Francesco Armillei
PhD student in Economics at Bocconi University.
My main fields of interest are public economics, labour economics and political economics.
I'm fellow of the think-tank Tortuga and of the Ing. Rodolfo Debenedetti Foundation. I previously was a pre-doctoral research assistant at the London School of Economics.
You can contact me at: francesco.armillei@phd.unibocconi.it
Peer-reviewed publications
Did the Covid-19 hit harder in peripheral areas? The case of Italian municipalities, (2021), with Francesco Filippucci and Thomas Fletcher. Economics and Human Biology
The first wave of Covid-19 pandemic had a geographically heterogeneous impact even within the most severely hit regions. Exploiting a triple-differences methodology, we find that in Italy Covid-19 hit relatively harder in peripheral areas: the excess mortality in peripheral areas was almost double that of central ones in March 2020 (1.2 additional deaths every 1000 inhabitants). We leverage a rich dataset on Italian municipalities to explore mechanisms behind this gradient. We first show that socio-demographic and economic features at municipal level are highly collinear, making it hard to identify single-variable causal relationships. Using Principal Components Analysis we model excess mortality and show that areas with higher excess mortality have lower income, lower education, larger households, lower trade and higher industrial employments, and older population. Our findings highlight a strong centre-periphery gradient in the harshness of Covid-19, which we believe is also highly relevant from a policy-making standpoint.
Click here to read the paper | Non technical summary | Slides
Working papers
Concurrent elections and voting behaviour: evidence from an Italian referendum, (2021), with Enrico Cavallotti. BAFFI CAREFIN Centre Research Paper No. 2021-164.
In September 2020 Italy held a constitutional referendum. On the same election days, many municipalities and some regions held municipal and regional elections. We exploit this unique occasion, caused by the unexpected Covid-19 crisis, to obtain a causal estimate of the effects of the overlap of concurrent elections on the referendum results. When the referendum overlaps with either municipal or regional elections, we find a positive effect on turnout and on the proportion of blank and null votes. We also find a quantitatively small but statistically significant effect on the referendum preferences. We interpret the results through the use of the calculus of voting model, exploiting a slightly modified version of the most widespread one in the literature. Our findings are relevant from a policy-making standpoint, with respect to both fostering turnout and reducing election organizational costs.
Click here to read the working paper | Non technical summary | Slides
Work in progress
Monopsony and bad jobs. With Tito Boeri, Alan Manning and Paolo Naticchioni. VisitInps project.
Other publications
Remote working, housing inequality and social mobility (2021), with Tito Boeri and Thomas Le Barbanchon, Policy Brief for the 2021 T20 summit. Click here to read.
Ci pensiamo noi, (2020), Tortuga, Egea Editore, ISBN: 9788823837669. Editor and author of Chapter 5. Click here for more information.
Economics-related blogs
Una lente sui contratti non rappresentativi, with Andrea Garnero, lavoce.info, 29/02/2024
Non solo il salario minimo contro il lavoro povero, with Ivan Lagrosa, lavoce.info, 28/08/2023
Le grandi dimissioni hanno dei precedenti, lavoce.info, 7/02/2023
Dove sono andati a finire i lavoratori che si sono dimessi?, lavoce.info, 2/05/2022
Nemmeno le comunali salveranno il quorum, lavoce.info, 6/04/2022
Un primo identikit delle grandi dimissioni, lavoce.info, 24/01/2022
Si apre la stagione delle grandi dimissioni?, lavoce.info, 25/10/2021
Ma qualcuno pensa alle assunzioni, with Tito Boeri, lavoce.info, 28/07/2021
Il lavoro verso una nuova normalità, with Alberto Frison, lavoce.info, 22/03/2021
Dai dati comunali una mappa del rischio Coronavirus, with Francesco Filippucci, lavoce.info, 25/08/2020
Politici attenti, l'elettore è volubile, lavoce.info, 2/07/2019