Research

Publications

NoteAggregation trees

Di Francesco, R. (2026). Econometric Reviews, 1–26

πŸ“„ Paper πŸ’» R package

NoteCausal inference for qualitative outcomes

Di Francesco, R. & Mellace, G. (2025). Economics Letters, 112626.

πŸ“„ Paper πŸ’» R package

NoteOrdered correlation forest

Di Francesco, R. (2025). Econometric Reviews, 44(4), 416–432.

πŸ“„ Paper πŸ’» R package

Working papers

NoteThe Cost of Coming Out (2024)

arXiv:2403.03649 (with Enzo Brox)

The fear of social stigma leads many individuals worldwide to hesitate in disclosing their sexual orientation. Since concealing identity is costly, it is crucial to understand the extent of anti-LGB sentiments and reactions to coming out. This paper uses an innovative data source from a popular online game together with a natural experiment to overcome existing data and endogeneity issues. We exploit exogenous variation in the identity of a character to identify the effects of coming out on players’ revealed preferences for that character across diverse regions globally. Our findings reveal a substantial and persistent negative impact of coming out.

πŸ“„ Paper

πŸ† Award
Emerging Econometrician
πŸ“° Press
Article image
Newspaper article about the paper