Gabriel Burdin

Wrapping up a great visit to CREM @rennesuniv.bsky.social — PhD committee, seminar, and now a day off in stunning Saint-Malo.

Many thanks to colleagues for the invitation and insightful exchanges.

It is finally online the SI of the EER that we guest-edited together with @pgpiacquadio.bsky.social, @danielwaldenstrom.bsky.social, and Jakob Madsen. The full list of papers is available here: www.sciencedirect.com/special-issu...

Thank you to everyone who joined us for our @deps-siena.bsky.social Research Day! 📊 A great showcase of faculty work.

#Economics #Statistics #Siena #ResearchDay

Paper: Beliefs and Demand for Employee Ownership Among Young Adults (with Fabio Landini)

👉https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5362985

Policy takeaway:

💡 Low-cost informational interventions can boost societal support for employee ownership.

But belief updating alone may not trigger career choices → deeper barriers remain.

Methodological note:

👉Demand effects: shift in policy preferences persists even in an obfuscated follow-up survey
👉(Non-preregistered) analysis of open-text responses with human coders + ChatGPT adjudication of disputes

Implications:

👉Worker ownership has the potential to improve firm and worker outcomes

👉Uptake is low not only due to wealth constraints, risk aversion or decision costs, as emphasized by traditional explanations, but also due to biased priors and negative narratives.

We also asked: “What’s the first word you think of when you hear co-op?”

Control: “exploitation,” “low pay,” “instability.”
Treatment: “solidarity,” “cooperation,” “jobs.”

Information reduced negative first-order concerns about cooperatives and increased positive ones.

We exposed half the sample to expert-based judgments.

Result:

✅ Beliefs shifted (more optimistic)
✅ Policy support ↑ (“govt should support the creation of co-ops”)
❌ BUT career intentions did not change

5/

Left-leaning and more educated respondents hold more optimistic prior beliefs about cooperatives

4/

We also asked a sample of international experts to evaluate existing evidence across similar performance dimensions.

🔍 Priors: Young adults were much more pessimistic than international experts about the relative performance of worker cooperatives.

3/

We ran a preregistered experiment guided by a detailed pre-analysis plan involving 2,000 young adults in Italy.

We asked: what do people believe about worker co-ops vs conventional firms (firm productivity, survival, inequality, employment stability)?

2/

🚨 New paper update!

Why are employee-owned firms with majority workforce control (e.g., worker cooperatives) so rare, despite evidence showing they perform at least as well as investor-owned firms in many contexts?

We argue: beliefs play a key role.

🧵

Just a few days left to apply for this additional fully funded PhD position. Happy to provide additional guidance

#econsky

📢 Our new wp "Beliefs and Demand for Employee Ownership Among Young Adults" (with Fabio Landini) is out!

Still a working draft - comments are welcome!

Link 👉 papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

📢5 additional fully funded positions available in the PhD Programme in Economics of the Tuscan Universities (Florence, Pisa & Siena)!

One tied to research on worker voice, collective bargaining, wages & tech change.

Apply by July 30, 2025 👉
phdeconomics.unisi.it/admission-pr...

#econsky

The PhD Programme in Economics of the Tuscan Universities is pleased to announce a supplementary call for applications.

We are offering 5 additional fully funded PhD positions (with scholarships).

Deadline: July 30, 2025

Information: 👉 phdeconomics.unisi.it/admission-pr...

🎉 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

🚨New paper out!

"Property rights, sick pay and effort supply" in J. of Development Economics (w @pablobl.bsky.social @andresdean.bsky.social)

Using variation in Uruguay’s sick pay, we study how absenteeism varies between worker co-ops and conventional firms.

doi.org/10.1016/j.jd...

#econsky

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

👇

We're thinking big!

Have a look at @DepsUSiena new Distinguished Visiting Scholar Program! #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 👇

The call for applications for the PhD in Economics at the Tuscan Universities is out! (Deadline: June 9, 2025)

If you have ideas in labor and organizational economics and a credible research design in mind, I encourage you to apply. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions. #econsky

🚨8th Hahn Lecture🚨

Prof. Matthew O. Jackson is discussing the relevance of different forms of social capital

#Inequality #SocialMobility #ConnectionsMatter

@deps-siena.bsky.social

Join us tomorrow for the 8th Hahn Lecture!

@deps-siena.bsky.social

Students lured to UK universities by ‘fake promises’ from recruitment agents Cash-strapped institutions turn to unregulated firms to reel in lucrative overseas income

Really good, really important reporting by @georginaq.bsky.social:

Our paper "Property Rights, Sick Pay and Effort Supply" (w/ Andres Dean & Pablo Blanchard) has been accepted for publication at Journal of Development Economics. #econsky

Latest version:
www.iza.org/publications...

Our paper "Property Rights, Sick Pay and Effort Supply" (w/ Andres Dean & Pablo Blanchard) has been accepted for publication at Journal of Development Economics. #econsky

Latest version:
www.iza.org/publications...

Our @deps-siena.bsky.social has long been a vibrant and plural hub for leading economic thinkers.

Frank Hahn (1925–2013), a professor at the University of Siena and coordinator of our PhD program, is honored through the Annual Hahn Lecture.
www.deps.unisi.it/en/research/...

#SienaGreatEconMinds