Filippo Belloc

📢SAVE THE DATE

26 May 2026

Our department @deps-siena.bsky.social is honoured to announce that Nobel Laureate Prof. James Robinson (@UChicago) will deliver the 9th Hahn Lecture.

www.deps.unisi.it/en/research/...

📢 May 2026

We are delighted to announce that leading labour economist Prof. Alan Manning from @cep-lse.bsky.social will be visiting
@deps-siena.bsky.social next May as part of our Distinguished Visiting Scholar Program

Description of the figure: AI intensity across European regions (left panel) and the cumulative change in the labour share between 2000 and 2017 (right panel). In regions with higher AI intensity, the labour income share tended to decrease during the overall time span. The swift rise of artificial intelligence is raising fundamental concerns about the future of work. This column uses data from 238 regions across 21 European countries to examine how AI-related innovation influences the distribution of income between labour and capital, and among different skill classes of labour. Regions with more intense AI patenting tend to experience a decline in the labour share of income, especially in areas with a strong industrial base, indicating that AI acts as a capital-biased innovation. Without appropriate policy intervention, this trend could exacerbate existing inequalities.

Antonio Minniti, Klaus Prettner, Francesco Venturini, & David Bloom find that European regions with more intense #AI patenting tend to experience a decline in the labour share of income, indicating that AI acts as a capital-biased innovation.
cepr.org/voxeu/column...
#EconSky

Figure shows average share of firms reporting that they use AI by country groups, controlling for firms’ sector. The error bars represent 95% confidence intervals. EU countries are grouped based on an index of financial development using financial market data from 2015 to 2023 and consisting of two composite indicators: (i) financial market size and integration, and (ii) financial market depth. Artificial intelligence promises to reshape economies worldwide, but firm-level evidence on its effects in Europe remains scarce. This column uses survey data to examine how AI adoption affects productivity and employment across more than 12,000 European firms. The authors find that AI adoption increases labour productivity levels by 4% on average in the EU, with no evidence of reduced employment in the short run. The productivity benefits, however, are unevenly distributed. Medium and large firms, as well as firms that have the capacity to integrate AI through investments in intangible assets and human capital, experience substantially stronger productivity gains.

AI adoption increases labour productivity levels by 4% on average in the EU, w/ no evidence of reduced employment in the short run. Productivity benefits, however, are unevenly distributed.
@aldasoro.bsky.social, L Gambacorta, R Pál, D Revoltella, C Weiss, M Wolski
cepr.org/voxeu/column...
#EconSky

Thanks to the JRC in Ispra for hosting me today! I presented our joint paper with Antonino Lofaro on corporate subsidies and market structure, and we’re grateful for the constructive feedback — plenty to think about as we move forward with the project
#Subsidies #IndustrialPolicy #IO

🚀 Happy to take part in the Workshop on Firms, Trade and Productivity in a New Era of Geoeconomic Fragmentation.

I’ll be presenting my work on “Subsidies and firm entry” alongside an excellent lineup of speakers.

📍 Two days of discussions on automation, trade resilience, and industrial policy!

If worker co-operatives work, why aren’t there more of them? - LSE Business Review Firms with majority workforce control are generally successful but increasingly rare. Why don’t more employees own and control the companies they work for?

If worker co-operatives work, why aren’t there more of them?

@gabrielburdin.bsky.social @deps-siena.bsky.social and Fabio Landini (University of Parma) for @lsebr.bsky.social

🚀 New IJIO special issue on Industrial Policy and IO now live!

Fantastic collection of papers on how industrial policy shapes firm behavior, market structure, innovation, and productivity.

Pushing the debate beyond slogans toward credible evidence.

👉 shorturl.at/B3Ygs

#IndustrialPolicy #IO

Just published!
👉 shorturl.at/uBbIP

🚨 New paper accepted in IJIO!

We study +30k subsidy initiatives:

• Subsidies boost entry of ~5.5% less productive firms
• Unconditional tax breaks & loans drive the negative effects
• Intl., SME-focused & green/automation subsidies can improve entrant quality

👉 tinyurl.com/2b3kzbdm

More soon!

Is TFP clean or dirty? The nexus between environmental and economic efficiency Improvements in economic productivity are a key driver of economic growth and a primary objective of many national and international policy initiative…

Can higher productivity also mean cleaner production? 🌿
Our new paper (accepted in Energy Economics) finds that more productive firms cause less emissions per unit of output, but also more emissions per unit of input, with high cross-firm heterogeneity: smart regulation is key!
👉 shorturl.at/r8k3Z

Nel deserto lasciato dalla guerra, l’università deve parlare Fatta — o forse solo dichiarata — la pace, resta il deserto che la guerra ha lasciato. Ora tocca a noi. Alle università spetta la responsabilità più difficile: la ricostruzione culturale, la progettaz...

