Gianni Marciante

Abstract: This paper examines the effects of resistance to nation building on the local market for private protection in the context of 19th-century Sicily. In 1861 the Italian central government introduced conscription in Sicily for nation-building purposes. The policy provoked an identity backlash in Sicilian society that brought about a government-led repression campaign in 1863, to curb large-scale draft evasion on the island. Using a novel dataset on episodes of government repression and historical mafia presence, I find that the Sicilian mafia was more likely to develop in towns victimised by the repression campaign, where the demand for protection was higher. To infer causality, I use an instrumental variables approach based on a network of least-cost paths connecting garrison towns that were visited by the army during the 1863 expedition. I find suggestive evidence that increasing distrust in government in repressed towns helps account for the early spread of the Sicilian mafia.

Abstract: This paper studies the impact of women's education on their fertility choices in Italy at the onset of the Italian demographic transition (1881-1921). We use newly digitised panel data at the district (circondario) level to measure the literacy rate of school-age females and the associated child-woman ratio twenty years later, and we employ these variables as proxies for, respectively, early-life female education and subsequent fertility behaviour. We find that districts with higher literacy rates for young females showed lower fertility levels after two decades, also when controlling for several fertility demand and supply factors. For causal estimation we develop an instrumental variables strategy exploiting proximity to the first female normal schools (teacher-training colleges) that were opened under the Casati Law of 1859. Finally, we provide preliminary evidence on the relevance of women's economic independence as an important channel for potential effects of education on fertility.

Abstract: This paper provides a first formal investigation of the drivers of the diffusion of knowledge in England and Wales in the context of the Republic of Letters, a pan-European, correspondence-based network, formed by a community of intellectuals that shared, distributed, and evaluated knowledge. Using a novel dataset on early modern correspondence in Britain, we document a sharp increase in epistolary communications during the 17th century and identify a plausible catalyst for this change: a postal reform enacted in England in 1635 that made the British postal system openly available to the public. Taking a difference-in-differences approach, we show that locations in England and Wales hosting a postal stage in 1628 (the latest year in the pre-reform period in which we know the whole geographical distribution of the British postal network) exhibited a significant increase in the volume of total correspondence after 1635 relative to places lacking a postal stage in 1628. We also find evidence that the postal reform benefited scholars the most, as after 1635 they started interacting more both among themselves and with practitioners, publishing editors and political figures, to discuss more science-oriented issues. Finally, places with a pre-existing postal stage in 1635 saw a significant increase in innovation activity soon thereafter. These findings provide the first systematic evidence of the rise of knowledge economies in early modern Europe.

Abstract: In this paper we study the effect of the launch of an educational TV programme in Italy, titled Telescuola, on women’s inclusion in the Italian labour market in the mid-20th century. This programme, broadcast in Italy from October 1958 to June 1966, was designed to allow children living in communities where no secondary school existed to complete the full cycle of compulsory education. Telescuola Viewing Groups (PAT) were spontaneously arranged in various places, including reformatories, jails, sanatoria, hospitals, and parishes. Taking advantage of both spatial heterogeneity in the presence of PATs and exogenous variation in TV signal strength resulting from topographic factors, we use an instrumental variables approach to estimate the causal impact of Telescuola on the change in female labour force participation across Italian municipalities from 1951 to 1961.