IEB (Institut d’Economia de Barcelona) – Working Papers

URI permanent per a aquesta col·leccióhttps://hdl.handle.net/2445/111426

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Immigration enforcement visibility and consumer spending
(Institut d’Economia de Barcelona, 2026) De Balanzó, Uma; Rodríguez Planas, Núria; Roff, Jennifer
We exploit the sharp escalation in community-based ICE enforcement following the January 2025 inauguration to estimate the causal effect of immigration enforcement on consumer spending. Using Synthetic Difference-in-Differences with cross-state variation in surge intensity as the identifying variation, we find that states experiencing the largest enforcement surges saw aggregate card spending decline by 1.7 percentage points relative to their SDiD counterfactual, an effect robust to covariate adjustment, alternative shock windows, and pre-tariff truncation. Null estimates for non-in-person spending rule out a broad regional demand shock, while null estimates for jail-based arrests (enforcement invisible to surrounding communities) isolate enforcement visibility as the operative mechanism. Sector-level estimates reveal two empirically distinct channels: in states with Democratic governors, aggregate spending fell by −4.1 pp (p < 0.01), driven by large declines in Accommodation and Food Services (−2.3 pp) and Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation (−7.3 pp), consistent with behavioral withdrawal from public commercial life in jurisdictions where community enforcement was most visible. In Trump-voting states, Home Improvement Centers and Transportation and Warehousing spending fell by −3.8 pp (p < 0.1) and −3.0 pp (p < 0.01) respectively, consistent with labor supply disruption among undocumented workers in construction and logistics. Our results indicate that the economic costs of enforcement extend well beyond the directly targeted population and depend critically on whether enforcement is visible to the surrounding community — not merely on its scale.
Tax planning as a family matter: Intra-household organization and inequality
(Institut d’Economia de Barcelona, 2026) Esteller Moré, Alejandro
We study how tax planning is organized within households using administrative data from the SpanishWealth Tax. Exploiting individual-level information on asset holdings and tax liabilities, we document strong intra-household comovement across legally defined planning margins, indicating that tax planning is a family matter. The strength and form of this comovement vary systematically with the internal distribution of wealth within the household. Behavioral responses are initially symmetric across spouses, consistent with bilateral coordination. As intrahousehold wealth inequality increases, however, symmetric coordination weakens and gives way to increasingly asymmetric responses, particularly for flexible asset-based margins. This patern is consistent with a shift toward a more hierarchical organization of tax planning centered on a single household member who controls flexible, tax-advantaged assets. Additional descriptive evidence shows that the relationship between intra-household income inequality and wealth inequality departs systematically from a simple proportional benchmark, in ways consistent with non-trivial within-household organization of resources rather than mechanical ownership structures. Together, these findings highlight the importance of intra-household inequality for understanding the organization, enforcement, and incidence of wealth-tax planning.
The political legacy of displacement: Evidence from the Spanish Republican exile
(Institut d’Economia de Barcelona, 2026) Aranzana, Cristina; Paluskiewicz, Luc
This paper studies the long-run political consequences of forced displacement when refugees carry distinct political ideas. With the collapse of the Spanish Republic in 1939, 500,000 left-wing leaning refugees fled into France, where logistical constraints quasi-randomly determined refugee camp locations. Exploiting this setting, we identify the causal effect of refugee exposure on political behaviour. Exposed municipalities shift away from Socialist support toward the Communist Party and display greater resistance activity and left-wing associational life, consistent with the diffusion of political ideas. Drawing on new individual-level data, we show that refugees concentrated near camp sites over the long run, providing a demographic channel through which political effects persisted and resurfaced in local political participation patterns decades later.
It’s a man’s world: Culture of abuse, #MeToo and worker flows
(Institut d’Economia de Barcelona, 2026) Batut, Cyprien; Coly, Caroline
This paper investigates the impact of the #MeToo movement in the workplace, drawing on French survey data on harassment behaviours and administrative data on worker flows. Using a difference-in-differences strategy, we find that, following the #MeToo movement, women began leaving high-risk workplaces at a significantly higher rate. This increase is mainly driven by women who quit their jobs. Both men and women who exit highrisk plants subsequently adjust their job search strategies toward less tòxic workplaces.
Segment and rule: Modern censorship in authoritarian regimes
(Institut d’Economia de Barcelona, 2026) Kun, Heo; Zerbini, Antoine
We analyze the incentives of authoritarian regimes to segment access to censored content through technology. Citizens choose whether to pay to access censored online content at a cost fixed by the regime: the firewall. A low firewall segments access and generates more compliance than full censorship – a high firewall – ever could. Regime opponents self-select into consuming censored content, and comply conditional on positive independent reporting. Regime supporters exclusively consume state propaganda, which secures their compliance. This segment-and-rule strategy can be engineered by making local news outlets uninformative, or by affecting the intrinsic benefit from access.
