arXiv subjects

Nazaria Solferino

Publications and source records attributed to Nazaria Solferino.

7 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Energy Poverty as a Structural Trap: The Role of Housing Efficiency and Non-Convex Technology

Energy poverty persists even among households that are not income-poor, suggesting a deeper mechanism than mere budget constraints. We develop a model in which indoor thermal comfort is produced through a non-convex technology that couples energy input with dwelling efficiency. A critical efficiency threshold emerges below which the minimum comfort level is physically unattainable, regardless of how much energy is purchased. Households below this threshold suffer from structural energy poverty, which income transfers alone cannot cure. The model yields three sharp policy predictions: energy price shocks are strongly regressive, efficiency investments dominate income transfers and price subsidies in reducing energy poverty, and a cost-effective anti-poverty strategy must combine targeted retrofits with temporary income support. The results are illustrated with symbolic diagrams and formal proofs.

econ.GN↗

arXiv2026

Platform-Driven Hate Speech: An Epidemiological Model with Optimal Taxation

Online hate speech is a global challenge amplified by engagement8-driven social media algorithms. This paper develops an epidemiological model of hate speech propagation capturing the strategic interaction between a profit-maximizing platform and a welfare-maximizing government. The platform's profit depends on the prevalence of hate speech and on its own algorithmic reactivity, creating a feedback loop between the epidemic and economic incentives. The government sets an optimal tax on amplification to internalize the social costs, balancing the benefit of tax revenue against the deadweight loss of taxation. The Stackelberg equilibrium is characterised analytically and solved numerically. The optimal tax reduces hate speech prevalence, eliminates bistability and lowers victim harm.

econ.TH↗

arXiv2026

An analytical model of Disequilibrium and decentralized productive Exploration

This paper studies the economic role of persistent dispersion in allocations across agents. We develop a tractable model in which firms allocate resources under imperfect information and behavioral updating, generating sustained heterogeneity in beliefs and actions. While dispersion induces static misallocation, it also fosters decentralized experimentation, allowing the economy to explore a broader set of productive opportunities. We show that the economy converges to a stationary equilibrium with strictly positive dispersion and that, under plausible conditions, such disequilibrium can dominate the perfectly coordinated benchmark. The model provides a novel interpretation of observed dispersion in productivity and returns as reflecting both inefficiency and productive exploration. It also yields testable predictions linking dispersion to growth and innovation dynamics.

econ.TH↗

arXiv2026

Hierarchical Incentives and the Evolution of Local Cooperation in Wartime: A Continuous Strategy Approach

Historical episodes such as the World War I "live-and-let-live" system and the Christmas Truce of 1914 demonstrate that opposing military units can establish spontaneous, local cooperation even in extreme conflict environments. Such cooperative behavior is typically fragile and temporary, while large-scale wars persist. We develop a hierarchical decision problem in which local units adopt contingent strategies that depend on interactions, accumulated payoffs, and signals from a central command. The command authority can impose enforcement that penalizes non-aggression to prolong hostilities. Our model features a continuous space of parametric strategies and formalizes replicator dynamics over the population. We analytically characterize the conditions under which local cooperation emerges as a stable evolutionary equilibrium and identify critical thresholds of central enforcement that destroy cooperative equilibria. We show that stable peace requires either alignment of command incentives with frontline welfare, external constraints on enforcement, or diminishing political returns to conflict. The framework provides a micro-founded explanation for the persistence of war despite locally beneficial cooperation.

econ.TH↗

arXiv2025

Testing health expenditure rationing under universal healthcare coverage: the case of Italy

We investigate the phenomenon of (private, out-of-pocket) "health expenditure rationing", or whether out-of-pocket health expenditures are shaped by income independently of actual health needs. Using microdata from an Italian Health Interview Survey, we assess the extent to which income explains variation in private health spending, after controlling for objective health conditions, self-assessed health, and a comprehensive set of socio-demographic factors. We find that individuals in the highest income brackets spend approximately 300 euros more annually than those in the lowest. Our findings point to a structural inequity in access and highlight the need for policy measures that address not only formal coverage but also the underlying role of income in shaping healthcare use.

econ.GN↗

arXiv2025

Unveiling Biases in AI: ChatGPT's Political Economy Perspectives and Human Comparisons

We explore the political and ideological positioning of ChatGPT, a leading large language model (LLM), by comparing its responses to political economy questions from the European Social Survey (ESS). The questions concern environmental sustainability, civil rights, income inequality, and government size. ChatGPT's self-assessed placement on a left-right political spectrum is compared to the ideological stances of individuals providing similar answers in the ESS dataset. Results highlight a significant left-oriented bias in ChatGPT's answers, particularly on environmental and civil rights topics, diverging from its same self-declared center-left stance. These findings underscore the need for transparency in AI systems to prevent potential ideological influences on users. We conclude by discussing the implications for AI governance, debiasing strategies, and educational use.

econ.GN↗

arXiv2015

The Corporate Social Responsibility is just a twist in a M\"obius Strip

In recent years economics agents and systems have became more and more interacting and juxtaposed, therefore the social sciences need to rely on the studies of physical sciences to analyze this complexity in the relationships. According to this point of view we rely on the geometrical model of the M\"obius strip used in the electromagnetism which analyzes the moves of the electrons that produce energy. We use a similar model in a Corporate Social Responsibility context to devise a new cost function in order to take into account of three positive crossed effects on the efficiency: i)cooperation among stakeholders in the same sector, ii)cooperation among similar stakeholders in different sectors and iii)the stakeholders' loyalty towards the company. By applying this new cost function to a firm's decisional problem we find that investing in Corporate Social Responsibility activities is ever convenient depending on the number of sectors, the stakeholders' sensitivity to these investments and the decay rate to alienation. Our work suggests a new method of analysis which should be developed not only at a theoretical but also at an empirical level.

econ.GN↗