Excited to share my
#JMP
: Place-Based Industrial Policies and Local Agglomeration in the Long Run
❓Can PBIPs foster local agglomeration and structural change?
✅Novel evidence of virtuous cycle promoted by PBIP
⚙️Key channel: knowledge-intensive services
🧵👇
#EconTwitter
My JMP won the
@FBK_research
award for the Best Paper in Public Policy Evaluation!
Looking forward to presenting it at the
@FbkIrvapp
2024 Advanced School in Venice.
A
@l_incoronato
il
#premio
@FbkIrvapp
2024
👉
Il giovane dottorando ha vinto la seconda edizione del premio per il miglior paper per le politiche pubbliche.
Presenterà il suo lavoro a Venezia il 23/01 alla Scuola internazionale sulla valutazione d'impatto
Thrilled to see this paper with Giuseppe Albanese and
@guidodeblasio
forthcoming in AEJ: Policy!
❓Can government transfers have a persistent impact on voting?
✅Higher electoral support for the welfare state
❌Not driven by incumbent voting or economic status
🧵👇
#EconTwitter
Forthcoming in AEJ: Economic Policy: "Government Transfers and Votes for State Intervention" by Giuseppe Albanese, Guido de Blasio, and Lorenzo Incoronato.
And last but not least-enjoyed
@l_incoronato
#JMP
on the effects of a large place-based industrial policy (PBIP) aimed at establishing industrial clusters in
#Italy
in the 1960s and 1970s - v interesting and so good to see my beloved
#South
on the slide 🇮🇹
❌BUT, where PBIP is implemented matters.
Only short-lived effects in places with poor market access and low agglomeration pre-policy
👉impact of PBIP depends on initial conditions in targeted areas (9/10)
🤔Possible channels?
1⃣Structure of the economy: more workers in industry 👉demand protection from the state
2⃣Selective migration at the border
3⃣Shifting individual attitudes towards role of the state, preferences for redistribution, luck vs effort
Results:
i) manuf employment📈during IDA years... but effect stabilizes as IDAs phased out
ii) spillovers to non-tradable services during IDA years, via local multipliers
iii) services continue to📈, esp. knowledge-intensive ➡️consistent with agglomeration economies (5/10)
Established finding in political economy: transfers 📈boost votes for the incumbent government...
👉We ask: do communities that received transfers in the past still support welfare policies and redistribution...
... regardless of which party proposes them?
📐Measuring voters’ support for state intervention: combine party-level scores (from Manifesto Project) with municipal vote shares at national elections
💡Identification: spatial RD at the policy border
📈Debate on place-based and local development policies has intensified
🚨We stress that these interventions can have lasting, unintended consequences on voting outcomes
Thanks for reading! Comments most welcome
⚙️Classic channels?❌Not at play here:
1⃣ Rewarding the incumbent: government party promoting CasMez disappeared in early 1990s
2⃣ Different economic conditions: no long-run effect of the policy on local employment and income
⬆️Stronger support for pro-state parties in post-Casmez elections in treated areas
⭐️Effect largest in 2013: 1st time 5-Star Movement called for Reddito di Cittadinanza (basic income)👉elicited voters’ views on state intervention
❌Check: not capturing populist attitudes
There is intense debate on PBIP.
This is the first study documenting a virtuous cycle led by services - typically not target of industrial policy - and especially knowledge-intensive jobs
👉key policy implications, and ground for exciting future research! (10/10)
PBIPs assisting left-behind areas have📈in recent years, aiming to create industrial clusters and foster local development...
❌but scarce evidence on long-run effects of PBIPs due to limited data and identification issues (1/10)
Paper - with
@salva_lat
- leverages 100 years of admin data and a unique historical setting: the Industrial Development Areas (IDAs)
👉PBIP in Southern Italy🇮🇹(1960s-70s) aiming to⬆️industrial concentration in high-potential areas via subsidies to manufacturing firms (2/10)
More results:
i) some displacement of employment from nearby areas while PBIP is in place, but not after its termination
ii) long-run cost per job ~$30k
iii) benefits of PBIP outweigh the costs (8/10)