Publications
Polity Size and the Congested Budget: Evidence from Italian
Municipalities
with Massimo Morelli
2025, Journal of Politics
Paper
Paper Ungated
Online
Appendix
Replication
Abstract
Once in office, politicians propose policies aimed at maintaining the
support of their constituencies. This form of political activism
increases with polity size – i.e., the number of politicians in
government – but it may clash with capacity constraints, leading to a
congestion effect whereby politicians’ plans are not enacted in
practice. With novel data on Italian municipalities, we estimate the
causal effect of polity size on a battery of planned and actual budget
outcomes. We leverage a reform that introduced a new temporary
population threshold where polity size changed discontinuously and
estimate local treatment effects with a difference-in-discontinuities
design. We document a congestion effect. Municipalities with larger
polities have a larger planned budget which does not translate
into a larger actual budget. The congestion effect decreases
when bureaucratic capacity is high, proving how administrative capacity
can be a binding constraint for politicians’ behavior.
A Costly Commitment: Populism, Government Performance, and the Quality
of Bureaucracy
with Massimo Morelli and Matia Vannoni
2023, American Journal of Political Science · Covered by VoxEU.org
Paper
Paper Ungated and SI
Replication
Abstract
We study the consequences of populism for economic performance and the
quality of bureaucracy. When voters lose trust in representative
democracy, populists strategically supply unconditional policy
commitments that are easier to monitor for voters. When in power,
populists try to implement their policy commitments regardless of
financial constraints and expert assessment of the feasibility of their
policies, worsening government economic performance and dismantling
resistance from expert bureaucrats. With novel data on more than 8,000
Italian municipalities covering more than 20 years, we estimate the
effect of electing a populist mayor with a close-election regression
discontinuity design. We find that the election of a populist mayor
leads to smaller repayments of debts, a larger share of procurement
contracts with cost overruns, higher turnover among top bureaucrats –
driven by forced rather than voluntary departures – and a sharp decrease
in the percentage of graduate bureaucrats.
A Dynamic Measure of Bureaucratic Reputation: New Data for New Theory
2022, American Journal of Political Science
Paper
Paper Ungated
Supplemental Information
Replication
Abstract
Bureaucratic reputation is one of the most important concepts used to
understand the behaviour of administrative agencies and their
interactions with multiple audiences. Despite a rich theoretical
literature discussing reputation, we do not have a comparable measure
across agencies, between countries, and over time. I present a new
strategy to measure bureaucratic reputation from legislative speeches
with word-embedding techniques. I introduce an original dataset on the
reputation of 465 bureaucratic bodies over a period of forty years, and
across two countries, the US and the UK. I perform several validation
tests and present an application of this method to investigate whether
partisanship and agency politicisation matter for reputation. I find
that agencies enjoy a better reputation among the members of the party
in government, with partisan differences less pronounced for independent
bodies. I finally discuss how this measurement strategy can contribute
to classical and new questions about political-administrative
interactions.
Under Review
The Executive Unbound? Politicized Bureaucracy and Partisan Procurement
under DOGE
Revise & Resubmit
with Kyuwon Lee
Paper
Abstract
The establishment of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)
during Trump’s second term marks an expansion of presidential authority
over federal agencies. This institutional development provides a rare
opportunity to examine whether presidents can leverage politicized
agencies for political and electoral goals. Drawing on detailed
procurement data and DOGE’s cancellation records, we find that
Republican donor firms were less likely to face cancellations, whereas
firms donating to Democrats were more likely to lose contracts.
Cancellations were less frequent in Republican-held districts,
conservative agencies, and states favorable to the Republican Party.
Leveraging the timing of the 2025 Wisconsin Supreme Court election, we
use a difference-in-differences design to show that Wisconsin-based
firms experienced a sharp increase in cancellations following the
election, underscoring the strategic timing of DOGE’s operations. Our
findings shed new light on the consequences of agency politicization and
align with the Trump administration’s effort to consolidate its support
base.
The Shift to Commitment Politics and Populism: Theory and Evidence
with Massimo Morelli, Antonio Nicolò and
Paolo
Roberti
Paper
Abstract
We present a theory of populism centered on commitment politics – a type
of agency relationship in which candidates promise specific and
monitorable policies. The shift to commitment politics is driven by
increased distrust toward government institutions, itself a consequence
of cognitive complexity and disinformation typical of modern social
media environments. Candidates who adopt a commitment platform
rationally choose all the complementary strategies associated with
populism, including anti-elite rhetoric, misinformation, aversion to
judicial independence, and bureaucratic expertise. The paper presents
observational and experimental evidence from the United States on the
supply and demand of commitment consistent with the model’s key
predictions.
Personnel is Policy: Delegation and Political Misalignment in the
Rulemaking Process
with Massimo Morelli, Jörg Spenkuch, Edoardo Teso, Matia Vannoni, and Guo Xu
Paper
Abstract
We combine comprehensive data on the U.S. federal rulemaking process
with individual-level personnel and voter registration records to study
the consequences of partisan misalignment between regulators and the
president. We present three main results. First, even important pieces
of new regulation are frequently delegated to bureaucrats who are
politically misaligned. Second, rules that are overseen by misaligned
regulators take systematically longer to complete, are more verbose,
generate more negative feedback from the public, and are more likely to
be challenged in court. Third, in assigning regulators to rules, agency
leaders often face a sharp tradeoff between political alignment and
expertise. Agency frictions notwithstanding, they tend to resolve this
tradeoff in favor of expertise.
Campaign Contributions and Self-Reports: How Accurate Are Survey
Responses Regarding Donation Behavior?
with Mike Barber and Brandice
Canes-Wrone
Abstract
Measures of political donation behavior commonly depend on survey
self-reports. In the United States, the discrepancy between validated
donors according to the Federal Election Commission and self-reported
estimates has often been over 20 percentage points. Because campaigns do
not have to report donors who give no more than $200, it is unclear
whether this discrepancy is due to overreporting, such as occurs for
voting. We conduct an original survey of validated donors and the
general population, including items on whether the respondent gave above
the legal reporting threshold, which enable comparing validated versus
self-reported donors. Additionally, on separate survey samples, we
conduct an original list experiment where the sensitive item is
donating. Results suggest that overreporting is significant, and that
social desirability contributes to this behavior. Furthermore, although
the demographics of self-reported versus validated donors differ
considerably, policy preferences are relatively similar between the two
groups.