Publications

• Religion and Women: How Waldensians Reduced the Gender Gap (with P. Buonanno and M. Puca). Economics of Education Review, 2023 [DOI]

Does religion affect the gender gap? Using data on inquisition trials to locate medieval Waldensian communities in the Italian municipalities of Piedmont and early 19th-century female literacy rates, we find that municipalities with a history of Waldensian presence display lower levels of the education gender gap, a pattern that persists to the present day. Moreover, women in these municipalities have higher levels of education, greater labor market participation, and increased political representation. Our results highlight the importance of cultural and social norms in shaping women’s empowerment and gender equality outcomes.

• Medication Against Conflict (with M. Cervellati, E. Esposito, D. Rohner, and U. Sunde).  Journal of Development Economics, 2024 [DOI] [Media: VoxDev]

The consequences of successful public health interventions for social violence and conflict are largely unknown. This paper closes this gap by evaluating the effect of a major health intervention – the successful expansion of anti-retroviral therapy (ART) to combat the HIV/AIDS pandemic – in Africa. To identify the effect, we combine exogenous variation in the scope for treatment and global variation in drug prices. We find that the ART expansion significantly reduced the number of violent events in African countries and sub-national regions. The effect pertains to social violence and unrest, not civil war. The evidence also shows that the effect is not explained by general improvements in economic prosperity, but related to health improvements, greater approval of government policy, and increased trust in political institutions. Results of a counterfactual simulation reveal the largest potential gains in countries with intermediate HIV prevalence where disease control has been given relatively low priority.

• The Impact of EU Enlargement on Immigrants' Mental Health  (with E. Lodigiani, E. Tosetti, and G. Vittadini). Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2024 [DOI]

In this paper, we explore the impact of the 2007 European Union enlargement on the mental health of documented immigrants. Using data from a unique Italian administrative data set and employing a difference-in-differences individual fixed effect estimator, we find that the enlargement causes a significant improvement in the mental health of young male immigrants. To shed light on the mechanisms behind these results, we use data from a unique survey and show that the enlargement mitigates sources of health concerns and increases income and employment stability through permanent job contracts for young male immigrants. Overall, these findings suggest that enhanced labor market conditions due to enlargement may lead to a subsequent important decrease in psychological distress among immigrants.

Working Papers

• Health Policies for Women's Empowerment. 2022 [link]

Can major health interventions promote women's empowerment? Focusing on rural Malawi, I study the effect of Antiretroviral Therapy (ART) to combat the HIV/AIDS epidemic on women's empowerment. To identify the effect, I use the ART roll-out campaign launched by the Malawian government in 2004. I calculate an index based on the scope and accessibility of treatment to measure the benefit of ART to rural communities. Women in communities that benefited the most from the treatment, in terms of the number of beneficiaries and access, experienced increased decision-making indicators and decreased justification and experience of physical violence. The rise in women's empowerment can be explained by the positive effects of health improvement on economic empowerment and human capital formation. This paper advocates for the central role of health interventions in future women's empowerment campaigns.

• Do Health Improvements Cause Malthusian Conflict Dynamics? (with M. Cervellati, E. Esposito, D. Rohner, and U. Sunde).  

• Immigration and Adult Children's Care for Elderly Parents: Evidence from Western Europe (with E. Lodigiani and L. Rocco) [link]

In this paper, we use the Survey of Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), complemented with register data on the share of the foreign population in the European regions, to examine the effects of migration on the level of informal care provided by children to their senior parents. Our main results show that migration decreases informal care among daughters with a university degree, while it increases the provision of informal care among daughters with low-to-medium levels of education. Viceversa, migration has practically no effect on sons’ care provision who remain little involved in care activities. These results depend on the combination of two supply effects. First, migration increases the supply of domestic and personal services, making formal care more affordable and available. Second, as immigrants compete with low-to-medium-educated native workers, while improve the labor market opportunities of the better educated, the supply of informal care can increase among the less educated daughters and decrease among the more educated.

Work in Progress

• Far Right Elections and Migrants' Mental Health (with E. Lodigiani, E. Tosetti, and G. Vittadini)

• Burning Minds: Unpacking the Impact of Extreme Heat and Pollution on Mental Health (with F. Cevenini, E. Lodigiani, E. Tosetti, and G. Vittadini)

• Antiretroviral Therapy and Human Capital (with M. Cervellati, E. Esposito, D. Rohner, and U. Sunde).