outside working hours are associated with higher WLC.
The results suggest a need for a holistic understanding of job resources and demands that shape WLC of the EU working population today, in the mid-2020s, including meta-level factors such as workplace culture and digital communication in addition to broader labour-market trends.
The results contribute to policy discussions and workplace developments with a view to WLC and broader well-being from a cross-national perspective.
JOURNAL OF POPULATION ECONOMICS - Health and relationship quality of sexual minorities in Europe - BERLINGIERI, F. AND KOVACIC, M.
Research article
A growing body of literature investigates inequalities between sexual minorities and their heterosexual peers. This paper deals with disparities in health, health-related behaviours, and relationship quality among LGB+ individuals.
We use a novel data set that allows for a wide cross-national analysis (27 EU member states) of disparities between sexual minorities and the rest of the population, as well as differences in reporting sexual orientation.
We consider a rich set of social stressors, individual-specific behavioural factors, and health outcomes, as well as novel para-data (i.e., individuals’ response times) that are not available in other large surveys.
The results indicate that sexual minorities are more exposed to stigma-related social stressors (both in childhood and adulthood), report worse physical and mental health conditions, feel more lonely, and are more likely to engage in coping strategies aimed at reducing or adapting to stressful conditions.
Some of these findings significantly differ across gay, lesbian, and bisexual individuals and with respect to household income, the country’s enforcement of sexual minorities’ rights, and relationship status.
JOURNAL OF POPULATION ECONOMICS, 38, 1, 2025, p. 15, SPRINGER
BERLINGIERI, F. AND KOVACIC, M.
2024
ECONOMICS & HUMAN BIOLOGY - Long-term exposure to ambient PM2.5 and population health: evidence from linked census data - ROWLAND, N., MCVICAR, D., VLACHOS, S., JAHANSHAHI, B., MCGOVERN, M. E., O'REILLY, D.
Research article
Highlights
- We examined long-run pollution impacts on health in nationally representative Census data.
- We considered self-rated general health, disability, and 11 other domain-specific health conditions adjusting for confounders.
- 1 km grid-square annual PM2.5 concentrations were associated with poor general health and some domain-specific conditions
- Most associations were qualitatively robust to analyses designed to examine robustness to unmeasured confounders
- Higher long-term exposure to ambient PM2.5 increased the probability of reporting poor general health and other conditions.
ECONOMICS & HUMAN BIOLOGY - Volume 55, 12/2024, 101417
ROWLAND, N., MCVICAR, D., VLACHOS, S., JAHANSHAHI, B., MCGOVERN, M. E., O'REILLY, D.
JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC BEHAVIOR & ORGANIZATION - Historical roots of loneliness and its impact on second-generation immigrants' health - CASABIANCA, E., KOVACIC, M.
Research article
This paper examines the relationship between historical cultural norms and attitudes towards loneliness, specifically within the context of second-generation immigrants. We uncover an intergenerationally transmitted cultural element that emphasizes restraint and adherence to strict rules characterizing highly-intensive pre-industrial agricultural systems.
This cultural dimension significantly impacts how individuals perceive their social relationships and influences their likelihood of experiencing loneliness.
Additionally, we demonstrate that the identified cultural trait serves as a predictor of loneliness in a two-stage model for health. Our research shows that loneliness directly impacts body mass index and specific mental health issues, and these findings hold true across a battery of sensitivity checks.
The results add to the existing body of research highlighting the importance of attitudes in predicting economic and health outcomes, shedding light on how deeply ingrained geographical, cultural, and individual characteristics can shape economic development processes in both home and host countries.
JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC BEHAVIOR & ORGANIZATION - VOLUME 224, 8/2024, PAGES 407-437
CASABIANCA, E., KOVACIC, M.
BOOK - The pandemic, socioeconomic disadvantage, and learning outcomes Cross-national impact analyses of education policy reforms - SCHNEPF, S. V., VOLANTE, L., KLINGER, D. A., GIANCOLA, O., SALMIERI, L.
Book
The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the learning process of more than 1.5 billion students and youth around the world. The abrupt and unplanned shift to online schooling had a negative impact on student learning and achievement, with the greatest challenges experienced by the most vulnerable learners. Scientific evidence from across the globe is revealing the scale of the learning losses attributable to the school restrictions in response to the pandemic.
The literature discussing the efficacy of policy interventions developed to address this generational challenge is very much limited to deliberations about reforming national education systems. Relatively little available research considers this topic from a cross-national perspective.
The current volume, The Pandemic, Socioeconomic Disadvantage and Learning Outcomes: Cross-National Impact Analyses of Education Policy Reforms, provides a timely and detailed cross-cultural and comparative analysis of the relationship between pandemic-related school restrictions, learning loss and education policy development. Cases from Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Hungary and England provide a close examination of the pressing learning challenges precipitated by COVID-19 and its disproportionate impact on socioeconomically disadvantaged students.
