About me

Hi there!

My name is Samuel, and I am an economist from Girona, Spain. I am currently a PhD candidate in Economics at the University of Girona working under the supervision of Sara Ayllón. I hold a MSc in Economic Analysis and two BSc degrees, one in Economics and the other in Business Administration and Management.

My research interests include poverty, inequality, applied microeconomics, public policy evaluation, labour economics, and public economics. If you share these interests or are interested in collaborating, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me via email at samuel.lado@udg.edu. You can also follow me on Twitter, where I share updates about my work.

Journal publications

Ayllón, S.; Holmarsdottir, H. B.; Lado, S. (2023). Digitally deprived children in Europe, Child Indicators Research, 16: 1315-1339. [pdf]

• The COVID-19 pandemic has completely changed the need for internet connectivity and technological devices across the population, but especially among school-aged children. For a large proportion of pupils, access to a connected computer nowadays makes the difference between being able to keep up with their educational development and falling badly behind. This paper provides a detailed account of the digitally deprived children in Europe, according to the latest available wave of the European Union–Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC). We find that 5.4% of school-aged children in Europe are digitally deprived and that differences are large across countries. Children that cohabit with low-educated parents, in poverty or in severe material deprivation are those most affected.

Ayllón, S.; Lado, S. (2022). Food hardship in the US during the pandemic: What can we learn from real-time data?, Review of Income and Wealth, 68(2): 518-540. [pdf]

• We study the potential effect of the declaration of the state of emergency, the beginning and end of the stay-at-home orders, and the one-off Economic Impact Payments on food hardship in the US during the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic. We use daily data from Google Trends for the search term “foodbank” and document the development of a hunger crisis, as indicated by the number of individuals who need to locate a food pantry through the internet. The demand for charitable food handouts begins to decrease once families start receiving the stimulus payments, but the biggest fall comes when economic activity resumes after the lifting of the lockdown orders. Our estimates indicate that the increased need for emergency help among vulnerable families lasted for at least 10 weeks during the first wave of the pandemic, and we argue that real-time data can be useful in predicting such urgency.

Chapters in edited volumes

Ayllón, S.; Lado, S.; Symeonaki, M. (2024). Digitally disengaged and digitally unconfident children in Europe in Understanding the everyday digital lives of children and young people, ed. H. B. Holmarsdottir, I. Seland, C. Hyggen, M. Roth, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 27-55 (chapter 2). [pdf]

Ayllón, S.; Brugarolas, P.; Lado, S. (2024). ICT use and children’s self-reported life satisfaction in Understanding the everyday digital lives of children and young people, ed. H. B. Holmarsdottir, I. Seland, C. Hyggen, M. Roth, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 239-279 (chapter 9). [pdf]

Reports

Ayllón, S.; Brugarolas, P.; Lado, S. (2022). La transmisión intergeneracional de la pobreza y la desigualdad de oportunidades en España, Ministerio de Derechos Sociales y Agenda 2030. [in Spanish] [pdf]

Sánchez, C.; Marquès, P.; Lado, S.; Bikfalvi, A. (2022). Guia de bones pràctiques per a la igualtat de gènere a la indústria agroalimentària, Departament d’Acció Climàtica, Alimentació i Agenda Rural, Generalitat de Catalunya. [in Catalan] [pdf]

Sánchez, C.; Marquès, P.; Lado, S.; Lloveras, N. (2021). La dona a la indústria alimentària a Catalunya, Departament Agricultura, Ramaderia, Pesca i Alimentació, Generalitat de Catalunya. [in Catalan] [pdf]

Working papers

Ayllón, S.; Brugarolas, P.; Lado, S. (2023). The level of inequality of opportunity in Spain: an estimation using Artificial Intelligence, Instituto de Estudios Fiscales. Media coverage: El Confidencial, El Confidencial. [pdf]

Parsanoglou, D.; Mifsud, L.; Ayllón, S.; Brugarolas, P.; Filandrianos, G.; Hyggen, C.; Kazani, A.; Lado, S.; Symeonaki, M.; Andreassen, K. J. (2022). Combining innovative methodological tools to approach digital transformations in leisure among children and young people, DigiGen working paper series. [pdf]

Ayllón, S.; Barbovschi, M.; Casamassima, G.; Drossel, K.; Eickelmann, B.; Cosmin Ghetau, T.; Haragus, P; Bjork Holmarsdottir, H.; Hyggen, C.; Kapella, O.; Karatzogianni, A.; Lado, S.; Levine, D.; Lorenz, T.; Mifsud, L.; Parsanoglou, D; Port, S.; Sisask, M.; Symeonaki, M.; Teidla-Kunitson, G. (2020). ICT usage across Europe. A literature review and an overview of existing data, DigiGen working paper series. [pdf]

Other publications

Ayllón, S.; Casamassima, G.; Drossel, K.; Eickelmann, B.; Hyggen, C.; Lado, S.; Port, S.; Broekstra, N. (2021). Digital diversity across Europe, DigiGen Policy paper. [pdf]

Lado, S. (2021). Desigualtat, individualisme i col.lectivisme, DUGiDocs. [in Catalan] [pdf]

Lado, S. (2021). Externalització de serveis públics: la casuística de l’administració local, DUGiDocs. [in Catalan] [pdf]

Blanco, M.; Ventura, J; Lado, S.; Sastre, M.; Callado, J. F.; Xabadia, A.; Marquès, P. (2019). Girona 100 SA 2019, KPMG i Càtedra Cambra de l’Empresa Familiar. [in Catalan] [pdf]

Work in progress

Subsidised school meals and children educational achievement: the case of Barcelona (with Sara Ayllón).

The causal impact of school-meal programmes: A meta-analysis (with Sara Ayllón).

Teleworking and childcare across Europe: Is there a childcare digital divide? (with Sara Ayllón, Pablo Brugarolas and Enza Simeone)

New estimates for inequality of opportunity in Europe using elastic net algorithms (with Sara Ayllón and Pablo Brugarolas)