Tenure, Accountability and Electoral Selection, working paper here
This paper investigates the impact of a 2014 reform that extended term limits for mayors of Italian towns with population under 3,000 residents, transitioning from two to three consecutive terms. Exploiting the fact that the reform was not anticipated by incumbent second-term mayors, I estimate separately three main channels through which this policy shift may have impacted local government performance: mayors’ tenure, electoral accountability, and electoral selection. My results indicate that the overall effect of the reform on voters’ welfare was negative. In particular, I uncover a negative tenure effects in the speed of payments in investment spending and in the supply of general administrative service. Specifically, third-term mayors exhibit a decline in performance compared to their second-term. A possible explanation for this performance drop is a decrease in motivation that arise during the concluding stretch of extended tenures as mayor of a small municipality. In such contexts, the mayor’s job tend to become repetitive and less engaging over time. My findings can be of relevance for policymakers contemplating similar reforms for small subnational local governments.
EUI Working Group, CSEF Lunch Seminar, SIEP conference Cagliari 2024, SIE conference L'Aquila 2024, Bank of Italy Florence.
The Great War and Female Labor Force Participation: Evidence from Italy , with Marco Cozzani and Francesco Colombo.
VisitINPS project. Recent slides here
This paper investigates the short- and long-run effects of the demographic shock induced by World War I on female labor force participation (LFP) in Italy. We exploit the unprecedented scale of Italian mobilization and casualties during the Great War, which varied significantly across regions, as a quasi-experimental setting to study whether reductions in the male population influenced women’s engagement in the labor market. In the short run, using a novel panel dataset at the district level constructed from the 1911 and 1921 censuses, we find heterogeneous effects across sectors: illness wartime fatalities appear to have modestly increased female employment in commerce and administrative professions, but had limited or ambiguous effects in agriculture and industry, likely reflecting Italy’s labor market dynamics and measurement challenges in the censuses.
To explore long-term impacts, we leverage INPS pension records covering birth cohorts from 1910 to 1960, which allow us to track lifetime labor market participation. Our results suggest a mild persistence of higher female LFP in areas more severely affected by wartime mortality, particularly for cohorts directly exposed to the demographic shock. These findings highlight the role of large exogenous shocks in shaping gender labor market outcomes and suggest that both the nature of fatalities and sectoral characteristics critically mediate these effects.
INPS internal seminar, INPS workshop on Gender Economics, Rome, December 2024.
Social Class and Economic Policy Enactment among Municipal Executives , with Ari Ray
Does the social class of a politician influence their economic policy choices? Leveraging a close elections RDD design, we examine whether electing a lower-middle class mayor, compared to an upper-middle-classcounterfactual, affectsthecompositionofmunicipalbudgets. FocusingonItaly, where electoral rules grant mayors considerable policy discretion yet fiscal room to maneuver is limited, we analyze local revenue streams, tax instruments, expenditure aggregates and functional spending. Consistent with theories linking descriptive and substantive representation, we find that economic policy becomes more redistributive when mayors from lower social classes hold office. Specifically, they (a) raise tax rates on property ownership, while introducing progressive elements to the tax structure; (b) reduce efforts to collect revenues from socially regressive fees and fines, (c) preserve consumption-oriented current spending, (d) cut dow non bureaucratic costs, and (e) prioritize spending on educational support services. Overall, findings suggest that the numerical under representation of lower social classes in government may limit the extent to which redistributive policies are enacted.
University of Geneva, EPSA conference Madrid 2025.
Italy: The challenges of the NGEU program, opportunities and constraints. This report is commissioned and funded by the LUHNIP of Università Luiss, Roma.