Broadband Internet and Attitudes Toward Migrants: Evidence from Spain (with M. Golin), European Journal of Political Economy, 2024
We examine the effect of broadband Internet penetration on attitudes toward immigrants by combining survey data from Spain with information on the characteristics of the telephone infrastructure. To address endogeneity concerns, we use landlines penetration in 1996 as an instrument for broadband diffusion, and use data from both the pre- and post-Internet period to estimate a difference-in-difference instrumental variable model. We document a positive effect of broadband Internet on attitudes toward immigrants. Looking at mechanisms, broadband Internet is associated with better knowledge about immigration, reduced concerns about the labor market effects of immigration and lower support for Spain’s right-wing party.
Refugee reception, extreme-right voting, and compositional amenities: evidence from Italian municipalities (with M. Gamalerio, M. Luca, & M. Viskanic), Regional Science and Urban Economics, 2023
Media coverage: lavoce.info (Italian) nadaesgratis.es (Spanish) ElPeriodico (Spanish)
We use data from Italy to study the political and social impact of a refugee reception policy (SPRAR) directly managed by local governments, whose features recall the conditions of the contact theory (Allport, 1954). Instrumental variables estimates indicate that municipalities that opened a refugee center between the 2013 and 2018 national elections experienced a change in the vote shares of extreme-right parties approximately 7 percentage points lower compared to towns that did not open a refugee center. We document that the positive impact of SPRARs on “compositional amenities” (i.e., local schools) and population growth allows explaining the negative impact on anti-immigrants’ prejudice. Finally, we provide evidence of spillovers in prejudice reduction in neighboring municipalities without a SPRAR.
Dynasties and Policymaking (with G. Daniele and P. Vertier), Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 2021, vol. 190, pp. 98-110
In this paper, we test whether dynastic leaders differ in their policymaking once in office. Based on a large sample of Italian dynastic mayors, we do not find differences in policy-making in terms of average revenue and expenditure. However, dynastic mayors increase spending and obtain higher transfers during the pre-electoral year, especially when electoral incentives are stronger. We suggest that they might behave more strategically both because they can (thanks to inherited political skills) and because they want to (due to higher returns from politics). Nevertheless, this strategic behavior is not reflected by different performance while in office. Overall, we suggest that dynastic-elected leaders differ concerning policies explicitly linked to their political careers.
Winner of the Best Paper Award, Barcelona PhD Workshop 2019 | Winner of the III Nada es Gratis Job Market Paper Award, 2020
Media coverage: thecrimereport.org www.praeventionstag.de
I investigate whether the election of far-right politicians affects the probability of hate crimes against immigrants. I exploit a unique dataset on hate crimes, and I focus on local mayors in Italy, a country where political support for the far-right has soared recently. Using a regression discontinuity (RD) analysis, I show that in municipalities where far-right mayors are in power, the likelihood of hate crimes is significantly higher (around five percentage points). In addition, I find the same positive and significant effect when focusing on the most salient and severe hate crimes, namely, those that involve physical violence or damages to immigrants’ properties.
When Politics Enters the Waiting Room: Far-Right Electoral Victories Exacerbate Discrimination in Access to Healthcare ( with K. Krakowski, D. Rosenberg, & M. Schaeffer), Conditionnaly Accepted American Political Science Review
Far-right political shifts have been linked to increased racism, raising concerns about their impact on minority access to public services. This study investigates whether far-right electoral victories encourage discrimination by street-level bureaucrats, who are expected to act impartially. We conducted a nested research design in Italy, combining a field-experimental audit with a regression discontinuity design focused on municipalities near the electoral threshold for far-right mayors. Research assistants with native-Italian and West-African accents contacted municipal healthcare offices to request registration with a general medical practitioner. Compared to native-Italian callers, those with West-African accents faced significantly higher rates of scrutiny and dismissive responses. Leveraging close elections, we find that this disparity was exacerbated in municipalities where far-right candidates narrowly won. These findings demonstrate that far-right electoral success can undermine impartiality and equal access to essential services.
We analyze the effect of increased women representation in politics on gender attitudes within the adult UK population, combining 2002-2019 local election results in England with survey responses from Understanding Society and the British Household Panel Survey. Our Regression Discontinuity analysis shows that the election of a female councillor generates a shift towards more conservative gender attitudes in the population. This backlash effect is entirely driven by male respondents and by those more affected by economic insecurity, i.e. unemployed individuals and those more exposed to the import competition with China. Additionally, we find suggestive evidence that the backlash mainly affects attitudes related to the private sphere, rather than views about society at large. The effect on female respondents is very limited, but our results show that the election of a woman raises their support for work-family policies. Importantly, given the context of our analysis, our results are unlikely to be driven by gender differences in policymaking.
Riders in the Smog: How Air Pollution Affects Workers in Urban Environments (with G. D’Adda, S. Ferro, & T. Frattini), Submitted
Using large-scale high-granularity data from a food delivery platform and granular pollution and weather information, we study how PM2.5 fluctuations affect riders' absenteeism, productivity, and accidents. Exploiting exogenous pollution variation from inverse boundary layer height, we find that higher pollution increases absenteeism for all workers and raises delivery times and accident rates only among (e-)bike riders, who must exert physical effort while working. Affected workers compensate productivity losses by working longer hours. Monetary incentives mitigate the effects on absenteeism but do not offset the decline in productivity and appear to exacerbate accident risk.
A More Conservative Country? Asylum Seekers and Voting in the UK (with F. Fasani, S. Ferro, & E. Pasini), Submitted
Winner of the Best Poster Award, Workshop on the Impact of Immigration and Refugee Inflows on Host Country Economies 2025
This paper provides the first causal evaluation of the political impact of asylum seekers in the UK. Although they are dispersed across areas on a no-choice basis, political bargaining between central and local governments introduces potential endogeneity in their allocation. We address this concern with a novel IV strategy that exploits predetermined public-housing characteristics. Focusing on 2004-2019, we estimate a sizeable increase in the Conservative-Labour vote share gap in local elections: a one within-area standard deviation increase in dispersed asylum seekers widens the gap by 3.1 percentage points in favour of the Conservatives. We observe a similar shift to the right in national elections and longitudinal survey data on voting intentions, along with an increase in the Leave vote in the Brexit referendum. Electoral gains are observed for UKIP as well, although this finding is less robust. No effect is detected for non-dispersed asylum seekers, who forgo subsidised housing and make independent residential choices. Turning to mechanisms, voters move to the right without becoming more hostile towards foreigners. Leveraging the universe of MPs' speeches, we show that representatives from more exposed areas emphasise asylum and migration more, with no systematic change in tone or content. This heightened salience appears to shape voters' choices, with Conservative MPs particularly effective at channelling discontent.
Populism and Geographical Sorting ( with M. Anelli, I. Colantone, M. Morelli, and P. Stanig)
Far-Right Mayors and Online Hate (with S. Ferro)
Hate speech and hate crime in the EU and the evaluation of online content regulation approaches (European Parliament, 2020)
Impact Evaluation of Education Quality Improvement Programme in Tanzania: Endline Quantitative Technical Report (Oxford Policy Management, 2019)