GTA Gentry City. Gentrification and Crime across American Metropolis - Applied Economics (2025)
This study investigates the effects of gentrification on criminal behavior in urban neighborhoods to assess whether or not this phenomenon is destructive to communities. To identify gentrified neighborhoods in the 2010s, the study adopts a newly constructed, unique data set of geo-referenced crime records from 14 major American cities paired with Census data. To examine the effect of gentrification on crime, this analysis employs state-of-the-art event study models to evaluate the consequences of gentrification, accounting for variations in the timing of this process between cities and neighbourhoods. The results show that gentrified neighborhoods face a statistically significant increase in crimes of 11 to 17 percent, with property crimes and particularly GTA, showing the most significant increases. Overall, the study indicates that gentrification may have a criminalizing influence on areas, underlining the need for additional research and policy consideration of this issue.
Presented at: Royal Economic Society Annual Conference (University of Glasgow 2023); Conference in Applied Econometrics using Stata (AMSE 2023); 11th SidE Workshop for Ph.D. Students in Econometric and Empirical Economics (2023); Brown Bag Seminar Series (DEMM 2023); 1st Milan PhD Economics Workshop (UNIMI 2023); 3rd year PhD seminar (UCSC 2022)
Work-from-Home Job Creation and Local COVID-19 Intensity: Firm-Level Evidence from Italy - R&R
with Bratti (Unimi), Brunetti (INAPP), Maida (Unimi), Ricci (INAPP)
Implementing ``work from home'' (WFH) policies during a pandemic can help firms mitigate the health risks related to virus transmission among their employees. WFH is especially effective for jobs that can be performed remotely. This study examines whether, during the COVID-19 crisis, firms' perceptions of health risks—proxied by local virus prevalence—influenced the expansion of jobs suited to WFH (``WFH jobs''). We employ high-quality firm-level administrative data and an event study difference-in-differences strategy that leverages the considerable spatial variation in the spread of COVID-19 in Italy. We find that higher local exposure to the pandemic raised firm hires in WFH jobs. This was a short-term effect, lasting only one year. Yet, by mainly involving workers with permanent contracts, these changes in labor demand are likely to have long-term consequences for the composition of firms' workforces.
Presented at: COMPIE 2024 conference ( School of Business and Economics, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam 2024); 39th AIEL Conference (University of Naples 2023); III LABORatorio R. Revelli Biannual Workshop on “Health, Retirement, Mismatch and Data for Policy Evaluation” (Collegio Carlo Alberto)
From Commerce to Coerce: On The Economic Origins of Prostitution and the Power of Anti-Trafficking Laws
with Ciacci (ICADE Comillas)
This study delves into the economic foundations of sex work markets combining the most influential economic theories in a single model. This model offers tractable testable predictions. We test one of them exploiting anti human trafficking laws. Namely, our empirical analysis relies on the staggered introduction on laws across U.S. states to estimate the effect of such laws on prostitution arrests. Our findings reveal a significant and permanent reduction of prostitution arrests, ranging from 3% to 9%. These estimates are robust to recent advancements in the difference in differences literature. Such results have crucial policy implications, shifting the policy debate from regulating prostitution to prioritizing anti human trafficking measures.
Presented at: EALE 2024 Bergen Conference; Second Italian Workshop on the Health Economics of Risky Health Behavior (HERB), University of Bologna; Brown Bag Seminar Series (DEMM 2024)
Football Matches and Sex Working: Evidence from the UK
with Ciacci (ICADE Comillas) , Dragone (University of Bologna) and Passerini (University of Bologna)
Presented at: Second Italian Workshop on the Health Economics of Risky Health Behavior (HERB), University of Bologna; 2nd Milan PhD Economics Workshop (University of Milano-Bicocca 2024)