Papers

The social investment (SI) paradigm promises that public investment in citizens' capabilities generates returns not only in the labor market, but also in political integration and psychological well-being. Yet rigorous causal evidence on these multidimensional effects remains scarce. We report results from a preregistered randomized field experiment with 2,748 unemployed women in Catalonia, evaluating the causal effects of a public digital skills training program funded through Next Generation EU. Using an encouragement design with a conditional €100 completion incentive, we estimate LATE via two-stage least squares. Our findings offer a nuanced assessment of the social investment paradigm: training completion generates limited effects on labor market integration, while producing more consistent gains in psychological well-being — including self-esteem and mental health — and selective effects on political integration, most notably on trust in the European Union. A completion rate of just 8.59% despite the financial incentive reveals the depth of structural barriers facing digitally vulnerable populations, raising fundamental questions about the practical reach of social investment policies. 

How is violence against civilians targeted in multi-party civil wars? Contemporary civil conflicts increasingly tend to involve more than two armed actors, requiring armed groups to navigate shifting alliances and heightened uncertainty when selecting targets. However, existing research on the political logic of civilian targeting remains largely rooted in dyadic ideological civil wars. This paper examines how and why civilians are targeted in ethnic multi-party conflicts through a micro-level examination of the Bosnian Civil War (1992–1995). It argues that local ethnic polarization provides information on areas that are most under threat for counterattack and thus beneficial for attack. In addition, the paper investigates how changes in alliance configurations affect the use of violence against civilians of opposing groups. Using geocoded event data and fine-grained demographic information at the locality level, this study seeks to identify how multi-actor dynamics transform established theories of civilian targeting. Preliminary results at the municipal level show that ethnic polarization is highly salient in determining where attacks are targeted even when controlling for other logistic and strategic variables involved in wartime targeting. 

Over the past decades, independence movements in various stateless nations have sparked debate and widespread political action. At the same time, many of these regions have experienced significant increases in international immigration. This raises a key question: how do international migrants orient themselves politically and decide what territorial preferences they hold – whether for or against the independence projects of their new places of residence? Building on research that highlights the identity-shaping effects of regional language (RL) medium education (Clots‐Figueras & Masella, 2013; Clua i Fainé, 2017), I hypothesize that migrants who experienced schooling imparted in the regional language are more likely to support their region’s independence or increased autonomy than those who did not receive RL-medium schooling. Furthermore, extending the work of Wilson-Daily and Kemmelmeier (2020), I argue that an individual’s linguistic background moderates this policy’s effect. Using Catalonia as a case, I propose that migrants with Spanish as their first language are less influenced by the nation-building impact of RL-medium education and are therefore less likely to support Catalan independence. I also discuss the extent to which linguistic landscapes affect an individual’s political socialization in this context, hypothesizing that greater interaction with Catalan outside the classroom is positively associated with support for the independence project. Preliminary results suggest that language and linguistic environment moderate the attitudes of international migrants differently to those of Spanish-born migrants. This paper contributes to debates on the efficacy of language and education policy as a nation-building tool, as well as the political socialization of first-generation migrants in regions with distinct national identities. 

Carbon pricing has become a cornerstone of climate policy, yet public opposition remains one of its most persistent barriers. A vast body of research shows that compensation schemes can substantially raise support, but this literature treats compensation as unconditional and takes both its substantive design and its institutional credibility for granted. This paper argues that two independent dimensions of compensation jointly determine public support: the substantive form of the transfer and the institutional credibility of the commitment. The main theoretical claim is that these dimensions interact multiplicatively; an institutionally credible commitment amplifies the support gains from a redistributive design, while a vague political promise may neutralize them entirely. Using a 2x3 representative survey experiment in Spain, I independently vary credibility (vague promise vs. legally guaranteed transfer) and interpretive frame (redistribution, insurance, dividend). The findings contribute to the political feasibility literature by showing that the mainstream redistribution debate has overlooked a prior question: not what a carbon pricing reform promises, but whether citizens believe the promise will be kept.