In this paper, we investigate a channel through which social (or civic) capital may improve economic wellbeing and the functioning of institutions: political accountability. The main idea is that voters who share values and beliefs that foster cooperation are more likely to base their vote on...

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. First, if skilled individuals shy away from politics because of higher opportunities in the private sector, an increase in politicians’ pay may change...

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...

We evaluate how traditional parties may respond to populist parties on issues that are particularly fitting for populist messages. The testing ground is the 2020 Italian referendum on the reduction of members of Parliament. We implement a large-scale field experiment, with almost one million...