Welcome!
I am an Assistant Professor of Economics at LUISS University and a Research Affiliate at EIEF.
My research focuses on Macroeconomics, Labor Economics, Inequality, and Entrepreneurship.
My work often uses dynamic macro models, micro-level data, or both.
Prior to joining LUISS and EIEF I was a Post-doctoral Researcher at IIES Stockholm. I received my PhD in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania, advised by Dirk Krueger and Jesús Fernández-Villaverde.
Find my research below and my CV here.
Contact: scasella@luiss.it | sara.casella@eief.it
''Women's Labor Force Participation and the Business Cycle" (New draft coming soon)
Abstract: This paper studies the macroeconomic implications of the rise in participation and attachment to the labor force of women and secondary earners. I develop a business cycle model of couples that features labor market frictions, endogenous labor supply, and human capital accumulation. Households face unemployment risk over the business cycle, and secondary earners adjust their labor supply to respond to this risk, so that they are more likely to participate when primary earners are unemployed or face a high risk of job loss. I validate the model using novel empirical evidence documenting that women with higher labor market experience are more likely to respond. A large mass of marginal secondary earners will dampen fluctuations in aggregate employment if in downturns the income effect induced by unemployment is greater than the substitution effect due to lower wages. The magnitude of the counter-cyclical effect is proportional to the distance from the participation frontier of secondary earners, which in turn depends on the gap in net wages between partners. For a gender gap smaller than 20%, aggregate labor supply elasticity of women converges to that of men, and the dampening effect wanes.
"Disclosure Regulation, Intangible Capital, and the Disappearance of Public Firms" (with Hanbaek Lee and Sergio Villalvazo) [Appendix] [Feds Working Paper] (Submitted)
Abstract: Since the mid-1990s, the number of listed firms in the U.S. has halved, and their performance has become increasingly difficult to predict. To explain these trends, we develop a general equilibrium model where the choices of going public or private and the transparency of voluntary disclosure are characterized analytically. In the equilibrium, dispersion in transparency, funding, and public or private status arises endogenously. According to the estimation, stricter disclosure regulation and increased intangible capital share are the key drivers of the observed patterns. Lastly, we characterize a policymaker’s trade-off between welfare and productivity and analyze the optimal policy.
''Structural Estimation of Dynamic Equilibrium Models with Unstructured Data'' (with Jesús Fernández-Villaverde, Stephen Hansen, Ryohei Oishi, and Minchul Shin)
Abstract: We develop a general econometric framework that integrates unstructured data into the structural estimation of dynamic equilibrium models. The framework augments a standard state-space dynamic equilibrium models with a non-core measurement block that links latent structural shocks to a large collection of time series derived from unstructured sources. Because only a subset of these series is informative, we impose a sparse spike-and-slab prior on the measurement loadings, allowing the data to select relevant signals while preserving structural discipline. We apply the approach to a medium-scale New Keynesian DSGE model for the U.S. using topic measures extracted from FOMC transcripts. Incorporating text improves joint forecasting performance and materially alters structural inference, lowering the estimated responsiveness of monetary policy to inflation and output and implying a steeper Phillips curve. These results show how unstructured data can sharpen the identification of structural parameters with direct policy implications.
"Parental Health, Aging, and the Labor Supply of Young Workers" (with Luca Mazzone) [SSRN] (New draft coming soon)
Abstract: To what extent are young workers affected by health shocks that happen to their parents? This paper studies the short and long-term spillover effects of parents' adverse health events on their adult children. We use the unique structure of the Panel Survey on Income Dynamics (PSID) to build family networks and construct a measure of sudden health changes. Exploiting news on parents' health status, we provide evidence of the existence of family insurance in the form of time and monetary transfers, and of the importance of family ties in shaping labor market outcomes. Following the deterioration of parents' health, time spent helping them goes up, while income and hours worked by children significantly decline.
Selected Work in Progress
''Income Pooling and Within Household Risk-Sharing: Evidence from Data on Individual Expenditures'' (with Fabio Blasutto and Luigi Ventura) (Draft coming soon)
Presentations: University of Bristol, Midwest Macro, IMT Lucca, Families in Macroeconomics Workshop* (2025).
''Flexible Work, Occupational Constraints, and the Dynamics of Female Labor Supply'' (with Kieran Larkin and Megha Patnaik)
Presentations: Hoover-SIEPR Conference on Remote Work* (2025).
''Firm-level Wage Policies and the Gender Wage Gap'' (with Giulia Vattuone)
Financed by Jan Wallander's and Tom Hedelius' foundation and Tore Browaldh's foundation.