Why Do Most Italian Youths Live with Their Parents? Intergenerational Transfers and Household Structure
利用意大利1989-2000年家庭收入与财富调查数据，以1992年养老金改革导致的父亲退休年龄变化作为工具变量，发现父母收入增加10%会使18-30岁男性与父母同住的比例上升约10%，支持了“与子女同住是意大利父母的正常品”这一假说。
More than 80% of Italian men aged 18–30 live with their parents. We argue that one contributing factor to this remarkably high rate of cohabitation is parents' tastes for coresidence. In order to investigate the role of parental preferences, we estimate the effect of exogenous changes in parental income on rates of cohabitation in Italy using Survey of Households' Income and Wealth (SHIW) micro data from 1989 to 2000. In order to identify a source of exogenous variation in parental income, we use changes in fathers' retirement age induced by the 1992 reform of the Italian Social Security system as an instrumental variable for parental income. By raising retirement age, this reform forced some fathers to remain in the labor market longer than they would have otherwise, therefore raising their disposable income. We use a two-sample instrumental variable (TSIV) strategy. Our TSIV estimates indicate that a rise in parents' income significantly raises the children's propensity to live at home: A 10% increase in annual parental income results in approximately a 10% rise in the proportion of men living with their parents. Although we cannot definitely rule out alternative interpretations, these results are consistent with our hypothesis that cohabitation is a normal good for Italian parents.