Time to release the calendar for the second term of our UniCatt Political Economy WIP seminars, jointly organized with Tommaso Colussi, Davide Cipullo and Domenico Rossignoli.
Tuesday, 5pm, Universita' Cattolica. Everyone welcome!
Thank you for hosting an article on the paper with @matteogamalerio.bsky.social on anti-revolving door policies, political selection and policymaking.
Details, and robustness in the full draft (ieb.ub.edu/publication/...). Happy to hear your feedback. 🙌
Big picture: Not all “more value to political careers” policies are alike. A wage reduction and a PCO cut both change expected returns, but they hit different politicians differently—so they can have opposite selection effects. Design matters.
Takeaways:
1. Cooling-off periods can improve candidate human capital (education ↑).
2. But they can strengthen short-term pandering among lower-HC incumbents (taxes ↓). Anti-revolving-door rules can be a double-edged sword.
Who drives this? Exactly who the model predicts: non-graduate, non-term-limited mayors show the strongest tax cuts; graduate or term-limited mayors don’t move. That’s classic pandering under higher loss costs.
In-office behavior: among mayors elected before 2013 (so selection is held constant), the reform increases the cost of losing. We see lower local income-tax revenues after 2013 in treated municipalities—consistent with avoiding unpopular tax hikes.
Selection result: the reform raises education. Average education of both mayoral candidates and elected mayors increases by ≈ +2 years around the threshold (~+13% vs. a ~15-year mean). “Pay peanuts, get monkeys”? Maybe—but how you pay matters.
Also, high education mayors are less likely to take up positions in a SOE immediately after the end of their mandate.
First check: does the law bite? Yes. The reform cuts the chance that mayors land top SOE posts by ~5 percentage points around the threshold, with no effect on firms where the state holds only a minority (placebo).
Empirical setting & policy shock: Italy’s Severino Law (2013) introduced 1–2 year cooling-off periods for local politicians moving into top jobs at SOEs/bureaucracy; it applies only above a 15,000-inhabitant threshold—perfect for a difference-in-discontinuity design.
• But PCOs are especially valuable to lower human-capital politicians → reducing them deters those candidates more. Overall: reduction in PCO value and in wage can have opposite effects.
Theory result in a nutshell:
• Conditional on holding office, lowering the value of PCOs raises the cost of losing—similar to a wage increase while in office → more incentive to avoid unpopular policies.
First, we build a model. Ingredients: standard accountability + endogenous entry + PCOs available to politicians kicked out from office. Assumption: PCOs more attractive for low human capital politicians.
Idea: Politicians often have “politically connected outside options” (PCOs)—post-office jobs in the bureaucracy or state-owned firms (SOEs). Cut their value and you change both selection into politics and behavior in office. Is it just like a reduction in office wages? Not really…
Do revolving doors shape who runs for office and how they govern? Short answer: yes—and not always the way you’d expect. New version of my paper with @matteogamalerio.bsky.social builds a model and looks at Italy’s 2013 “Severino” reform (cooling-off period). 🧵
Takeaways:
1. Cooling-off periods can improve candidate human capital (education ↑).
2. But they can strengthen short-term pandering among lower-HC incumbents (taxes ↓). Anti-revolving-door rules can be a double-edged sword.
Who drives this? Exactly who the model predicts: non-graduate, non-term-limited mayors show the strongest tax cuts; graduate or term-limited mayors don’t move. That’s classic pandering under higher loss costs.
In-office behavior: among mayors elected before 2013 (so selection is held constant), the reform increases the cost of losing. We see lower local income-tax revenues after 2013 in treated municipalities—consistent with avoiding unpopular tax hikes.
Selection result: the reform raises education. Average education of both mayoral candidates and elected mayors increases by ≈ +2 years around the threshold (~+13% vs. a ~15-year mean). “Pay peanuts, get monkeys”? Maybe—but how you pay matters.
Also, high education mayors are less likely to take up positions in a SOE immediately after the end of their mandate.
First check: does the law bite? Yes. The reform cuts the chance that mayors land top SOE posts by ~5 percentage points around the threshold, with no effect on firms where the state holds only a minority (placebo).
Empirical setting & policy shock: Italy’s Severino Law (2013) introduced 1–2 year cooling-off periods for local politicians moving into top jobs at SOEs/bureaucracy; it applies only above a 15,000-inhabitant threshold—perfect for a difference-in-discontinuity design.
• But PCOs are especially valuable to lower human-capital politicians → reducing them deters those candidates more. Overall: reduction in PCO value and in wage can have opposite effects.
Theory result in a nutshell:
• Conditional on holding office, lowering the value of PCOs raises the cost of losing—similar to a wage increase while in office → more incentive to avoid unpopular policies.
First, we build a model. Ingredients: standard accountability + endogenous entry + PCOs available to politicians kicked out from office. Assumption: PCOs more attractive for low human capital politicians.
Idea: Politicians often have “politically connected outside options” (PCOs)—post-office jobs in the bureaucracy or state-owned firms (SOEs). Cut their value and you change both selection into politics and behavior in office. Is it just like a reduction in office wages? Not really…
Great suff happening in California!
Please share!
Call for papers in the formal theory section at EPSS 2026 @epssnet.bsky.social.
Call for papers is open: epssnet.org/belfast-2026...
We welcome individual and panel submissions on all substantive areas of political science!
🚨Time to release the calendar for the next term of our Political Economy Work-in-progress seminars! Tuesday, 5-6pm, Universita' Cattolica. You're welcome to join us! #EconBsky #PoliSciBsky
As usual, organized with Davide Cipullo, Tommaso Colussi and Domenico Rossignoli.
