Ongoing projects:
Riders in the Smog: How Air Pollution Affects Workers in Urban Environments [Working Paper], joint with Giovanna D'Adda, Tommaso Frattini, and Alessio Romarri
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 [Working Paper], joint with Francesco Fasani, Elisabetta Pasini, and Alessio Romarri
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 betweencentral and local governments introduces potential endogeneity in their allocation. We address thisconcern 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 sharegap in local elections: a one within-area standard deviation increase in dispersed asylum seekerswidens the gap by 3.1 percentage points in favour of the Conservatives. We observe a similar shiftto the right in national elections and longitudinal survey data on voting intentions, along with anincrease 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, whoforgo subsidised housing and make independent residential choices. Turning to mechanisms, voters move to the right without becoming more hostile towards foreigners. Leveraging theuniverse of MPs' speeches, we show that representatives from more exposed areas emphasiseasylum and migration more, with no systematic change in tone or content. This heightenedsalience appears to shape voters' choices, with Conservative MPs particularly effective atchannelling discontent.
Sociopolitical and Climatic Events, Climate Change Salience, and Electricity Consumption [submitted], with Jacopo Bonan, Daniele Curzi, and Giovanna D’Adda,
Out of Practice: GP retirement and Patient Healthcare Demand and Service Utilization, with A. Riganti
From the Ballot to the Keyboard: Far-Right Mayors and Online Hate, with A. Romarri
Voting matters: the unintended consequences of early electoral participation on educational choices, with S. Granato, M. Ovidi, and C. Serra
Air pollution and school performance, with E. Meschi and C. Pavese
The Italian Judicial Geography and the Labour Market
Publications:
2024, "Triage at Shift Changes and Distortions in the Perception of Patients’ Condition at ED" [Journal of Health Economics], forthcoming, joint with Chiara Serra
2024, "Beyond Birth: the Medium-Term Health Impact of Prenatal Exposure to Air Pollution" [Journal of Environmental Economics and Management], joint with Chiara Serra, Massimo Stafoggia, and Alessandro Palma
2024, "The Hidden Toll of the Pandemic on Non-COVID Patients” [Health Policy], joint with Andrea Riganti
2023, "The complex interplay between weather, social activity, and COVID-19 in the US" [Social Science and Medicine - population health], joint with Chiara Serra
2023, “L’applicazione del d.lgs. n. 231/2001 sul territorio” in "Verso una riforma della responsabilità da reato degli enti. Dato empirico e dimensione applicativa", F. Centonze e S. Manacorda, ISBN 978-88-15-38380-8