Nel deserto lasciato dalla guerra, l'università deve parlare www.roars.it/nel-deserto-... @filippobelloc.bsky.social

MIT refuses to accept White House terms for funding, other schools still mulling Massachusetts Institute of Technology President Sally Kornbluth on Friday said she "cannot support" a memo that the White House sent to nine elite U.S. universities last week detailing policies they should follow to get preferential consideration for federal funding.

MIT refuses to accept White House terms for funding, other schools still mulling reut.rs/471tkNZ

📢Evento di riflessione su Gaza

13 ottobre, 10 am

Aula Cripta - San Francesco, #Siena

Organizzato da @deps-siena.bsky.social #DISAG

We are not indifferent to the ongoing dramatic humanitarian situation in Gaza.

We warmly welcome three Palestinian students joining our Economics & Management study programme — two supported through @deps-siena.bsky.social -funded scholarships.

The Effects of Worker Voice on Manufacturing Pay and Productivity | MIT Sloan New research finds that when manufacturing companies regularly incorporate worker feedback and ideas, both productivity and worker pay are generally higher.

What happens when manufacturing companies regularly incorporate worker feedback and ideas into their production processes? Productivity is generally higher—and so is production worker pay. New findings from Dylan Nelson of UIUC & @natewilmers.bsky.social @mitiwer.bsky.social:
tinyurl.com/4vhswpvr

📢 TODAY

The ‘missing intercept’ problem with going from micro to macro Many applied microeconomics papers conclude with a back-of-the-envelope calculation that scales their cross-sectional estimates to the aggregate level. These types of aggregate estimates are only vali...

Very useful discussion on the perils of using micro/cross-sectional parameter estimates in inferring the aggregate effects of policies/shocks. This is pervasive in Economics, yet the two effects can even have the opposite signs. (Example in next post.) voxdev.org/topic/method...

📢 One PhD scholarship available!

Conduct research on Worker Voice, Wages & Technological Change: The Role of Collective Bargaining, Unions & Employee Representation.

Deadline: Sept 5, 2025 2 pm (CET)

Application procedure:
unisi.it/ricerca/dott...

www.nytimes.com/2025/08/19/o...

New capitalism III: Capital Why is capital so concentrated and why so few have it?

Exceptional work from @brankomilan.bsky.social on 'new capitalism'

'We estimate that 85% of the people in the world are capital-income destitute. In other words, the world’s financial and productive assets are owned by 15% of its inhabitants (households).'

branko2f7.substack.com/p/the-new-ca...

#AI is the crop that only few fields can grow. @markmuro1.bsky.social & ‪@shriyared.bsky.social find that two Bay cities bag 13% of #US AI hiring. They divide America into superstars and also-rans, revealing big adoption gaps.
Investment beyond the coasts is needed. www.brookings.edu/articles/map...

🎉 Just accepted in JEBO!

“Incentive Pay, Managerial Skills and Span of Control”
w/ F. Landini & S. Dughera.

Why do some firms rely more on bonuses than others? We show that incentive pay is more likely when managers are better educated and hierarchies are wider.

WP 👉 shorturl.at/7LgAj

The Annual Meeting of the PhD in Economics of the Tuscan Universities (Florence, Pisa & Siena) is ongoing!

Our PhD students are presenting their research and receiving constructive feedback from discussants and faculty members.

#Pontignano #econsky

🚨THIS WEEK🚨

Our PhD Annual Meeting kicks off this week, 10–12 June!

We'll spend three days at the beautiful Certosa di Pontignano (Siena), sharing and discussing our PhD students' research and strengthening our community.

Program:
phdeconomics.unisi.it/wp-content/u...

How administrative data fosters young economists’ careers Unlocking potential or reinforcing hierarchies?

‘Based on admin data...’ 📊

Administrative data access for young economists improves research visibility and career progression but may reinforce existing disparities in the academic economics community.

New IZA paper by A Lepinteur & @rnistico.bsky.social‬ 👇
newsroom.iza.org/en/archive/r...

🚨Our @deps-siena.bsky.social is launching a new Distinguished Visiting Scholar Program!

We welcome leading economists conducting broad and impactful research. The program offers fully-funded academic visits lasting 1–3 weeks.

More information 👇
www.deps.unisi.it/en/avvisi/ca...

#econsky

🧨 🧨 @deps-siena.bsky.social launches a fully funded Distinguished Visiting Scholar Program! We welcome scholars from any field of economics. Apply now and share your vision with us! More info below 👇

Environmental regulation and pollution abatement under incremental innovation We propose a simple framework for modeling abatement decisions by regulated polluters in a carbon pricing regime, when firms can reduce emissions both…

Just published! We model how firms cut emissions under carbon pricing by mixing output control & innovation. Firms balance both to minimize costs, shifting towards innovation as prices rise. Data from EU-ETS supports our model, showing growing tech gaps across firms & countries. shorturl.at/Fv6Tf

A long long time ago, in a far away galaxy... the US used to tax the rich