Firearms laws and violence against women
(Institut d’Economia de Barcelona, 2026) McTague, Alyvia
One in two women in the U.S. report experiencing physical violence, sexual violence, or stalking by an intimate partner in their lifetime, and gun access is a central channel through which abusers can harm and control partners. I study whether state reforms that restrict domestic abusers’ access to firearms reduce violence against women. Leveraging variation in law changes across time and states, I find significant declines in reported violence after changes in the law with spillovers beyond intimate-partner incidents. The pattern is consistent with changes in coercive control and deterrence mechanisms. The results indicate that carefully scoped firearm prohibitions can reduce violence against women and these findings are relevant to inform policy discussions on gun laws and women’s safety.
The case for lobbying transparency
(Institut d’Economia de Barcelona, 2026) Zerbini, Antoine
Lobbying transparency regulations are hailed as a potential solution to concerns about the excessive influence of special interest groups (SIGs) over policy-making. I study how these regulations shape strategic interactions between voters, politicians and SIGs. By clarifying the process through which a policy was implemented, lobbying transparency helps voters hold politicians accountable and control the influence of SIGs. Ex-post, conditional on access, SIGs prefer to operate without lobbying transparency. Ex-ante, they may benefit from lobbying transparency because it redirect the voters’ blame towards politicians. Ultimately however, lobbying transparency standards may hurt the electoral prospects of politicians and thus risk never being implemented, potentially explaining why voters’ demand for it remains unanswered.
Immigrant rights expansion and local integration: Evidence from Italy
(Institut d’Economia de Barcelona, 2026) Ferlenga, Francesco; Kang, Stephanie
We study how expanding immigrants’ rights affects their political and social Integration by leveraging Romania’s 2007 EU accession, which granted Romanian immigrants in Italy municipal voting and residency rights. Using municipality-level event studies, we find: (1) Enfranchisement increased the election of Romanian-born councilors—especially in competitive races—despite limited changes in candidacy rates. It also increased Romanian turnout, suggesting that electoral gains stem from an expanded voter base. An instrumented difference-in-differences analysis shows this is driven by pre-existing Romanian residents, not new arrivals. (2) Consent to organ donation rose among Romanians post-2007, indicating that the expansion of rights extends to prosocial behavior. (3) Nonetheless, immigrant presence continues to raise support for right-leaning parties and security spending while reducing social spending, highlighting persistent native backlash that outweighs immigrant political influence
The hidden trade-offs of regulating childcare quality
(Institut d’Economia de Barcelona, 2026) Chesa-Llorens, Anna
I study how a childcare quality law affected enrollment and parental employment in Spain. The policy established the first formal requirements for nursery schools serving children aged 0 to 3. Using administrative data and regional variation in implementation, I find that the reform raised childcare quality by 0.10 standard deviations but reduced availability by 48%. Maternal employment fell by 15%, meaning mothers were 11 percentage points less likely to work after childbirth, with working intensity declining by 14 percentage points. Effects concentrate among private-sector workers with less flexible jobs; fathers were unaffected. Unlike prior work examining quality or quantity separately, this paper provides the first joint analysis revealing that quality regulations without preserving availability harm working mothers.
Symbols of oppression: The role of confederate monuments in the great migration
(Institut d’Economia de Barcelona, 2026) Ferlenga, Francesco
Dominant groups worldwide have historically asserted power by constructing in public spaces monuments that glorify their narrative, vis-à-vis their opponents’. How do divisive public símbols affect the location choices of those who oppose them? I investigate this historically and today, focusing on Confederate monuments in the US South – erected by southern whites in the early 20th century and opposed by Black Americans due to their connection to slavery. Historically, I show that southern counties with monuments saw a sharp decline in the Black share of the population – driven by out-migration – following their construction. However, monuments themselves are outcomes of underlying ideological shifts, making causal claims problematic. I thus construct an instrument for the stock of Confederate monuments based on transportation costs to a quasi-monopolist producer and the years in which it was in business. (...)
The sources of researcher variation in economics
(2025) Huntington-Klein, Nick; Pörtner, Claus C.
We use a rigorous three-stage many-analysts design to assess how different researcher decisions—specifically data cleaning, research design, and the interpretation of a policy question—affect the variation in estimated treatment effects. A total of 146 research teams each completed the same causal inference task three times each: first with few constraints, then using a shared research design, and finally with pre-cleaned data in addition to a specified design. We find that even when analyzing the same data, teams reach different conclusions. In the first stage, the interquartile range (IQR) of the reported policy effect was 3.1 percentage points, with substantial outliers. Surprisingly, the second stage, which restricted research design choices, exhibited slightly higher IQR (4.0 percentage points), largely attributable to imperfect adherence to the prescribed protocol. By contrast, the final stage, featuring standardized data cleaning, narrowed variation in estimated effects, achieving an IQR of 2.4 percentage points. Reported sample sizes also displayed significant convergence under more restrictive conditions, with the IQR dropping from 295,187 in the first stage to 29,144 in the second, and effectively zero by the third. Our findings underscore the critical
Economic policy and psychological violence: The hidden costs of spain’s minimum wage reform
(Institut d’Economia de Barcelona, 2025) Rebollo-Sanz, Yolanda F.; Rodríguez Planas, Núria
This paper examines the impact of a 22% minimum wage increase in Spain on January 2019 on intimate partner violence using a doubly robust difference-in-differences strategy with inverse probability weighting and the nationally representative Survey of Violence Against Women. We find no effect of the reform on physical or sexual violence. Furthermore, treated women—those with a high predicted probability of working at minimum-wage jobs—experienced a 42% increase in psychological violence. Labor-market analysis of survey respondents reveals that the reform led to a substitution away from female employment towards her partner’s employment, reducing women’s bargaining power within the household. For women whose partner is five years older, the increase in violence is not accompanied with lower female labor-market engagement, providing evidence of alternative mechanisms, such as disrupted gender roles, or instrumental violence. These findings highlight unintended consequences of wage policy and highlight the need for complementary policies and services addressing the dangers of gender-based and domestic violence.
Intimate partner violence and income: Quasi-experimental evidence from the earned income tax credit
(Institut d’Economia de Barcelona, 2025) Cesur, Resul; Rodríguez Planas, Núria; Roff, Jennifer; Simon, David
We estimate the impact of an exogenous increase in income on the prevalence and counts of intimate partner violence (IPV). We exploit time and family-size variation in the earned income tax credit (EITC) by comparing victimization of women with one child or more with that of women with no children before and after the 1993 Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act. Expansion of the credit reduces both reports of physical or sexual assaults and counts of physical or sexual assaults per 100 women surveyed; the effects were strongest for groups more likely to experience IPV and be eligible for the EITC: unmarried women and unmarried Black women. If increased income is the only channel by which the EITC decreases IPV, an additional $1,000 of after-tax income decreases physical or sexual violence toward unmarried low-educated women by 9.73 percent.
Wealth tax enforcement: The role of tax and institutional design
(Institut d’Economia de Barcelona, 2025) Durán Cabré, José María; Esteller Moré, Alejandro; Kotsogiannis, Christos; Salvadori, Luca
Enforcing wealth tax compliance among high-net-worth individuals is particularly challenging. Using administrative data on the Net Wealth Tax for Catalan taxpayers over the 2011–2020 period, this paper evaluates the impact of audits on voluntary compliance. The evidence suggests that wealth tax audits do enhance compliance, but the impact is short-lived — and driven by taxpayers rebalancing their tax evasion and avoidance responses. On the institutional side, the results indicate that Spain’s overlapping tax audit mandates can create coordination frictions that reduce the efficiency and effectiveness of audit-based enforcement of the New Wealth Tax. Effective enforcement depends not only on robust audit strategies, but also on coherent institutional design and sound tax policy.
Female empowerment and intimate partner violence
(Institut d’Economia de Barcelona, 2025) Calabresi, Elisabetta; Rodríguez Planas, Núria
The chapter reviews the economic literature on intimate partner violence (IPV), a widespread human rights violation affecting nearly one in three women globally and generating significant societal costs. It focuses on the relationship between various dimensions of female empowerment and IPV. The chapter begins by outlining key theoretical frameworks—including household bargaining, instrumental violence, male backlash, and exposure theories—as well as the main data sources used to study IPV. It then reviews empirical evidence on how factors shaping female empowerment at the individual, relationship, community, and societal levels influence IPV outcomes. Central themes include labor market dynamics, education, income shocks, family formation, legal frameworks, institutional access, and gender norms. The chapter also considers how these factors interact across levels and discusses additional drivers of IPV not directly linked to female empowerment. The goal is to provide an overview of causal evidence from the economic literature on IPV while emphasizing its complexity and the importance of a context-specific, intersectional approach to both its analysis and prevention
Fiscal policy and politicians’ term length
(Institut d’Economia de Barcelona, 2025) Cipullo, Davide; Franzoni, Federico; Klarin, Jonas
This paper investigates the causal effect of the term length of political executives on economic policy outcomes. To establish causality, we exploit the staggered adoption of four-year terms for governors across US states, using data for the period 1937–2008. We find that increasing governors’ tenure in office from two years to four years reduced state expenditures and revenues by approximately 0.3–0.5 percentage points of GDP. The effect on state finances is primarily driven by a reduction of current spending and grants from the federal government, and it is concentrated in states where the incumbent governor expects fierce competition in the next election. Lastly, we discuss the implications of longer terms for macroeconomic stabilization, political budget cycles, and intergovernmental resource allocation.
When policy meets weather: Extreme temperatures and workplace safety
(Institut d’Economia de Barcelona, 2025) Bellés-Obrero, Cristina; Montresor, Giulia; Nicodemo, Catia
This paper estimates the causal effects of extreme temperatures and a related adaptation policy on workplace accidents in Spain, combining administrative records on occupational accidents with high-resolution weather data. Both cold and heat raise the incidence of work accidents, though with different magnitudes: ice days (maximum temperatures<0◦C) increase workplace accidents by 14%, while hot days (35-40◦C) raise them by 4.7%, relative to days in the 15-20◦C range. Cold disproportionately affects women, older workers, permanent employees, and indoor or commuting workers, whereas heat poses greater risks for men, temporary workers, immigrants, and outdoor labourers. To examine the role of adaptation policy, we exploit a 2015 reform of Spain’s national heat alert system, which replaced purely climate-based temperature thresholds with criteria incorporating epidemiological evidence. Difference-indifferences and event-study estimates indicate that the reform reduced workplace accidents by 6.6%, with larger effects for temporary workers (9.2%) and for temperature-related injuries (16.4%). Our findings highlight the importance of targeted climate-adaptation policies in reducing occupational risks
The ability to detect and likelihood to disseminate fake headlines across four EU countries
(Institut d’Economia de Barcelona, 2025) Montolio, Daniel; Riambau Armet, Guillem
We conduct an online survey across four countries of the European Union (Germany, Ireland, Poland, and Spain) to study how the socio-economic determinants of their citizens condition their ability to detect fake headlines and their likelihood of sharing them using social media. Additionally, we analyze the impact of attitudinal and ideological variables on the probability of detecting (and sharing) fake news. Results point to a significant role of some socio-economic and political variables in determining both the probability of detecting and sharing fake news on social media; results also show interesting country heterogeneity. Political headlines are more likely to be misclassified, which underscores the challenge of overcoming ideological biases in media consumption. We highlight the importance of fostering digital literacy, especially among young and more vulnerable individuals, to promote responsible democratic citizenship.
The Price of Silence
(Institut d’Economia de Barcelona, 2025) Magagnoli, Marianna; Tassinari, Filippo
This paper studies the causal impact of street noise on housing prices. It focuses on a very dense urban environment and its entire soundscape, using granular data on listed flats and street noise. We employ a combination of hedonic price and fixed effects model, exploiting the regular grid shape of the Eixample district, in Barcelona. Our results indicate that doubling the perceived street noise generates an average depreciation of 3.4% on sales and 2% on rents. We show that the lower semi-elasticity with which the rental market adjusts for the negative externality is associated with a higher turnover of tenants in louder streets. Moreover, we collect several pieces of evidence which suggest that the effect is not driven by sorting by neighbors. Lastly, we use our results to perform two costbenefit analyses of policies which help reducing noise. Based on our findings, we formulate policy recommendations and highlight specific interventions that can mitigate the negative impact of urban noise.
Understanding the link between heat and intimate partner violence
(Institut d’Economia de Barcelona, 2025) Santonja, Adrián; Schmitz, Laura; Vall Castelló, Judit
Even though one in four women worldwide has experienced violence from an intimate partner (IPV) at least once in their lifetime, some of the factors driving it remain poorly understood. This study quantifies the impact of extreme temperatures on IPV seasonality, with a particular focus on its increase during the summer months. Using granular administrative data on IPV in Spain for the period 2006-2022, we find that extreme heat leads to a 6% rise in total IPV offences, with a stronger increase for severe cases. We explore several mechanisms, including increased time exposure to the partner and potential modifications in reporting behaviour. Importantly, we also show that the effects are stronger in areas facing substantial negative labour market shocks. Our projections indicate that a rise in average temperatures would result in 85-190 additional severe IPV offences per year, emphasizing the role of climate resilience for the successful implementation of IPV prevention strategies.

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