IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jpolmo/v46y2024i3p683-702.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Political favouritism and inefficient management: Policy-makers’ birth town bias in EU quality certifications

Author

Listed:
  • Resce, Giuliano
  • Vaquero-Piñeiro, Cristina

Abstract

In the current era of EU-driven strategies for sustainable local development, the EU Commission has designated the geographical indication (GI) policy as a flagship initiative in 2024. The certification procedure has been simplified, with increased involvement from national and local authorities. This study explores the potential impact of reforms on GIs in Italy, focusing on whether the birthplaces of regional council members receive preferential acknowledgment. Analysing municipal-level data, we employ a Difference in Differences approach and machine learning for counterfactual analysis. Results indicate a higher likelihood of GIs for councillors' birth municipalities, particularly in areas with lower ex-ante institutional quality. These findings underscore the potential consequences of EU reform, warning against political favouritism and inefficient policy management.

Suggested Citation

  • Resce, Giuliano & Vaquero-Piñeiro, Cristina, 2024. "Political favouritism and inefficient management: Policy-makers’ birth town bias in EU quality certifications," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 46(3), pages 683-702.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jpolmo:v:46:y:2024:i:3:p:683-702
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jpolmod.2024.03.004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0161893824000309
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jpolmod.2024.03.004?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Paolo Buonanno & Ruben Durante & Giovanni Prarolo & Paolo Vanin, 2015. "Poor Institutions, Rich Mines: Resource Curse in the Origins of the Sicilian Mafia," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 125(586), pages 175-202, August.
    2. Carozzi, Felipe & Repetto, Luca, 2016. "Sending the pork home: Birth town bias in transfers to Italian municipalities," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 42-52.
    3. Resce, Giuliano & Vaquero-Piñeiro, Cristina, 2022. "Predicting agri-food quality across space: A Machine Learning model for the acknowledgment of Geographical Indications," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    4. Jose Antonio & Isabel Díez-Vial & Andrés Rodríguez-Pose, 2024. "Inter-organizational governance and innovation under different local institutional contexts," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 24(4), pages 527-548.
    5. Solé-Ollé, Albert & Viladecans-Marsal, Elisabet, 2013. "Do political parties matter for local land use policies?," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 42-56.
    6. Bianca Biagi & Maria Giovanna Brandano & Steven B. Caudill, 2016. "Tourism and house prices in Italy," Tourism Economics, , vol. 22(5), pages 964-978, October.
    7. Steve Cicala, 2022. "Imperfect Markets versus Imperfect Regulation in US Electricity Generation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 112(2), pages 409-441, February.
    8. Andrea Zappalaglio, 2023. "The law of geographical indications at the centre of the European green deal," Journal of Intellectual Property Law and Practice, Oxford University Press, vol. 18(8), pages 557-558.
    9. Marco Di Cataldo & Nicola Mastrorocco, 2022. "Organized Crime, Captured Politicians, and the Allocation of Public Resources [“Mafiaand Public Spending: Evidence on the Fiscal Multiplier from a Quasi-Experiment]," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 38(3), pages 774-839.
    10. Annamaria Nifo & Gaetano Vecchione, 2014. "Do Institutions Play a Role in Skilled Migration? The Case of Italy," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(10), pages 1628-1649, October.
    11. Monica Andini & Guido de Blasio, 2016. "Local development that money cannot buy: Italy’s Contratti di Programma," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 16(2), pages 365-393.
    12. Augusto Cerqua & Roberta Di Stefano & Marco Letta & Sara Miccoli, 2021. "Local mortality estimates during the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 34(4), pages 1189-1217, October.
    13. Tommaso Nannicini & Andrea Stella & Guido Tabellini & Ugo Troiano, 2013. "Social Capital and Political Accountability," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 5(2), pages 222-250, May.
    14. Baskaran, Thushyanthan & Lopes da Fonseca, Mariana, 2021. "Appointed public officials and local favoritism: Evidence from the German states," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    15. Daniele Curzi & Martijn Huysmans, 2022. "The Impact of Protecting EU Geographical Indications in Trade Agreements," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 104(1), pages 364-384, January.
