Working Papers
Working Papers
Immigrant Rights Expansion and Local Integration: Evidence from Italy (with Francesco Ferlenga)
Updated June 2025
We study how expanding immigrants’ rights affects their political and social integration by exploiting Romania’s accession to the EU in 2007, which granted municipal voting and residency rights to Romanian immigrants in Italy. Using an event-study analysis at the municipality level, we find three key results. First, enfranchisement increased Romanians’ turnout and the likelihood of electing Romanian-born councilors in municipal elections, particularly in competitive races. An instrumented difference-in-differences strategy shows that this effect is driven by the enfranchisement of preexisting immigrants, not by new arrivals. Second, the rate of consent to organ donation among Romanian immigrants increased after 2007, indicating that the expansion of rights extends beyond political representation to prosocial behavior. However, we also find that the presence of immigrants still increases the probability of right-leaning party victories and municipal spending on public security, while reducing spending on social programs. This suggests that native backlash to immigrant presence outweighs the political influence of newly enfranchised immigrant communities in shaping local electoral outcomes.
Origin Country Information and Immigrant Behavior: Evidence from the COVID-19 Pandemic in the U.S.
I exploit the timing of COVID-19 outbreaks across immigrants' origin countries to study their behavioral responses to new developments in their origin countries. By conducting shift-share panel regressions, I find that an increase in the percentage of population infected with COVID-19 in the origin country leads to an increase in the average level of social distancing for the relevant immigrant group in the United States. Further, I perform an event study around the date national emergency was declared in the United States to study the interactive role played by the country of residence. I find that immigrants whose origin countries faced an outbreak before the U.S. increase their level of social distancing immediately after the declaration of national emergency in the U.S. That is, the information from the origin country translates into behavioral outcomes for immigrants when it becomes pertinent in their 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
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.