Outputs (9)

The Franchise, Policing, and Race: Evidence from Arrests Data and the Voting Rights Act (2025)
Journal Article
Facchini, G., Knight, B., & Testa, C. (in press). The Franchise, Policing, and Race: Evidence from Arrests Data and the Voting Rights Act. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics,

This paper investigates the relationship between the franchise and law enforcement practices using differential exposure to the Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965. We find that, following the VRA, black arrest rates in counties that both had larger shar... Read More about The Franchise, Policing, and Race: Evidence from Arrests Data and the Voting Rights Act.

Black Empowerment and White Mobilization: The Effects of the Voting Rights Act (2025)
Journal Article
Bernini, A., Facchini, G., Tabellini, M., & Testa, C. (in press). Black Empowerment and White Mobilization: The Effects of the Voting Rights Act. Journal of Political Economy,

How did southern whites respond to the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA)? Leveraging newly digitized data on county-level voter registration by race between 1956 and 1980, and exploiting pre-determined variation in exposure to the federal intervention, we... Read More about Black Empowerment and White Mobilization: The Effects of the Voting Rights Act.

Sixty Years of the Voting Rights Act: Progress and Pitfalls (2024)
Journal Article
Bernini, A., Facchini, G., Tabellini, M., & Testa, C. (in press). Sixty Years of the Voting Rights Act: Progress and Pitfalls. Oxford Review of Economic Policy,

We review the literature on the effects of the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA), which removed formal restrictions to Black political participation. After a brief description of racial discrimination suffered by Black Americans since Reconstruction, we i... Read More about Sixty Years of the Voting Rights Act: Progress and Pitfalls.

Race, Representation, and Local Governments in the US South: The Effect of the Voting Rights Act (2023)
Journal Article
Bernini, A., Facchini, G., & Testa, C. (2023). Race, Representation, and Local Governments in the US South: The Effect of the Voting Rights Act. Journal of Political Economy, 131(4), 994-1056. https://doi.org/10.1086/722092

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 redefined race relations in the United States. Yet evidence on its effect on Black office holding remains scant. Using novel data on Black elected officials between 1962 and 1980, we assess the impact of the Voting Right... Read More about Race, Representation, and Local Governments in the US South: The Effect of the Voting Rights Act.

The rhetoric of closed borders: quotas, lax enforcement and illegal immigration (2021)
Journal Article
Facchini, G., & Testa, C. (2021). The rhetoric of closed borders: quotas, lax enforcement and illegal immigration. Journal of International Economics, 129, Article 103415. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jinteco.2020.103415

Governments do not always enforce their laws, even when they have the means of doing so, and lax enforcement is common in the domain of immigration policy. To explain this paradox we develop a political agency model where gains from migration are une... Read More about The rhetoric of closed borders: quotas, lax enforcement and illegal immigration.

The rhetoric of closed borders: quotas, lax enforcement and illegal immigration (2020)
Preprint / Working Paper
Facchini, G., & Testa, C. The rhetoric of closed borders: quotas, lax enforcement and illegal immigration

Governments do not always enforce their laws, even when they have the means of doing so, and lax enforcement is common in the domain of immigration policy. To explain this paradox we develop a political agency model where gains from migration are une... Read More about The rhetoric of closed borders: quotas, lax enforcement and illegal immigration.

Bicameralism (2018)
Book Chapter
Testa, C. Bicameralism. In R. D. Congleton, B. N. Grofman, & S. Voight (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of public choice. Oxford University Press

In modern democracies, the legislative power is vested in parliaments with diverse organizational structures. Bicameral legislatures, requiring concurrent deliberation by two bodies, are present in about one-third of the world’s countries. Bicamerali... Read More about Bicameralism.

Corruption and bicameral reforms (2016)
Journal Article
Facchini, G., & Testa, C. (2016). Corruption and bicameral reforms. Social Choice and Welfare, 47(2), 387-411. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00355-016-0969-9

© 2016, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg. During the last decade unicameral proposals have been put forward in fourteen US states. In this paper we analyze the effects of the proposed constitutional reforms, in a setting where decision making is sub... Read More about Corruption and bicameral reforms.

The political economy of migration enforcement: domestic versus border control (2015)
Journal Article
Facchini, G., & Testa, C. (2015). The political economy of migration enforcement: domestic versus border control. CESifo Economic Studies, 61(3-4), https://doi.org/10.1093/cesifo/ifv005

We study migration policy enforcement by an elected government. The policy-maker faces uncertainty on the supply of migrants, but has more information than the public on its preferences and the extent and effectiveness of its enforcement activities.... Read More about The political economy of migration enforcement: domestic versus border control.