In this document, I forecast the results of the Italian general election using aggregated polling data. According to this forecast, there is an extremely high probability of the centre-left winning an overall majority in the lower chamber (p ≈ 100%); the probability of the centre-left winning...

This paper uses an original dataset covering the presence of local news in medium-large Italian cities in the period 1993-2010 to evaluate the effects of newspaper entry and exit on electoral participation, political selection, and government efficiency. Exploiting discrete changes in the number...

Nowadays it is commonplace to argue that candidates’ personal characteristics play a large part in determining how individuals vote. In the domain of political marketing this assumption is often given for granted, and no clear conceptual understanding of how image crafting techniques affect...

I review the main theoretical arguments and empirical evidence of the relationship between electoral rules and turnout, as well as the puzzles that have emerged from that literature. I then highlight some recent theoretical, methodological, and empirical advancements using subnational data that...

This work analyses the effect of the two preference voting systems – proportional system with blocked lists of candidates vs proportional system with open list of candidates - on the quality of politicians. The exogenous variation in the Italian Parliament electoral system (Law n. 270/2005) -...