Luca Bellodi (Bocconi University), Frédéric Docquier (LISER), Stefano Iandolo (University of Salerno), Massimo Morelli (Bocconi University), and Riccardo Turati (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)

Digging Up Trenches: Populism, Selective Mobility and the Political Polarization of Italian Municipalities

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Abstract

We test whether the local exposure to populism after Italian national and municipal elections over the past two decades impacts the net population movements by skill group, citizenship and origin. To address endogeneity concerns, we use a combination of collective memory and trigger variables as instruments for the variation in populist vote shares across national elections. With regard to municipal elections, we apply a close-election regression discontinuity design to estimate the impact of winning populist mayors on post-election population movements. Our converging findings suggest that exposure to populist attitudes and politics reduces the attractiveness of municipalities, leading to larger population outflows, particularly for young and highly educated natives. Our results evidence a foot-voting mechanism that generates a vicious circle of populism and political polarization of Italian municipalities.