In this paper, I show that criminal organizations may affect political(self-)selection by discouraging high-ability individuals from entering politics.
Identification derives from murders of local politicians by criminal organizations, and indicates thatsuch a negative shock to politicians’ expected payoffs induces a strong decrease in electedpoliticians’ human capital. The effect is not limited to the municipality in which a politicalmurder takes place, but also extends to nearby municipalities. Published Version - Free Version Presentations:
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The current economic crisis has triggered fierce debates among policy-makers and the media across and within European countries about the need for a closer European fiscal union.
Using a novel dataset derived from the Eurobarometer surveys, this article investigates European citizens’ opinions towards such fiscal integration. We find that both country-level variables (such as expected country-level costs/benefits) and individual-level variables (such as distrust towards European Union institutions, ideology and altruism) have significant explanatory power. We also uncover a notable intra-generational divide across young citizens of euro creditor and euro debtor countries, and show that this reflects their varying expectations regarding the future costs and benefits of fiscal integration. This demonstrates that the same demographic groups in different countries may have widely varying positions towards fiscal integration. Published Version - Free Version Presentations:
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