We study the firm-level effects of a fiscal rule that constrained the expenditure of Italian municipalities.

We compare single round vs runoff elections under plurality rule, allowing for partly endogenous party formation.

This paper investigates the differential response of male and female voters to competitive persuasion in political campaigns.

Fiscal rules are laws aimed at reducing the incentive to accumulate debt, and many countries adopt them to discipline local governments.

In collaboration with the reelection campaign of an Italian incumbent mayor, we administred messages about the candidate’s valence or ideology.

We analyze political selection in a closed list proportional system where parties have strong gate-keeping power, which they use as an instrument to pursue votes.

This paper uses an original dataset covering the presence of local news in medium-large Italian cities in the period 1993–2010.

The wage paid to politicians affects both the choice of citizens to run for an elective office and the performance of those who are appointed.

We use transparent statistical methodology for data driven case studies to investigate the impact of economic liberalization on real GDP per capita in a worldwide sample of countries.