Do European countries differ in the efficiency of their welfare policies? And which factors can account for such variability? To address these questions, we perform a two-stage efficiency analysis. First, based on a composite output indicator for social protection expenditure, we measure efficiency by means of the Free Disposable Hull and Data Envelopment Analysis techniques. Second, we perform an econometric analysis to identify the factors that can be associated to cross-country differences. We find that countries scoring higher efficiency have higher education and GDP levels, a smaller population size, a lower degree of selectivity of their welfare systems and a lower corruption level.

Based on the construction of a composite index to assess the relative performance of welfare policies, we show that the variability of performances cannot be explained only by the amount of resources devoted to social policies, but also by its composition: countries with higher shares of social public expenditure, specifically aimed at reducing income concentration, obtain better results. This associates the traditional classification of the European welfare systems to the performance obtained in the social sector.

In this paper we investigate the relationship between family structure and poverty for European countries using Eurostat and OECD data. In particular, we focus on the change in living arrangements, with the traditional type of household—couple with children—being partially replaced by single and extended families. The results of our econometric analysis show that the decline in the traditional family type affects individual poverty: the marriage rate and the share of couples, both with and without children, are inversely related to poverty; the divorce rate, the shares of extended families and singles with children are, instead, positively related to poverty.

Gambling has become a leading leisure activity in many developed and emerging countries, and its popularity continues to increase. Although research on gambling is extensive, several gaps remain, in particular as regards the identification of the exogenous and endogenous factors that explain why some individuals develop a propensity to gamble. In this exploratory study, we seek to integrate the sociopsychological analysis of gambling behavior with the economic one. In particular, on the basis of a questionnaire administered to 855 young adults, university students, we construct a variable measuring the individual's attitudes toward risk, or, more precisely, the amount at stake at which preference for certainty prevails. We can thus integrate the analysis of the determinants of gambling with an element deriving from the economic analysis of behavior under uncertainty.

We present an analytical literature review on optimal sin taxes. After identifying the distinctive features of sin goods, we develop a simple, encompassing model of the taxation of sin goods that allows for treating the main models found in the literature as subcases. We derive the optimal sin tax rates, while also considering the subsidisation of healthy goods. We then discuss the Pareto-improvement result obtained in the theoretical literature, confronting it with the debate on the regressivity of this kind of taxation. We highlight the crucial role of the interaction of tastes, self-control problems and poverty when deriving policy conclusions from theoretical models.

The paper analyses the differences in gambling motivations of skill and luck gamblers based on the answers to a questionnaire distributed to students from the University of Pisa (Italy). We find that the probability of playing skill rather than luck games is positively correlated to being a male, to the socialization motive and to having a planning attitude and an interest in socializing. Instead, findings show that it is negatively correlated to the money motive, the perceived risk of losing social esteem, and age. Results are then applied to marketing strategies and public policies, with particular attention to the online environment.