I am developing a spatial quantitative model to analyze the diffusion of technology during the first Industrial Revolution. This model is designed to capture the unique patterns of technological advancement across the European continent from the latter part of the 18th century to the early 1900s.
To test this model, I am utilizing a novel historical spatial dataset that is currently under construction. This dataset is distinctive as it incorporates previously unused sources, including historical information on existing transport routes and natural resources known at the time. Through this approach, my research aims to shed light on the dynamics of technology spread during this pivotal period in history.
With Andrea Sbarile I develop a generalized framework for spatial price competition that extends Hotelling’s classic model to a two-dimensional market with heterogeneous population density. Firms, offering an identical homogeneous good, operate in a continuous space, with neither their locations nor the distribution of consumers subject to predetermined constraints. The model accommodates arbitrary spatial configurations, ensuring broad applicability. Firms set prices to maximize profits and compete for spatial demand, which is characterized by "pseudo-Voronoi" regions where consumers are more likely to purchase from the closest firm. We study existence and uniqueness of the equilibrium, finding similar equilibrium characteristics as for the linear case.
By extending Hotelling’s model, our framework tries to enhance its empirical applicability.
I am working with
Marc-Antoine Faure and
Federico Mij on an empirical analysis of the effects of a recent policy implemented by the Italian government on the pricing of retail gas stations. This policy, effective from 1 August 2023, requires retail gas stations to prominently display regional average oil prices alongside their own pricing.
The central inquiry of our research is to ascertain the impact of this policy on the national average price of gasoline as stated by the government. Our methodological approach involves the construction of a difference-in-differences model, which allows us to isolate the effect of the policy from other concurrent economic factors.
With Marc-Antoine Faure I built a simple, user friendly dashboard to help students to visualize and study economic dynamic models. The dashboard is realized in r and flexdashboard and can be reached
here. The repository of the code can be found
here. Please don't hesitate to submit your code to extend model menu.
I am writing a tool to download, process and do basic raster cleaning operation for the Nasa Black Marble project. The tool will be a R package and will allow to select an area on the globe, a time span and a date and download respective tiles that will be merged togheter in a unique geotiff file.
The project is in a very early stage, I have already all the working code but it still has to be cleaned and written in form of R package. The Github repository will be
here.
