JUE Insight: Immigrants, social transfers for education, and spatial interactions

Abstract

This paper exploits the increase in immigrants from new European member states to test for the presence of strategic interactions in the municipal allocation of social transfers targeted at education services. The results of this analysis, conducted on all Italian municipalities over the 2003–2015 period, point to the presence of spatial interactions between neighbouring municipalities and indicate that this mimicking is more pronounced in municipalities guided by mayors who can be re-elected, in electoral years compared to other years of the term, in municipalities where a higher share of low-income households live, and in municipalities characterized by low levels of social and civic capital.