Politics and city growth in Italy: Do connections matter?

In this paper, I assess the existence of a political connection premium for Italian municipalities during the so-called “Second Republic” (1991–2011). The early 1990s witnessed a seminal event in Italian political history with the “Mani Pulite” (“Clean Hands”) investigation following the fall of the Berlin Wall. Subsequently, major political parties dissolved, culminating in a bipolar political landscape characterized by cyclical alternation between center-right and center-left factions (extending until at least 2011). Exploiting population data on small and medium-sized Italian municipalities between 1991 and 2011, I found that “politically connected” municipalities showed a population premium of about 2.5% compared to “non-politically connected” ones. The results are robust to NUTS-3 fixed effects, to a comprehensive set of controls, and to a full set of robustness checks. The relationship is confirmed using aggregate municipal income data as an additional proxy of local economic growth. Over and above this, social capital and the quality of local institutions seem to play a pivotal role in enabling the political connection. Election-related checks suggest the connection as two-way: using municipal data from the 2013 and 2018 general elections, I found that the treated municipalities depicted a higher turnout and fewer populist votes.