Research
Working papers
"Rise and Fall of Empires in the Industrial Era: a Story of Shifting Comparative Advantages", with Kerem Cosar.
"Priority Roads: the Political Economy of Africa's Interior-to-Coast Roads", with Yuan Gu and Steven Poelhekke. Also featured on VoxEU.
"Pork, Infrastructure and Growth: Evidence from the Italian Railway Expansion", with Giovanni Facchini, Alex Tarasov, Gian Luca Tedeschi and Cecilia Testa.
"Monetary capacity", with Adam Brzezinski, Kivanç Karaman and Nuno Palma. Also featured on VoxEU. NEW VERSION COMING SOON!
Publications
"Trade disruption, industrialisation, and the setting sun of British colonial rule in India", with Björn Brey. Online Appendix. Also featured on Ideas4India and E-International Relations. Forthcoming at the Journal of the European Economic Association.
"The 'Baccarini Law Railways' (1880-1890): their Long-Run Sectoral Impact" (with Giovanni Facchini, Alex Tarasov, Gian Luca Tedeschi and Cecilia Testa). Forthcoming at the Rivista di Storia Economica/Italian Review of Economic History.
“Credit constraints and the Inverted-U relationship between competition and innovation”, Economica, published online on May 21 2019.
“Growth, Import Dependence and War” (joint with Kevin Hjortshøj O’Rourke), Economic Journal, 2018, Vol. 128 (September), pp. 2222-2257. Also featured on Voxeu.
“The Sustainability of Empire in a Global Perspective: The Role of International Trade Patterns”, Journal of International Economics, 2017, Vol. 108, pp. 136-156. Online Appendix.
“From mine to coast: transport infrastructure and the direction of trade in developing countries” (joint with Steven Poelhekke), Journal of Development Economics, 2017, Vol. 127 (July), pp. 91-108. Online Appendix.
"An Economic Theory of Foreign Interventions and Regime Change", Canadian Journal of Economics, 2017, Vol. 50, No. 1, pp. 306-339. Online Appendixes A and B.
"Tax policy and the financing of innovation" (joint with Luis A. Bryce Campodonico and Luigi Pisano), Journal of Public Economics, 2016, Vol. 135, pp. 32-46.
“Trade and the Allocation of Talent with Capital Market Imperfections” (joint with Maitreesh Ghatak), Journal of International Economics, 2013, Vol. 89, No. 1, pp. 187-201.
Work in progress
"Colonial Trade Policies and the Extension of the Franchise, 1870-1960", with Giovanni Facchini, Peri Silva and Ling Zhou. BA/Leverhulme Small Research Grant recipient.
"The Political Economy of the Italian Broadband Rollout", with Marco Bertoni, Elona Harka and Orestis Troumpounis.
"From Infant to Lobbyist", with Bjoern Brey and Cyril Thomson
"The Great Depression, Trade, and Political Outcomes in Britain", with Facundo Albornoz, Valeria Rueda and Ling Zhou.
Chapters in peer-reviewed books
“Foreign Influence and the China-Africa Trade in Natural Resources”, in Padovano, Fabio and Alessandro Petretto (Eds.), Public Choice and Political Economy, Milan, Franco Angeli (2010).