The chapters collected in this volume are about the application of counterfactual methods for estimating the learning loss caused by pandemic-related school restrictions.
The results reported here go far beyond just monitoring learning outcomes before and after the pandemic; they contribute to our understanding of the differential impacts of pandemic related school restrictions across education systems and offer implications for pandemic-era schooling contexts, making us better prepared for future crises.
Past event: Book launch details
BOOK
SCHNEPF, S. V., VOLANTE, L., KLINGER, D. A., GIANCOLA, O., SALMIERI, L.
THE JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC INEQUALITY - Intergenerational mobility in the Netherlands: models, outcomes and trends - COLAGROSSI, M., GERACI, A. AND MAZZARELLA, G.
Research article
We reconstruct the genealogical tree of all individuals ever appearing in Dutch municipalities records starting in 1995. Combining microdata from tax authorities with education records we compute a measure of permanent income as well as education.
We estimate the degree of intergenerational persistence in education and income in the population and across time, showing that it is higher than what previous estimates would suggest, albeit it appears to be decreasing.
Finally, exploiting information on the education of paternal and maternal grandparents, we estimate a model of intergenerational mobility in which endowments are transmitted through a latent factor.
Estimates suggest an even higher persistence.
J ECON INEQUAL 21, 775–788 (2023)
COLAGROSSI, M., GERACI, A. AND MAZZARELLA, G.
ECONOMICS OF EDUCATION REVIEW - Study Abroad Programmes and Student Outcomes: Evidence from Erasmus
Research article
Exploiting admission thresholds for participating in Erasmus, the most popular higher education study abroad programme in Europe, we implement a regression discontinuity design and show that student mobility does not delay graduation and, in addition, has a positive and significant impact on the final graduation marks of undergraduate students.
We find that Erasmus mobility improves graduation results for undergraduate students enrolled in scientific and technical fields and for those who apply in the first year of their studies, especially when enrolled in more demanding degree courses. Investigating plausible mechanisms, we find that the positive impact on performance at graduation is stronger for students who visit foreign universities of relatively lower quality compared to their home university.
Finally, we do not find statistically significant effects of Erasmus mobility on postgraduate educational choices and labour market outcomes one year after graduation.
ECONOMICS OF EDUCATION REVIEW, VOLUME 99, 2024, 102510
GRANATO, S., HAVARI, E., MAZZARELLA, G., SCHNEPF, S. V.
JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC BEHAVIOR & ORGANIZATION - Online Health Information Seeking Behavior, Healthcare Access, and Health Status During Exceptional Times - DI NOVI, C., KOVACIC, M., ORSO, C.
Scientific article
Online health information seeking behavior (e-HISB) is becoming increasingly common and the trend has accelerated as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic when individuals strongly relied upon the Internet to stay informed by becoming exposed to a wider array of health information. Despite e-HISB having become a global trend, very few empirical investigations have analyzed its potential impact on healthcare access and individuals’health status.
In this paper, we try to fill this gap. We use data from the second SHARE Corona Survey and estimate a recursive model of e-HISB, healthcare access, and individuals’ health status that accounts for individuals’ unobserved heterogeneity.
The most interesting result concerns the e-HISB indirect effect on individuals poor health through healthcare access, that is positive. Arguably, patients use information from the Internet to cope with their perceived vulnerability to illness, but they lack the ability to understand the medical information: an incorrect self-diagnosis may increase the likelihood of doctor visits for them, which, in turn, also increases the likelihood of perceiving a poor health status.
JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC BEHAVIOR & ORGANIZATION, VOLUME 220, 2024, PAGES 675-690
DI NOVI, C., KOVACIC, M., ORSO, C.
2023
SOCIAL SCIENCE & MEDICINE - Risk factors for loneliness: A literature review - BARJAKOVÁ, M., GARNERO, A., D'HOMBRES, B.
Research article
Highlights
- A review of over one hundred articles examining risk factors for loneliness
- Socio-demographic factors have mostly indirect links to loneliness
- Social network characteristics and partner status matter the most for loneliness
- Many risk factors for loneliness are interrelated and impact each other
- Risk factors for loneliness remained roughly the same during the COVID-19 pandemic
SOCIAL SCIENCE & MEDICINE, VOLUME 334, 2023
BARJAKOVÁ, M., GARNERO, A., D'HOMBRES, B.
JOURNAL OF HEALTH ECONOMICS - Intimate partner violence and help-seeking: The role of femicide news - COLAGROSSI, M., DEIANA, C., DRAGONE, D., GERACI, A., GIUA, L. AND IORI, E.
