Biography

My research interests deal with policy evaluation, inequality and poverty dynamics, the economics of education and fertility decisions.
As a Ph.D. student, I developed awareness of the problems concerning identification of policy-relevant parameters in observational studies, and learnt about  the latest evaluation methods (e.g., Regression Discontinuity Design). I developed my communication skills both teaching (school of statistics and of economics, University of Padova) and presenting results of my research in  national and international workshops and conferences.
I graduated in statistics at the University of Padova (November 2001).  My dissertation dealt with poverty dynamics in Italy, focusing on the characterization of transient and permanent effects of risk factors on household disposable income. I extended this analysis during a 3-month visiting period  (Marie-Curie Fellowship 2003) at the Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER, Colchester).
I defended my Ph.D. in statistics at the University of Padova, Department of Statistics, in September 2005.  My dissertation (“Education and the Timing of Births: Evidence from a Natural Experiment in Italy”) assesses the causal effects of education on the timing of first birth and on completed fertility of Italian women allowing for heterogeneity in the effects across individuals while controlling for self-selection of women into education. Findings have been published in my research group and in the ISER working paper series.
Since 2001, I have been a member of the research group “Dynamics and inertia in the Italian labour market and policy evaluation”. My research activities over the last four years have been supported by a fellowship funded the Italian Ministry of the University and Scientific Research, by a MIUR grant to the project “Evaluating the effects of labour market policies and incentive to firms and welfare policies: methodological issues and case studies” and by grants to the project “Advanced Multidisciplinary Analysis of New Data on Ageing”