Acknowledgments Academics' research effort is usually driven by new and (hopefully) exciting questions. Collecting evidence to answer these questions and translating them into papers is the subsequent 'hard' work of researchers. What I'm actually sure after three years of Ph.D. is that when I start doing my research I never reach a definitive end. Questions often raise new other questions, robustness checks could always be completed and finally ideas are followed by other ideas. The hardest

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... of my doctoral studying has been to fix a point, at a certain moment, and then conclude the research papers, writing all evidences and results, while also being aware of the fact that the research has only been started. So, having provisionally finished my Ph.D. thesis, I would like to especially thank all those that helped me during these years of studying and research. I am most grateful to my doctoral colleagues (Laura Casi, Endalamaw Bati Bayou and William Seitz) for many fruitful discussions and to the Ph.D director, Professor Michele Santoni, for his support. As part of the postgraduate program I also spent an academic year at the Economics Department of Leicester University (a.y. 2010/2011). I would like to especially thank my colleagues and friends in the UK Lorenzo, Paolo, Diego, Monica, Tanja, Anita, Tenday, Andry, Francesca and James for their support and the nice time spent together in the United Kingdom. Then I am grateful to several people at ) for their suggestions and useful comments in the early, middle and final stages of this work.