Research

Working Papers

Settlers and Seekers: Immigrant Proximity and Voter Polarisation (with C. Berti Ceroni, L. Piemontese, G. Prarolo) [R&R Journal of Public Economics]
CEPR DP19236

We exploit a natural experiment involving the random placement of refugee hosting facilities in an urban setting. Using survey data on voting, we estimate the causal effect of proximity to immigrants on political behaviour. By examining both refugees and long-term immigrant presence, we reconcile conflicting findings in the literature and offer a unifying framework highlighting the key role of past experiences in determining polarised responses to refugee shocks. We show that polarisation is driven by voters with limited prior contact and is amplified near migrant services or family-hosting facilities. By contrast, those with high baseline exposure remain unaffected.

The Quiet Payoff: Mafia Electoral Support and Policy Inaction (with A. Carrozzo Magli and G. Righetto) [under review]
Awards: SIEP Prize 2025
NICEP WP,  CESifo Working Paper No. 12330

Organised crime groups often deliver electoral support to politicians, yet how they are rewarded remains unclear. Using data from Sicilian municipalities (1992–2022), we show that narrowly won races by Forza Italia, Silvio Berlusconi’s party, coincide with sharp declines in the reallocation of confiscated Mafia assets-but only in Mafia-controlled areas. Exploiting historical variation in the Mafia’s vote-buying capacity, we find that municipalities with stronger historical ties experience larger post-election declines, exclusively under Berlusconi’s governments. Instrumenting modern support with this proxy further reinforces the plausibly causal evidence that national authorities reward organised crime through inaction in a central, increasingly relevant anti-crime policy.

Can data disclosure improve local governments' performance?  Evidence from Italian municipalities   (with B. Lockwood, F. Porcelli, M. Redoano) [under review]
CESifo Working Paper No. 10155

We examine the impact of a nationwide data disclosure programme for Italian municipalities launched in 2014. When only expenditure indicators were public, mayors cut spending, but service provision declined by more, lowering efficiency; once output indicators were added two years later, service provision improved. Our identification strategies exploit daily variation in newspaper coverage to instrument mayors' platform access, and comparison of municipalities along treated-untreated regional borders.  The findings show that governments respond to the metrics that are visible while neglecting those that are not. Designing disclosure regimes that cover both inputs and outcomes is therefore crucial to ensure efficiency gains. 

Networks and Yardstick Competition in the Digital Age: Evidence from Italian Municipalities (with B. Lockwood, F. Porcelli, M. Redoano)   [under review]

Does providing politicians with low-cost access to information about their peers change their fiscal behavior? This paper investigates this question by exploiting a data disclosure program introduced by the Italian government that allowed mayors to access detailed expenditure data of other municipalities through a restricted website, before the information was shared with voters. By tracking digital activity on the platform, we construct a directed network of peer monitoring. We find that mayors in the digital network are younger, more educated, and govern larger municipalities. Using a novel identification strategy that exploits network intransitivity to address the reflection problem, we show that digital transparency generates strategic interaction in property tax setting consistent with yardstick competition—but only among mayors who are not term-limited. No such interaction is found among municipalities outside the network, nor between geographically adjacent municipalities within it, ruling out tax competition as the driving mechanism. These findings suggest that digital platforms can facilitate a distinct, reputation-based form of yardstick competition.

The Democratic Costs of Lobbying: Policy Quality and Participation (with A. Carrozzo Magli and G. Righetto) [under review]

We develop a probabilistic-voting model to study how lobbying shapes both policy outcomes and democratic participation. In our model, a lobby provides blocs of votes in exchange for weaker policy commitments, but departing from existing frameworks we allow partially ideological voters to abstain when policies tilt too strongly toward lobby interests, thereby linking lobbying not only to policy concessions but also to voter turnout. The model yields a paradoxical prediction: stronger electoral competition can worsen policy quality and depress participation, as parties increasingly depend on lobby support to secure victory. We examine these predictions in the context of Mafia lobbying in Sicily between 1994 and 2018, exploiting variation from close national contests between Forza Italia and the Democratic Party of the Left. Consistent with the theory, tighter competition in Mafia-influenced municipalities led to fewer reallocations of confiscated Mafia assets—one of Italy’s central anti-mafia policies—and to lower electoral participation. Our findings highlight a perverse consequence of democratic competition: when votes can be mobilised by powerful lobbies, more competition may erode rather than enhance accountability and participation.

Selected work in progress

Red "Scare" or Red "Scar"? Early Voting and Habit Formation in Ideologically-Charged Elections (with C. Berti Ceroni, G. Bellettini, R. Di Leo)

From Rates to Ranks: How Tax Systems Alter Perceptions of Income Status (with D. Diez and J. Boccanfuso) 

Questioning the Role of Marginal Tax Rates for Compliance