Research

Emigration of young, highly educated individuals may deprive origin countries of entrepreneurs. We identify exogenous variation in emigration from Italy by interacting past diaspora networks and current economic pull factors in destination countries. We find that a one standard deviation increase in the emigration rate generates a 4.8% decline in firms creation in the local labor market of origin. An accounting exercise decomposes the estimated effect into four components: subtraction of individuals with average entrepreneurial propensity, selection of young and college-educated among emigrants, negative spillovers on firm creation and selection on unobservable characteristics positively associated with entrepreneurship.

In the media: Lavoce.info, L'Espresso, Il Sole 24 Ore

We study how the US presidential election of 2016 affected the subsequent inflow of Mexican-born immigrants. We use the "Matricula Consular de Alta Seguridad" data to construct proxies for annual inflows and internal movements of Mexican-born individuals, including undocumented immigrants, across US commuting zones. We find that a 10-percentage point increase in the Republican vote share in a commuting zone reduced inflows by 1.8 percent after the 2016 Trump election. The internal relocation of established Mexican immigrants primarily explains this reduction, though inflows of new immigrants decreased as well.

Brain drain is a key policy concern for many countries. In this paper we study whether tax incentives are an effective policy to attract high-skilled expatriates back to their home country, exploiting a generous income tax break for Italian returnees. Using administrative data and a Triple Differences design, we find that eligible individuals are 27% more likely to return to Italy. Additionally, we uncover significant effects throughout the wage distribution, revealing that tax-induced migration is a broad phenomenon beyond top earners. A cost-benefit analysis shows that the tax scheme can pay for itself by targeting young high-skilled individuals.

Previous version: IZA Working Paper No. 17224, CESifo Working Paper No. 10271 

8yyIn the media: Lavoce.info, L'Opinion, Domani, Il Foglio, Radio 1, Il Post, Radio 24

 (draft available upon request)

There is increasing evidence on the geographical mobility of high-earners in response to tax differentials, both across and within countries. However, an open question is the extent to which these mobility responses reflect a true movement of human capital or merely a relocation of tax bases for fiscal purposes. In this paper I study internal migration between Italian municipalities in response to changes in local tax differentials. Using administrative data on bilateral transfers of residence between municipalities, and exploiting variation in local tax rates between location pairs over time, I document three findings. First, changes in local income tax differentials induce transfers of residence towards low-income-tax municipalities, in line with the existing literature. Second, individuals move towards locations with higher property tax rates, after a reform in 2009 exempted primary residences from property taxation, consistent with homeowners transferring their fiscal residence to high-tax municipalities to take advantage of a greater tax exemption. Last, preliminary results using a novel administrative data source, linking individuals' job locations to their residence, point towards no effect of changes in local tax differentials on work- and study-related transfers between municipalities. These findings can inform policymakers to what extent raising local taxes results in losing human capital, in addition to tax revenue.

[Draft coming soon!]

Do major sport events influence natives' attitudes towards immigration? We investigate whether the performance of national football teams with a high immigrant presence affects natives' sentiment towards immigration, as measured in the Eurobarometer data. Using a triple difference design, we find that respondents in countries with a high immigrant share in their national team, which over-performed in the FIFA World Cup, show an improvement in their sentiment towards immigration from outside the EU. Comparing respondents interviewed shortly before vs. after World Cup qualifier matches, we also show that victories are associated with more positive feelings toward immigration. In both cases, we do not observe any increase in proxies for national pride or attitudes towards EU-immigration.

We study the effects of tax-induced immigration on receiving firms. In 2010, Italy introduced a preferential tax scheme for high-skilled immigrants, which lowered income taxes on high-skilled expatriates and foreigners relocating to Italy by two thirds. Leveraging pre-existing variation in firms’ exposure to the eligible workers combined with the introduction of the tax schemes, we estimate the effects of hiring high-skilled returnees on productivity, wages, employment, and other firm-level outcomes using Italian Social Security data.

Migration flows entail substantial political effects. While immigration flows have been linked to the rise of far-right populism in several countries, it is unclear whether population outflows (emigration) contribute to the success of populist parties. In this project, we aim to study the effects of emigration on political outcomes in the origin country, with a focus on voters’ support for anti-globalization platforms and far-right populism. Using a shift-share instrumental variable strategy to address the endogeneity of outmigration flows to local political conditions, we estimate the causal effect of emigration on political outcomes and investigate the key mechanisms.