Università della Svizzera italiana

Three essays in labor economics

Gentili, Elena ; Mazzonna, Fabrizio (Dir.)

Thèse de doctorat : Università della Svizzera italiana, 2019 ; 2019ECO003.

In this thesis, I investigate two of the main challenges faced by developed societies: aging and migration. In the first chapter, I consider the cultural determinants of elderly care arrangement decisions. The empirical strategy focuses on the three German and French speaking Swiss bilingual cantons. Particularly, since the structure of long-term care provision is planned at cantonal level, I...

Università della Svizzera italiana

The role of culture in long-term care arrangement decisions

Gentili, Elena ; Masiero, Giuliano ; Mazzonna, Fabrizio

In: Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 2017, vol. 143, p. 186-200

In this paper, we show how and to what extent cultural factors may influence the LTC market and elderly living arrangements. Using a spatial regression discontinuity design, we exploit the within-state variation in language groups in Switzerland to provide evidence about cultural differences in LTC use. We show that elderly people residing in regions speaking a Latin language (French, Italian...

Università della Svizzera italiana

What drives the substitutability between native and foreign workers? : evidence about the role of language

Gentili, Elena ; Mazzonna, Fabrizio

This paper investigates the role of language in determining the degree of substitutability between foreign and native workers. To this end, we focus on Switzerland, an immigration-receiving country with four official languages spoken, three of which in common with bordering countries. We modify the model proposed by Ottaviano and Peri (2012) to account for the linguistic background of native...

Università della Svizzera italiana

The role of culture in long-term care

Gentili, Elena ; Masiero, Giuliano ; Mazzonna, Fabrizio

The aim of this paper is to assess the role of culture in shaping individual preferences to- wards different long-term care (LTC) arrangements. The analysis uses Swiss data from two administrative databases covering the universe of formal LTC providers between 2007 and 2013. Switzerland is a multi-cultural confederation where state administrative borders do not always coincide with cultural...