Scientific publications

Journal of Comparative Economics

Historical Roots of Political Extremism: The Effects of Nazi Occupation of Italy

The Italian civil war and the Nazi occupation of Italy occurred at a critical juncture, just before the birth of a new democracy and when, for the first time in a generation, Italians were choosing political affliations and forming political identities. In this paper we study how these traumatic events …
Joint with Nicola Fontana and Guido Tabellini

American Journal of Political Science

Positive Spillovers from Negative Campaigning

We study the effect of negative advertising in electoral races with more than two candidates with a large scale field experiment.
Joint with Vincenzo Galasso and Salvatore Nunnari

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy - 3 (2011), 144-174

Electoral Rules and Politicians’ Behavior: A Micro Test

Theory predicts that the majoritarian electoral system should produce more targeted redistribution and lower politicians’ rents than proportional representation.
Joint with Stefano Gagliarducci and Paolo Naticchioni

Risks

The Importance of Betting Early

We evaluate the impact of timing on decision outcomes when both the timing and the relevant decision are chosen under uncertainty. Sports betting provides the testing ground, as we exploit an original dataset containing more than one million online bets on games of the Italian Major Soccer League.
Joint with Alessandro Innocenti and Roberto Ricciuti