Federico Zampollo
Research
Publications (Peer-reviewed)
The Municipal Administration Quality Index: The Italian Case (with Cerqua A., Giannantoni C., Mazziotta M.), 2025. Social Indicators Research, 177: 345-378.
Abstract: Municipal governments have become increasingly involved in fund management, public service provision, and administrative tasks. Despite their importance, studies of their relevance for local economic development have lacked a measure of their quality and capacity with extensive temporal and territorial coverage. We introduce the Municipal Administration Quality Index (MAQI), a novel composite index designed to assess the quality of local governments in Italian municipalities. Drawing on a newly compiled dataset covering 2001–2022, MAQI evaluates three key pillars: bureaucratic efficiency and capacity, the quality of local politicians, and the economic and fiscal performance of municipal administrations. Our findings reveal significant variations in administrative quality, with larger municipalities exhibiting higher scores due to fewer financial constraints and better-educated civil servants. We also identify distinct geographical patterns in institutional quality, challenging the conventional North–South divide.
Deeds or Words? The local influence of anti-immigrant parties on foreigners’ flows (with Cerqua A.), 2023. European Journal of Political Economy, 77: 102275.
Abstract: We investigate the influence of anti-immigrant parties on foreigners' location choices. Considering Italian municipal elections from 2000 to 2018, we create a comprehensive database that includes a classification of the anti-/pro-immigration axis of leading political parties based on specialists' assessments. Adopting a bias-corrected regression discontinuity design, we find that the election of a mayor supported by an anti-immigrant coalition significantly affects immigrants' location choices only when considering the most recent years. This finding is not driven by the enactment of policies against immigrants but by an ‘inhospitality effect’, which has become stronger over time due to the exacerbation of political propaganda. Therefore, foreigners' flows are influenced by the local political environment only when immigration is central to the political debate.
The Italian Geography of Discontent (with Cerqua A., Letta M.), 2022. Scienze Regionali, Italian Journal of Regional Science, 3: 367-384.
Abstract: Although widespread, the recent populist wave in Western countries is a heterogeneous phenomenon in terms of individual features of populist voters – the stereotype is «older, working-class, white, poorly educated, who live on low incomes» – as well as geographical characteristics of populist hotspots – «lagging-behind, stagnating and low productivity regions». This study leverages nonlinear statistical learning techniques to detect recurrent individual and geographical patterns of populist voting across Italy. Using the Chapel Hill expert survey classification, we analyse the most prominent voting patterns during the 2019 European elections in all Italian local labour markets. We map the Italian geography of discontent, highlighting how it seems to be shaped by the interaction between individual- and territorial-level predictors. Our study promotes the adoption of flexible and nonparametric predictive algorithms to «diagnose» the main factors linked to the spatial distribution and evolution of populist hotspots.
Working Papers
The Adverse Impacts of Disasters In-Name-Only (with Baiocchetti G., Castaldo C., Noy I.)
Abstract: Disasters caused by natural hazards, such as earthquakes or hurricanes, have many adverse consequences associated with the physical damage they cause. Here, we show that the very name given to a disaster can also lead to adverse consequences. We argue that the name used for a disaster is significant, and is distinct from the physical event itself. Specifically, we show that the toponyms (place names) used to refer to disaster events by the media and the authorities have consequences if these toponyms do not accurately align with the disaster-affected region. Examples of inaccurate disaster toponyms abound, but the costs of these inaccurate toponyms have yet to be recognized. When a disaster damages area A and not area B, but the toponym adopted for that disaster encompasses both A and B, we show that B experiences a decline in tourism that is unrelated to the hazard event that hit only area A. We also show that once B’s name has been tarnished, it becomes difficult to clear its name. Our examples are three recent Italian earthquakes for which we quantify the impact on tourism of the earthquakes themselves and of the toponyms they were given. Once an area is defined as affected, even when it was not, this designation leads to a statistically significant and economically material decline in tourism – in our examples, this amounts to an unnecessary 10-15 percent decline in tourist arrivals that endures for several years following the event. We finish by making some observations about how disasters should be named.
The Causal Effect of Municipal Mergers on Local Institutional Quality (with Cerqua A., Giannantoni C.)
Abstract: While boundary reforms have been extensively studied for their economic and electoral implications, their impact on institutional capacity remains underexplored. Leveraging the staggered implementation of mergers across 197 Italian municipalities, we investigate changes in administrative quality using the Municipal Administrative Quality Index (MAQI), a novel composite measure of local administrative capacity and quality. Using a non-parametric difference-indifferences approach, we find that mergers substantially improve administrative performance. This improvement is driven primarily by the enhanced quality of local politicians and strengthened economic-fiscal performance, whereas bureaucratic efficiency improves only marginally. We demonstrate that these positive outcomes are attributable to economies of scale and the self-selection of higher-quality local politicians, who are drawn by the opportunity to earn higher wages. Our findings contribute to the broader debate on the optimal municipal size and demonstrate that municipal mergers among small municipalities can enhance the quality of local government.
“Please, don’t go”: the role of local public human capital in post-disaster recovery (with Ascani A., Faggian A.) (R&R).
Abstract: We examine the nuanced interplay between local administrative capacity and post-earthquake economic recovery. By focusing on the aftermath of the 2016 Central Italy earthquake, and employing the synthetic difference-in-differences estimator, we shed light on the crucial role of low local public employee turnover as a mitigating factor in curtailing post-disaster job losses and the reduction of business activities. Our findings advance the disaster recovery literature by delving into municipal-level dynamics, highlighting the significance of specific human capital and local administrative stability in fostering socio-economic resilience.
Work in Progress
​What is the Impact of Establishing Subnational Institutions on Economic Growth? The case of Italian Regions (with Ascani A., Cerqua A.).
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Regional Institutional Quality and post-earthquake recovery.