Administrative Reforms and Urban Development: Lessons from Italian Unification

Giulio Cainelli (), Carlo Ciccarelli () and Roberto Ganau ()
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Giulio Cainelli: University of Padua
Roberto Ganau: University of Padua and LSE

No 538, CEIS Research Paper from Tor Vergata University, CEIS

Abstract: We study how changes in the political-administrative hierarchy of a country affect urban development. We exploit the 1865 administrative reform occurred in the aftermath of Italian unification as a quasi-natural experiment to assess whether district’s capital cities endowed with supra-municipal administrative functions by law gained a population growth premium compared to similar non-capital cities in the period 1871-1921. We rely on difference-in-differences and event study estimation strategies, and find that district’s capital cities recorded a time-persistent population growth premium. Three main mechanisms explain our results: increases in public employment; increases in manufacturing employment; and development of the infrastructure endowment.

Keywords: Administrative reforms; political-administrative hierarchy; urban development; Italian unification. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H11 N13 O11 R11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 71 pages
Date: 2022-04-02, Revised 2022-04-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his and nep-ure
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