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The role of infrastructure as a factor of growth and development of countries and regions is often considered to be crucial. Among the various types of transport infrastructure, airports are considered as particularly strategic because of the increasing importance of air transport in connecting territories. This paper studies the impact of airports on Italian provinces. To this end, it builds on the framework proposed by Brueckner, where sectoral employment is regressed on a series of controls and on airline traffic. That framework is extended to take account of selection bias due to the location choices of airports and spatial spillover effects. It is found that the elasticity of servicesector employment to airport passengers is 0.045 and that of spillover effects due to neighbouring airports is almost 0.017.

This study uses a global grid-level dataset, integrating gross domestic product (GDP) per capita with crop yield and climate variables to examine the economic impact of climate-induced desertification. We use the aridity index (AI) to measure desertification and find that annual variations of soil aridity have a more significant economic impact than precipitation and temperature when taken alone, with Africa experiencing the most significant effect. We identify the reduced agricultural yield as a potential channel behind the desertification-economic growth nexus. Finally, projections suggest that by 2040, desertification could reduce GDP per capita in sub-Saharan Africa by up to 10%. These findings underscore the need for policies to mitigate the economic impacts of climate-induced desertification in vulnerable regions, contributing to the broader understanding of how climatic conditions affect economic development.

The aim of this short communication is to estimate the effects of the implementation of more restrictive lockdown measures on pollution levels in Italy. Using a time series of weekly concentrations of PM 10 , PM 2.5 and NO 2 for the period 2016–2020 across 71 provinces, we find that the introduction of lockdown measures reduced the air concentration levels of PM 10 and NO 2 by 17–18%, while their effect on PM 2.5 remains unclear. These results indicate that the lockdown had a significant positive impact in terms of lives saved and improved air quality.

Transport costs are widely considered as a key driver of competitive advantage of countries, regions and cities. Their relevance is even greater when scale economies are at work since production is concentrated and goods must be shipped. Recent literature has found that highways, by decreasing transport costs, are crucial in influencing agglomeration economies and ultimately urban development. In this article, we contribute to this literature by studying the effect of highway construction on the structure of local economies. In particular, we consider the effect of highways in Italian cities in terms of firm location by explicitly recognizing the pivotal role played by the transport sector and by intersectoral linkages in promoting development. The main research hypothesis is that the location of an highway exit in a given city attracts firms operating in the transport service sector and consequently transportintensive firms. Our empirical evidence concerns Italian cities over the period 1951–2001 and exploits variation in employment, population and plants induced by the construction of the highway network. To deal with the endogeneity of the geography of highways exits, we propose as an instrument the geography of Roman roads. To this end, we have coded the whole network of Roman roads in Italy. We have found that the location of highway exits increases employment and the number of plants and that this growth is concentrated in transport service-intensive sectors. This result is robust to a number of checks, including eventual instrument non-validity and selection into treatment.

This article aims to analyse the effects of plague on the long-term development of Italian cities, with particular attention to the 1629-30 epidemic. By using a new dataset on plague mortality rates in 56 cities covering the period c. 1575-1700, an economic geography model verifying the existence of multiple equilibria is estimated. It is found that cities severely affected by the 1629-30 plague were displaced to a lower growth path. It is also found that plague caused long-lasting damage to the size of Italian urban populations and to urbanization rates. These findings support the hypothesis that seventeenth-century plagues played a fundamental role in triggering the process of relative decline of the Italian economies.

How global warming affects human development is a central question for economists as well as social scientists. While most of the literature has focused on the impact of weather on income, less is known on the relationship between climate and local human development. This paper considers shocks in precipitation, temperature, and an original measure of soil aridity to first exploit the association between climate warming and human development, and second, on its dimensions. We show that while precipitations do not have a significant long-term impact on human development growth, variations in temperature and potential evapotranspiration negatively affect two of the three determinants of the Human Development Index, namely life expectancy at birth and education. These results suggest that other climate indicators, such as the potential evapo-transpiration of the soil, should be considered in addition to the standard indicators, when evaluating the localized economic effects of climate change.

While the effects of climatic changes on migration have received widespread public and scientific attention, comparative evidence for their influence on internal migration worldwide remains scarce. Here we use census-based data from 72 countries (1960–2016) to analyse 107,840 migration flows between subnational regions. We find that increased drought and aridity have a significant impact on internal migration, particularly in the hyper-arid and arid areas of Southern Europe, South Asia, Africa and the Middle East and South America. Migration patterns are shaped by the wealth, agricultural dependency and urbanization of both origin and destination areas with migration responses being stronger in rural and predominantly agricultural areas. While overall climatic effects on migration are stronger in richer countries, we observe higher out-migration from poorer towards wealthier regions within countries. Furthermore, age and education groups respond differently to climatic stress, highlighting distinct mobility patterns of population subgroups across different geographic contexts.Limited comparative evidence exists on the impacts of climatic factors on internal migration. Here, using a harmonized census-based dataset, the authors find that drought and aridity substantially increase internal migration, with considerable heterogeneity across regions, age groups and education levels.

For many governments, enacting green policies is a priority, but such policies often impose on citizens substantial and uneven costs. How does the introduction of green policies affect voting? We study this question in the context of a major ban on polluting cars introduced in Milan, which was strongly opposed by the populist right party Lega. Using several inferential strategies, we show that owners of banned vehicles—who incurred a median loss of €3,750—were significantly more likely to vote for Lega in the subsequent elections. Our analysis indicates that this electoral change did not stem from a broader shift against environmentalism, but rather from disaffection with the policy’s uneven pocketbook implications. In line with this pattern, recipients of compensation from the local government were not more likely to switch to Lega. The findings highlight the central importance of distributive consequences in shaping the political ramifications of green policies.

Local governments are increasingly adopting road pricing schemes to curb pollution and congestion in the cities. Despite its popularity, few empirical studies have made an attempt to estimate the effectiveness of such interventions. The aim of this paper is to assess the impact of road pricing on traffic flows by means of a synthetic control approach which allows for a wide heterogeneity of treatment effects. By using a large sample of 75 types of vehicles entering the centre of Milan between 2008 and 2012, we evaluate the enforcement of the road pricing scheme occurred in January 2012 across 20 types of vehicles. We have found a large variation in the reaction of traffic flows and a significant effect in terms of vehicles reduction after pricing for cars and for some types of commercial vehicles. Interestingly and surprisingly, no effect is detected for vehicles whose access in the city centre was forbidden.

Road pricing schemes are increasingly adopted by local governments to curb pollution and congestion. Several factors may influence the acceptance of such schemes by road users: voter expectations, awareness of the policy's relevance, familiarity with the road pricing debate, perceived fairness, environmental concerns, car dependence, and the value of a trial. We argue that skewness in the distribution of costs related to the policy is an important factor for user acceptance. Using data from the 2011 referendum on Milan road pricing, we found support for the relevance of cost heterogeneity in explaining the share of road users supporting the tax.