We study convergence and divergence dynamics in a sample of EMU countries by assembling an extensive dataset that contains information on public spending and policy outcomes in a variety of areas of government intervention including education, health, and civil justice from the early 1990s. We...

This paper develops a theoretical framework that makes predictions on (a) the conditions under which a populist party decides to run and the policy position it takes and (b) voters' response under different electoral systems. We test these predictions using data on Italian municipal elections...

This paper examines the integration of Chinese Communist Party membership and private entrepreneurship in China after 2002, when the Party revised its constitution and officially removed ideological discrimination against private entrepreneurs. Using six waves of a nationwide survey of privately...

We study the impact of a hypothetical tax on sugar - sweetened beverages (SSBs) on the US households' nutrients purchase, welfare change, and health benefit. Differently from the traditional approach, Food at Home(FAH) is here defined as a "home" good instead than a market good and consumers'...

Why do anti-immigrant political parties have more success in areas that host fewer immigrants? Using regression discontinuity design, structural breaks search methods and data from a sample of Italian municipalities, we show that the relationship between the vote shares of anti-immigrant parties...

In a career-concern model of politics with endogenous candidacy and different types of politicians, following a decentralization reform, politicians with different skills are elected in municipalities characterized by different levels of autonomous resources. As an effect, consumer welfare...

For almost two decades, starting from the early ‘90s, Italy experienced the strongest wave of decentralization reforms in its post II World War history. The causes were both economic and political. Yet, in recent years, again economic and political causes seem to call for opposite reforms....

Labor mobility is commonly taken as a property of an optimal currency area. But how does that property affect the outcome of fiscal policies? We address this issue with a two country - two period model, where both asymmetric and symmetric productivity shocks may hit the countries. We show that...

In a political agency model, we study the effect of introducing a less transparent tax tool for the financing of local governments. We show that lower quality politicians would use more the less transparent tax tool to enhance their probability of re-election. This prediction is tested by...

We study the effect of economic insecurity on electoral outcomes using data on municipal elections in Italy. We implement a difference-in-differences approach that exploits exogenous variation across municipalities in the share of inactive workers due to the economic lockdown introduced by the...