Legislature and Constituency Size in Italian Regions: Forecasting the Effects of a Reform

In this paper we analyze the effect of different legislature and constituency size on per capita regional expenditure in Italy. According to the theory, legislature size has an indefinite effect on government spending because logrolling and transaction costs may have canceling effects. In turn, smaller constituency size is predicted to decrease government spending, because of homogeneity of interests and low monitoring costs. We find a large and significantly positive effect of the number of legislators and a negative effect for constituency size. We use these findings to forecast the effects of the increase in the number of legislators that are occurring in some regionsLegislature size, constituency size, regional expenditure

Risk Determinants of direct democracy across Europe.

This paper investigates on the demographic, economic, political and cultural determinants of direct democracy in European States using an index of citizen law-making for 43 countries. The test is interesting since there are important variations across European countries in the referendum and initiative use. We find that per capita income, population and ethnic fractionalization are poor determinants of direct democracy, while majoritarian elections and presidential systems are in general negatively related to direct democracy. A larger share of Catholic population is a positive determinant, whereas Muslims have a negative effect. Quality of governance indicators have a positive effect.

Determinants of Direct Democracy

This paper investigates on the demographic, economic, political and cultural determinants of direct democracy in 87 countries using an index of direct democracy. The test is interesting since there are important variations across these countries in the referendum and initiative use. We apply a number of estimation techniques. We find that per capita income, education and a larger share of Catholic population are positive determinants, whereas ethnic fractionalization is depending on the estimation technique. Political rights and stability also work as prerequisites to direct democracy. Direct democracy seems independent from the institutional structure.direct democracy, comparative politics, referendum

Determinants of Direct Democracy

This paper investigates on the demographic, economic, political and cultural determinants of direct democracy in 87 countries using an index of direct democracy. The test is interesting since there are important variations across these countries in the referendum and initiative use. We apply a number of estimation techniques. We find that per capita income, education and a larger share of Catholic population are positive determinants, whereas ethnic fractionalization is depending on the estimation technique. Political rights and stability also work as prerequisites to direct democracy. Direct democracy seems independent from the institutional structure.direct democracy, comparative politics, referendum

Legislature size and government spending in Italian regions: forecasting the effects of a reform.

We analyze the effect of different legislature size on per capita regional expenditure in Italy. According to the theory, legislature size has an indefinite effect on government spending because logrolling and transaction costs may have canceling effects. We find a large and significantly positive effect of the number of legislators. We use these findings to forecast the effects of the increase in the number of legislators that is taking place in some regions: a 10% increase in legislature size commands on average a 12% increase in per capita regional expenditure.Legislature size, regional expenditure

Interest Groups and Government Spending in Italy, 1876-1913

In the last two decades of the XIX century Italy became an industrial country. Historians maintain that this process was affected by the action of some interest groups that pursued both state protection from competition and specific public expenditure programs. Starting from the economic literature of interest groups, this paper attempts to empirically investigate the role of the interest groups in public expenditure decisions in Italy from 1876 to 1913. We argue that a proper indicator of the role of interest groups is their output. The analysis suggests that government spending was sensitive to the preferences of heavy industry rather then those of textile and cereal cultivators. We therefore highlight the role of the political process in setting economic policy at the early stages of Italian development.special interest groups, public expenditure, Italian economic history

An analysis of the determinants of corruption: Evidence from the Italian regions

This paper investigates the causes of corruption in the Italian regions for the period 1980 to 2002 by selecting a number of hypotheses assessed in the literature. Corruption turns out to be driven by the level of per capita income and of education. While, as expected, income is negatively related with corruption, education is not; its positive impact on corruption can be explained as if corruption in Italy was typically a 'white collars' phenomenon during the 1980s and 1990s. Moreover the size of public investments in both the economic and politicoinstitutional dimensions seems to be a crucial factor in the explanation of the phenomenon.Corruption; Determinants; Institutions; Italian regions

Interest Groups, Government Spending and Italian Industrial Growth (1876-1913)

In the last two decades of the XIX century the Italian model of economic growth shifted from agricultural to industrial. Historians maintain that this process was affected by the action of some interest groups that pursued both state protection from competition and specific public expenditure programs. Starting from the economic literature of interest groups, this paper attempts to empirically investigate the role of the interest groups in public expenditure decisions in Italy from 1876 to 1913. We argue that a proper indicator of the role of interest groups is their output. The analysis suggests that government spending was sensitive to the preferences of heavy industry rather then those of textile and cereal cultivators. We therefore highlight the role of the political process in setting economic policy at the early stages of the Italian development.industrialization; special interests groups; public expenditure, Italian economic history.

Spatial links in the analysis of voter turnout in European Parliamentary elections

This paper investigates the turnout in European Parliamentary elections by analyzing the four EP elections from 1999 to 2014 in 155 regions in EU-12. We use a number of econometric techniques that account for spatial dependence, also dealing with heteroskedasticity and endogeneity. The results confirm the role of spatial spillovers and indicate a significant role for GDP per capita, unemployment, age, institutional and electoral variables in influencing turnout. Finally, we disentangle the direct and indirect effects of the regional variable in affecting turnout

Detecting Dividing Lines in Turnout: Spatial Dependence and Heterogeneity in the 2012 US Presidential Election

US voters have been moving further and further apart, most notably in terms of partisanship. This trend has led to a strong geographic concentration of voters’ preferences. We look at how turnout shows a similar pattern by jointly addressing two features of the data: spatial autocorrelation and heterogeneity of the observed units. Results obtained through a spatial lag regression tree procedure for the 2012 US presidential elections allow us to identify twelve groups of counties with similar characteristics. We fnd that (i) close counties behave similarly in terms of turnout; (ii) across various groups of counties, some variables have diferent statistical signifcance (or lack of it, such as household income and unemployment), and often diferent signs (such as the shares of adherents to congregations, Blacks, and Hispanics, and urban population). These results are useful for targeting geographically based groups in get out the vote operation