Research article
Exploiting high-frequency data from the Italian anti-violence helpline, police reports of domestic abuse and maltreatments, and a unique geolocalized dataset on killings of women, we show that the news coverage of a femicide triggers an increase in help-seeking behavior.
The effect is detectable in the period following the news and in the province where the femicide has occurred. Additionally, help-seeking increases more when the general interest and news coverage are higher.
These findings are consistent with a model in which femicide news increase expectations about future intimate partner violence in case no action is taken.
Our results imply that recurrent information campaigns and public discussion can foster help-seeking from survivors of gender-based violence.
JOURNAL OF HEALTH ECONOMICS, 87, 2023, P. 102722
COLAGROSSI, M., DEIANA, C., DRAGONE, D., GERACI, A., GIUA, L. AND IORI, E.
ECONOMICS OF EDUCATION REVIEW - Preferred Field of Study and Academic Performance - BERLINGIERI, F., DIEGMANN, A. AND SPRIETSMA, M.
Research article
This paper investigates the impact of studying the first-choice university subject on dropout and switching field of study for a cohort of students in Germany.
Using detailed survey data, and employing an instrumental variable strategy based on variation in the local field of study availability, we provide evidence that students who are not enrolled in their preferred field of study are more likely to change their field, delay graduation and drop out of university.
The estimated impact on dropout is particularly strong among students of low socio-economic status and is likely to be driven by lower effort and motivation.
ECONOMICS OF EDUCATION REVIEW, 95, 2023, P. 102409
BERLINGIERI, F., DIEGMANN, A. AND SPRIETSMA, M.
BMC PUBLIC HEALTH - Adolescents’ loneliness in European schools: a multilevel exploration of school environment and individual factors - SCHNEPF, S., BOLDRINI, M. AND ZSUZSA, B.
Scientific report
Loneliness has been recognised as a public health issue and has moved into a number of European countries’ policy agendas. Literature examining loneliness in young people (and especially in adolescents) is scarce, but it does show that at this age feelings of loneliness have been increasing in recent decades and are detrimental for both adolescents’ current and future well-being. In order to explain loneliness, current literature focuses generally on individual, rather than on broader, environmental characteristics.
This study examines school associates of loneliness and compares their importance to those at the individual level because schools are the most important places in which adolescents are socially embedded. In addition, policy interventions on loneliness might be more feasible at the school than the individual level.
This is the first study to compare school level and individual level factors relating to youth loneliness in schools throughout Europe. Results emphasising the importance of school environment for explaining adolescents’ loneliness suggest that school level initiatives may be most appropriate in tackling loneliness when compared to wider and less contextualized national policies that focus on adolescents outside of school.
BMC PUBLIC HEALTH, 23 (1), 2023, p. 1917
SCHNEPF, S., BOLDRINI, M. AND ZSUZSA, B.
JOURNAL OF BEHAVIORAL AND EXPERIMENTAL ECONOMICS - Social preferences, support for redistribution, and attitudes towards vulnerable groups - CABEZA MARTINEZ, B.
Research article
In this work, I explore the explanatory power of experimentally-elicited social preferences over self-reported support for redistribution. Social preferences are obtained by means of a simplified dictator game embedded in an online survey that also includes a questionnaire on preferences for redistribution, beliefs, inequality perceptions, and ideological positioning. I find that social preferences covary strongly with self-reported support for increased taxation.
Besides, more generous social preference types are more likely to have favourable views towards specific welfare beneficiaries, especially those usually regarded as less deserving, such as migrants, the unemployed, or the poor.
Some elements that correlate negatively with preferences for redistribution are being older than 65, having a right-wing ideology, believing that personal effort is the main driver of one’s economic position, and distrusting others; while being a parent or perceiving high inequality have the opposite effect.
Social preferences help thus further understand public support for redistribution and the political feasibility of redistributive policies.
JOURNAL OF POPULATION ECONOMICS - Who's afraid of immigration? The effect of economic preferences on tolerance - KOVACIC, M. AND ORSO, C. E.
Research article
This paper suggests that intergenerationally transmitted ancestral characteristics have a significant impact on attitudes toward immigration.
Using a sub-population of second-generation immigrants from the European Social Survey (ESS), we find that historical and linguistic factors that contributed to weaker long-term orientation and higher risk aversion are associated with a greater concern, especially among medium and low-skilled workers, about the economic consequences of immigration and the admission of poorer immigrants.
The results are robust to alternative sample definitions, estimation methodology, a rich set of geographical controls, and several potential confounding factors at the country of origin level.
JOURNAL OF POPULATION ECONOMICS, 36 (3), 2023, p. 1901-1940
KOVACIC, M. AND ORSO, C. E.