Research

Working Papers

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, Fertility and Female Labor Force Participation: Evidence from Italy ,  with Marco Cozzani and Francesco Colombo. 
VisitINPS project. Recent slides here

Rising female labor force participation (LFP) and declining fertility are among the most significant socioeconomic changes of the past century. This paper studies their joint long-run dynamics by exploiting World War I young-male scarcity in Italy---approximately 560,000 military fatalities between 1915 and 1918---and distinguishing two demographically distinct shocks: combat deaths, which were biased toward lower-socioeconomic-status (low-SES) soldiers, and illness-related deaths, which were more socioeconomically heterogeneous. Using digitized census data (1911--1931, extended through 2011 for long-run LFP), the WWI Roll of Honor, and Italian administrative records (INPS), we document three main findings. First, districts more exposed to the illness shock experienced increased female employment in the service sector---especially administrative services and retail---both in the short run (1921--1931) and over subsequent decades; a one-percentage-point increase in the illness death rate raises female service-sector LFP by about 1.4 percentage points in 1951 and up to 8.5 percentage points by 2011. Second, the same districts exhibit persistent fertility declines of roughly 0.5--1 percent in annual birth rates relative to 1913. Third, women born in more exposed districts display higher lifetime labor force attachment, as measured by old-age work-pension eligibility. By contrast, the combat (low-SES) shock shows no significant long-run effects. These results suggest that the composition of male mortality---and the sectors it opened to women---critically shaped women's long-term economic and demographic decisions.

CSEF Lunch seminar Naples, EUI MIcroeconometrics working group, INPS internal seminar, INPS workshop on Gender Economics, 20th CSEF-IGIER Symposium on Economics and Institutions 2026

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.