Job Market Paper
From Fields to Factories: Malaria's Shadow and the Rise of Industry, with P. Buonanno, G. Lecce, and L. Ogliari [CEPR Discussion Paper No. 20394]
Abstract
Can disease eradication promote industrialization by relaxing constraints on agricultural production? We study Italy's post-war malaria eradication campaign using newly harmonized historical data and a matching difference-in-differences design. Historically malarial areas experienced an additional 2.4 percentage-point decline in the agricultural labor-force share and a 2.8 percentage-point increase in the industrial share, alongside growth in manufacturing employment and establishment size. This transition coincided with stronger growth in agricultural output value and closer alignment of crop production with predicted comparative advantage. Pre-eradication crop portfolios suggest a production-side explanation. Reallocation was stronger where labor-intensive crops, which required hand labor during the malaria season, covered more land, consistent with improvements in worker efficiency releasing agricultural labor. By contrast, areas with greater scope for improving crop allocation experienced smaller agricultural-share declines, consistent with gains from more productive land use sustaining labor demand. The findings highlight a production-side channel through which disease control can promote industrial development, complementing its effects on human-capital accumulation and individual income.
Publications
Local governance reforms and fiscal behaviour: lessons from the introduction of indirect mayoral elections in 1889 Italy, with M. Postigliola, and M. Rota, Forthcoming, The Journal of Economic History]
"What next? Nations in the technological race through the 2030", with D. Archibugi and A. Vezzani, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 2025
"Landownership concentration and human capital accumulation in Post-Unification Italy (1871-1921)", Journal of Population Economics, 2023
"The agrarian origins of social capital", Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 2022
"Is a European recovery possible without high-tech public corporations?" with D. Archibugi, Intereconomics, 2021
"A reconstruction of the Italian provincial population" with M. Rota and M. Postigliola, Rivista di Storia Economica, 2020, Errata corrige
"Determinants of Joblessness During the Economic Crisis: Impact of Criminality in the Italian Labour Market", with S. Fedeli and M. Onofri (ESM), Social Indicators Research, 2018
Working papers
Building Consistent Territorial Units over Time: A Graph-Based Method for Historical Municipal Boundaries in Italy, with P. Buonanno, B. Cattaneo, G. Lecce, and L. Ogliari [CEPR Discussion Paper No. 20714]
Works in progress
Agricultural Preconditions and Industrial Development: Evidence from the Cassa per il Mezzogiorno, with Sharp, P.
Does agricultural development create the preconditions for industry? We evaluate the agricultural phase of Italy's Cassa per il Mezzogiorno, the largest place-based programme of post-war Europe, which financed land improvement on Southern farms in the 1950s before subsidising manufacturing. Using a municipal panel from 1911 to 1991 that records workers where they live and where they work, archival grant records, and a Matching difference-in-differences design, we find that the grants raised the cultivated share of land and land per worker, moved residents out of agriculture and into industry within a decade, and raised manufacturing employment at local plants two decades later. The adjustment took place within the receiving areas, which spread it to neighbouring municipalities, relocated plant jobs within agrarian zones, and lost no more residents to migration than their controls. Remarkably, the effect did not run through the industrial subsidies that followed. Market access on the transport network of 1913 governs where plant employment rose, so the agricultural push complemented prior market integration. Agriculture supplied the ingredients of industrialisation, and geography decided where industry formed.
Public investment, Agricultural Enhancement, and Structural Transformation, with L. Bagnato
Other Publications and Policy Briefs
L’Italia della tecnologia: che cosa mostrano i brevetti? with D. Archibugi and A. Vezzani, Antonio, Policy brief (2). CNR - Dipartimento Scienze Umane e Sociali, Patrimonio Culturale, Roma, 2024
"La posizione dell’Italia nella attività brevettuale. Situazione attuale e prospettive", in: Relazione sulla Ricerca e l'Innovazione in Italia, with D. Archibugi and A. Vezzani, CNR Edizioni, Quarta Edizione, 2023
"Il dottorato di ricerca: una valutazione", in: Relazione sulla Ricerca e l'Innovazione in Italia, with D. Archibugi, M. Cellini, I. Di Tullio, A. Malgieri, L. Pisacane, CNR Edizioni, Terza Edizione, 2021