    16. repec:ehl:lserod:110767 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Crescenzi, Riccardo & De Filippis, Fabrizio & Giua, Mara & Salvatici, Luca & Vaquero Pineiro, Cristina, 2023. "From local to global, and return: geographical Indications and FDI in Europe," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 120408, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    18. Bommer, Christian & Dreher, Axel & Perez-Alvarez, Marcello, 2022. "Home bias in humanitarian aid: The role of regional favoritism in the allocation of international disaster relief," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 208(C).
    19. Cei, Leonardo & Stefani, Gianluca & Defrancesco, Edi & Lombardi, Ginevra Virginia, 2018. "Geographical indications: A first assessment of the impact on rural development in Italian NUTS3 regions," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 620-630.
    20. Luca Repetto, 2018. "Political Budget Cycles with Informed Voters: Evidence from Italy," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(616), pages 3320-3353, December.
    21. Marianne Bertrand & Esther Duflo & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2004. "How Much Should We Trust Differences-In-Differences Estimates?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(1), pages 249-275.
    22. Meyer, Bruce D, 1995. "Natural and Quasi-experiments in Economics," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 13(2), pages 151-161, April.
    23. Caselli, Mauro & Falco, Paolo, 2022. "Your vote is (no) secret! How low voter density hurts anonymity and biases elections in Italy," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    24. Cerqua, Augusto & Letta, Marco, 2022. "Local inequalities of the COVID-19 crisis," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    25. Duvaleix, Sabine & Emlinger, Charlotte & Gaigné, Carl & Latouche, Karine, 2021. "Geographical indications and trade: Firm-level evidence from the French cheese industry," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    26. Mattos, Enlinson & Politi, Ricardo & Morata, Rodrigo, 2021. "Birthplace favoritism and the distribution of budget amendments in Brazil: Evidence from nondistrict elections," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    27. Solé-Ollé, Albert & Viladecans-Marsal, Elisabet, 2019. "Housing booms and local spending," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    28. Jon Kleinberg & Jens Ludwig & Sendhil Mullainathan & Ziad Obermeyer, 2015. "Prediction Policy Problems," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(5), pages 491-495, May.
    29. Resce, Giuliano, 2022. "The impact of political and non-political officials on the financial management of local governments," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 44(5), pages 943-962.
    30. De Filippis, Fabrizio & Giua, Mara & Salvatici, Luca & Vaquero-Piñeiro, Cristina, 2022. "The international trade impacts of Geographical Indications: Hype or hope?," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    31. Roland Hodler & Paul A. Raschky, 2014. "Regional Favoritism," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 129(2), pages 995-1033.
    32. Julian M. Alston & Davide Gaeta, 2021. "Reflections on the Political Economy of European Wine Appellations," Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti, Springer;Società Italiana degli Economisti (Italian Economic Association), vol. 7(2), pages 219-258, July.
    33. Mann, Stefan & Hunziker, Marcel & Torregroza, Lina & Wartmann, Flurina & Kienast, Felix & Schüpbach, Beatrice, 2023. "Landscape quality payments in Switzerland: The congruence between policy and preferences," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 45(2), pages 251-265.
    34. Cristina Vaquero Piñeiro & Daniele Curzi, 2024. "Assessing the role of geographical indications in affecting the quality of imports," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 75(2), pages 653-671, June.
    35. Besley, Timothy & Case, Anne, 2000. "Unnatural Experiments? Estimating the Incidence of Endogenous Policies," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 110(467), pages 672-694, November.
    36. Riccardo Crescenzi & Fabrizio De Filippis & Mara Giua & Cristina Vaquero-Piñeiro, 2022. "Geographical Indications and local development: the strength of territorial embeddedness," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 56(3), pages 381-393, March.
    37. Antulov-Fantulin, Nino & Lagravinese, Raffaele & Resce, Giuliano, 2021. "Predicting bankruptcy of local government: A machine learning approach," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 183(C), pages 681-699.
    38. Alma Cohen & Liran Einav, 2003. "The Effects of Mandatory Seat Belt Laws on Driving Behavior and Traffic Fatalities," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(4), pages 828-843, November.
