The paper consider the skill-biased "share-altering" technical change hypothesis in a spatial general equilibrium model where skilled and unskilled individual may exhibit different preferences for local amenities. A main novelty - both for labour and urban economics- is that, under this...

This paper considers the "share-altering" technical change hypothesis in a spatial general equilibrium model where individuals have different levels of skills. Building on a simple Cobb-Douglas production function, our model shows that the implementation of skill-biased technologies requires a...

The paper investigates the effect of local electoral rules on the political participation of the residents, as reflected in voter turnout. It focuses on Italy, where municipal voting schemes are differentiated by the size of the city: a single ballot system applies to municipalities with less...

We investigate the effectiveness of European Structural Funds on employment, population and house prices in Local Labor Markets (LLM) located in Southern Italy. We exploit the variability in disbursements between 2007 and 2013 and estimate the impact of the interventions by allowing for...

The paper uses the consolidation of municipalities brought about by the Fascist dictatorship in Italy during the 1920s to gauge the role of the size of local jurisdictions for economic development. It finds that the consolidation was associated with relevant net welfare gains for the communities...

Marshallian Labor Market Pooling: Evidence from Italy This paper employs a unique Italian data source to take a comprehensive approach to labor market pooling. It jointly considers many different aspects of the agglomeration labor market relationship, including turnover, learning, matching, and...

Local Development that Money Can't Buy: Italy's Contratti di Programma The paper evaluates the effectiveness of a major Italy's place-based policy (Contratti di Programma), through which the Government endorses and finances an industrialization plan proposed by private firms. By using as...

This paper investigates the interplay between cultural traditions and policy effectiveness. It explores the differential impact of a large development program (Cassa per il Mezzogiorno), implemented for four decades, starting in the 1950s, to stimulate convergence between Italy's South and the...

In this paper, we study how contract enforcement at the local level affects a firm's ability to supply customised intermediate inputs to foreign firms. Using Italian firm-level data, we show that firms located in courts with higher judicial trial length in civil disputes, which is our measure of...