Working Papers
Working Papers
Immigrant Rights Expansion and Local Integration: Evidence from Italy (with Francesco Ferlenga)
Updated September 2025
We study how expanding immigrants’ rights affects their political and social integration by leveraging Romania’s 2007 EU accession, which granted Romanian immigrants in Italy municipal voting and residency rights. Using municipality-level event studies, we find: (1) Enfranchisement increased the election of Romanian-born councilors—especially in competitive races—despite limited changes in candidacy rates. It also increased Romanian turnout, suggesting that electoral gains stem from an expanded voter base. An instrumented difference-in-differences analysis shows this is driven by pre existing Romanian residents, not new arrivals. (2) Consent to organ donation rose among Romanians post-2007, indicating that the expansion of rights extends to prosocial behavior. (3) Nonetheless, immigrant presence continues to raise support for right-leaning parties and security spending while reducing social spending, highlighting persistent native backlash that outweighs immigrant political influence.
Origin Country Information and Immigrant Behavior: Evidence from the COVID-19 Pandemic in the U.S.
Revise and Resubmit, Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization
Immigrants consume information from both their origin and destination countries. I examine how they adjust their behavior in response to new developments in their origin country by exploiting the timing of COVID-19 outbreak in each origin country. I find that as COVID-19 spread in various countries, immigrants from these countries were more likely to practice social distancing in the United States. Additionally, they reacted more strongly to new developments of COVID-19 in their origin countries after the declaration of a national emergency in the U.S., indicating immigrants’ actions are influenced by both information from their origin countries and the relevance of such information in their current country of residence. Using Facebook connectedness index and Google search trends, I find that real-time transmission of information through the internet is a likely driving force of my findings.
Ideology Backlash: Anticommunist Education and Ideology in South Korea
Submitted
I investigate the long-term impact of anticommunist education in South Korea on individuals’ political preferences during the years 1954-1987. Based on the individual’s year of birth, I exploit the variation in years of exposure to anticommunist education. I examine the relationship between the duration of exposure to anticommunist education and the individuals’ views on North Korea as well as their politico-economic values. I find that more years of anticommunist education result in individuals identifying themselves with ideas and values that oppose anticommunism. These findings suggest that anticommunist education in South Korea has backfired in the long run. This paper is the first to find a backlash to ideological education over an extended period.
"A Glimpse into the Future: Price-Responsive Demand for Electricity in Norway "
"Economic Efficiency and Reliability of Demand Response"
“The Role of Gas Infrastructure in the Capacity Market's Efficiency” (with Zeky Murra-Anton)