    39. Paolo Pinotti, 2015. "The Economic Costs of Organised Crime: Evidence from Southern Italy," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 125(586), pages 203-232, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Resce, Giuliano & Vaquero-Piñeiro, Cristina, 2023. "Taste of home: Birth town bias in Geographical Indications," Economics & Statistics Discussion Papers esdp23089, University of Molise, Department of Economics.
    2. Resce, Giuliano, 2022. "The impact of political and non-political officials on the financial management of local governments," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 44(5), pages 943-962.
    3. Resce, Giuliano, 2022. "Political and Non-Political Officials in Local Government," Economics & Statistics Discussion Papers esdp22079, University of Molise, Department of Economics.
    4. Resce, Giuliano & Vaquero-Piñeiro, Cristina, 2022. "Predicting agri-food quality across space: A Machine Learning model for the acknowledgment of Geographical Indications," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    5. Di Stefano, Roberta & Resce, Giuliano, "undated". "The Determinants of Missed Funding: Predicting the Paradox of Increased Need and Reduced Allocation," Economics & Statistics Discussion Papers esdp23092, University of Molise, Department of Economics.
    6. Delogu, Marco & Lagravinese, Raffaele & Paolini, Dimitri & Resce, Giuliano, 2024. "Predicting dropout from higher education: Evidence from Italy," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).
    7. Gianluca Cerruti, 2024. "Politics and city growth in Italy: Do connections matter?," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 25(4), pages 415-485, December.
    8. Gert Bijnens & Shyngys Karimov & Jozef Konings, 2023. "Does Automatic Wage Indexation Destroy Jobs? A Machine Learning Approach," De Economist, Springer, vol. 171(1), pages 85-117, March.
    9. Paolo Buonanno & Irene Ferrari & Alessandro Saia, 2023. "ALL IS NOT LOST: Organized Crime and Social Capital Formation," Working Papers 2023: 16, Department of Economics, University of Venice "Ca' Foscari", revised 2024.
    10. Francesca Maria Calamunci & Federico Fabio Frattini, 2023. "When Crime Tears Communities Apart: Social Capital and Organised Crime," Working Papers 2023.08, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    11. Lin, Boqiang & Li, Xuehui, 2011. "The effect of carbon tax on per capita CO2 emissions," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(9), pages 5137-5146, September.
    12. He, Ruofan & Wan, Panbing, 2024. "Electricity market integration in China: The role of government officials’ hometown ties," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 303(C).
    13. Davide Luca & Paola Proietti, 2022. "Hosting to skim: organized crime and the reception of asylum seekers in Italy," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 56(12), pages 2102-2116, December.
    14. Zareh Asatryan & Annika Havlik, 2020. "The political economy of multilateral lending to European regions," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 15(3), pages 707-740, July.
    15. Susan Athey & Guido W. Imbens, 2006. "Identification and Inference in Nonlinear Difference-in-Differences Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(2), pages 431-497, March.
    16. Jevgenijs Steinbuks, 2008. "Financial constraints and firms' investment: results of a natural experiment measuring firm response to power interruption," Working Papers EPRG 0823, Energy Policy Research Group, Cambridge Judge Business School, University of Cambridge.
    17. Daron Acemoglu & Giuseppe De Feo & Giacomo Davide De Luca, 2020. "Weak States: Causes and Consequences of the Sicilian Mafia," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 87(2), pages 537-581.
    18. Lauren Schmitz, 2012. "Do Cultural Tax Districts Buttress Revenue Growth for Budding Arts Organizations?," SCEPA working paper series. 2012-1, Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis (SCEPA), The New School.
    19. Samia Tavares, 2005. "Does Rapid Liberalization Increase Corruption?," Public Economics 0507003, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 31 Aug 2005.
    20. Albert Solé-Ollé & Elisabet Viladecans-Marsal, 2017. "Housing booms and busts and local fiscal policy," Working Papers XREAP2017-14, Xarxa de Referència en Economia Aplicada (XREAP), revised Dec 2017.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Political economy; Geographical indications; Political representation; Electoral success; Local development;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • L66 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Manufacturing - - - Food; Beverages; Cosmetics; Tobacco
    • Q18 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Agricultural Policy; Food Policy; Animal Welfare Policy
    • R11 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Regional Economic Activity: Growth, Development, Environmental Issues, and Changes

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jpolmo:v:46:y:2024:i:3:p:683-702. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505735 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.