CSEF – Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance, University of Naples Federico II

Italy

DEGLI STUDI DI NAPOLI FEDERICO II (CSEF) is a joint venture between the University of Naples Federico II, the University of Salerno, and Bocconi University. Its headquarters are located at the Department of Economics of the University of Naples Federico II. Its primary aim is to perform and foster research on financial economics, household choices and microeconomic theory. It links up researchers in Naples, Salerno and Bocconi with international research on these issues via seminars, conferences, exchange of researchers and joint research projects.

The Centre has 32 Research Fellows, of whom 13 based at the University of Naples Federico II, seven at the University of Salerno, four at Bocconi University, and the remaining eight in other universities in Italy and abroad. CSEF regularly hosts researchers and doctoral students from other Italian universities and other countries. It is directed by Professor Tullio Jappelli and managed by Ms Stefania Maddaluno.

CSEF features a weekly research seminar open to faculty and doctoral students and organizes workshops and conferences. In recent years it has been running two regular yearly conferences: the CSEFIGIER Symposium on Economics and Institutions and the Workshop for Italian PhD Students in Economics.

CSEF has a series of online working papers, with about 25 papers per year. The working paper series list ranks 3rd in Italy in terms of impact factor. It ranks 66th in the world based on the IDEAS/RePEc Recursive Impact Factors, which weighs each citation by the impact factor of the citing items, this impact factor being itself computed recursively in the same fashion (the recursive impact factors being normalized so that the average citation has a weight of 1, and citation counts being adjusted to exclude citations from the same series).

CSEF has a series of online working papers, with about 25 papers per year. These are widely consulted and read: the working paper series list ranks 3rd in Italy in terms of impact factor: the h statistic is 16 for CSEF, 24 for Bocconi University and 17 for the Bank of Italy. It ranks 66th in the world based on the IDEAS/RePEc Recursive Impact Factors, which weighs each citation by the impact factor of the citing items, this impact factor being itself computed recursively in the same fashion (the recursive impact factors being normalized so that the average citation has a weight of 1, and citation counts being adjusted to exclude citations from the same series).

The Centre applies for research grants as an independent entity, and has been able to run national and international research projects efficiently, in some cases as the coordinating institution. Research projects currently carried out at CSEF are funded by the Compagnia di San Paolo, the EU Seventh Framework Programme, the Italian Ministry of University and Research (MIUR) and the Unicredit Group. In the past decade, CSEF has managed ten international projects funded by the European Union.

Key personnel involved in the project

Tullio Jappelli, professor of economics at the University of Naples
Marco Pagano, professor of economics at the University of Naples
Mario Padula, associate professor of econometrics, University of Venice
Dimitris Christelis, CSEF Fellow
Michela Ponzo, assistant professor at the University of Naples
Renata Bottazzi, assistant professor of economics, University of Bologna
One post-doctoral researcher hired through the project

Main tasks attributed to them in the project

As part of UNINA CSEF, will contribute to Pension systems, savings and financial education developing a project on saving, portfolio choice, social security and financial information. CSEF plans to study theoretically and empirically the joint determination of financial literacy, consumption, wealth and asset allocation.

In particular, CSEF plans to explore several hypothesis:
(1) whether individuals with limited information decumulate less wealth during retirement than more informed individuals;}
(2) if wealth decumulation after retirement is smaller the more generous the social security system;
(3) whether the extent of decumulation of financial literacy after retirement is smaller the more generous the social security system;
(4) if the risky asset share during retirement depends on the stock of financial information. CSEF plans to test these hypothesis using the Survey of Health, Ageing, Retirement in Europe (SHARE), a representative sample of 50+ in 11 European countries in 2003-09.

The project has the potential to make changes to current policies. By raising awareness, financial policy makers will be able to promote wealth accumulation during the working period, but also faster rates of wealth decumulation after retirement. It should also have a positive impact on social security (and particularly the creation of pension funds), by raising the incentive to invest in financial literacy, and could lead also to improvements in financial literacy and saving. CSEF also plans to contribute to the project studying two related themes that are important for the elderly, namely the economics of pension reforms and the wealth effects on consumption of capital losses (and particularly of housing).

Short profile of all personnel and previous relevant experience

Tullio Jappelli

Tullio (project coordinator and director of CSEF) is professor of economics at the UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI NAPOLI FEDERICO II. He has a PhD in economics from Boston College. His current research focuses on saving, intergenerational transfers, liquidity constraints, household portfolio choice and pension reforms. He has been involved in many research projects sponsored by international organizations (NBER, CEPR, World Bank, EU) and has coordinated the European Research and Training Network on the Economics Aging in Europe (AGE).

Marco Pagano

Marco (PhD MIT) is professor of economics at the UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI NAPOLI FEDERICO II. His research interests include financial economics, corporate finance and banking microeconometrics, public economics, consumption, saving and labour supply behaviour and pension reforms.

Dimitris Christelis

Dimitris (PhD University of Pennsylvania) is a Researcher at CSEF. His research interests range from imputation methodologies for missing data to saving and portfolio choice of the elderly.

Mario Padula

Mario (PhD University College London) is associate professor of econometrics at the University of Venice and works in the area of saving, portfolio choice and pension reforms.

We also plan to involve four young researchers:

Michela Ponzo a research fellow hired through the project

Michela (Master at University College Dublin) specializes in labour economics and applied econometrics, and Renata Bottazzi (PhD University College London) whose research is on saving, homeownership and pension reforms.

CSEF - Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance website