Fascist Ideology and Migrant Labor Exploitation

• Department of Political and Social Sciences

In the framework of the EUI Political Behaviour Colloquium, this seminar features a paper presentation by Professor Shanker Satyanath.

Official reports from the International Labor Organization have been increasingly highlighting the pervasive presence of exploitation of undocumented migrants in the developed world. We seek to better understand the determinants of variations in the presence of migrant labour exploitation by focusing on variations within a single developed country (Italy). Regression discontinuity and triple differences designs show that labour racketeering is strongly associated with prior exposure to the Italian Fascist regime ideology that emphasized the inferiority of non-white ethnic groups. Our findings underscore the importance of ideology to understand the propensity to exploit migrant labour.

Co-Authors: Mario F. Carillo, University Pompeu Fabra and BSE, University of Naples Federico II and CSEF;  Gemma Dipoppa, Brown University