Prof. Fabio Boncinelli, Dr. Marco Mariani (p), Prof. Alessandra Mattei, Dr. Sara Turchetti

This study examines the long-term effects of public incentives for conversion to organic farming, focusing on how such policies affect both farm survival and the persistence of organic production over time. Using a nine-year follow-up of administrative data from a policy program implemented in Italy, the analysis addresses a key challenge in policy evaluation: production outcomes are only observed for farms that remain active, while survival itself may be influenced by the incentive.
To deal with this issue, the study adopts a causal framework based on potential outcomes and principal stratification, allowing different causal pathways to be explicitly modeled according to farms’ latent survival responses to treatment. The evaluation is implemented within a Bayesian inferential framework, which enables the joint estimation of survival, production outcomes, and the distribution of principal strata in both the target population and the treated group.
The results indicate that the incentive has limited effects on farm survival, benefiting only a small subset of farms whose continuation depends on the support. In contrast, among farms that would have survived even in the absence of the incentive, the policy substantially increases the likelihood of maintaining organic production in the long run. Differences in the composition of the principal strata reveal systematic heterogeneity in structural characteristics, such as farm size and organizational form, pointing to non-uniform responses to the policy and enabling an assessment of how the targeting mechanism shapes the population actually reached by the incentive.
Complementary survey evidence on treated and surviving farms provides additional insights into the strategies and conditions associated with long-term persistence in organic farming. Overall, the study offers policy-relevant evidence on the mechanisms through which conversion incentives operate and highlights the importance of aligning policy design and targeting with heterogeneous farm responses.

Dr. Eva Dettmann (p), Dr Matthias Brachert, Dr Mirko Titze

Subsidizing large-scale investment projects is a central element of structural policy worldwide. The relocation or setting up of so-called Million Dollar plants attract a great deal of political, social, and economic attention, since they are expected to serve as catalysts for regional development and transformation. Even though, according to growth theory and the new economic geography, particularly investment projects in technology-intensive industries are considered suitable for activating endogenous growth, establishing Million Dollar plants is rarely free of conflict. Empirical evidence on causal effects of large-scale investments on the regional economy
is available only for North America so far, and focuses on economic effects like productivity, employment and knowledge transfer.
One of our contributions to empirical literature is the development of a multidimensional indicator system for the assessment of large-scale investment projects, considering economic, social and environmental aspects as well as sustainability of the investments. The system includes project characteristics, expected public revenues (e.g. taxes) and expenditures (public subsidies, infrastructure investments), labor market effects, regional development dynamics
and potential bottlenecks, consumption of natural resources (e.g. sealed surfaces, water), and indicators for public acceptance of the investment projects.
In our empirical analysis, we focus on subsidized German large-scale investments registered in the GRW funding statistics of the Federal Office for Economic Affairs and Export Control (BAFA) for the years 2010 to 2024. Following the common definition used in EU funding practice, we define projects of at least e 50 million as large-scale investments. This definition allows for a broad range of different types of projects to be captured, including new establishments, site expansions, and technological transformations. We observe a broad range of large-scale investments in Germany – with heterogeneous sectoral, technological and regional characteristics, and with varying degrees of compatibility with the existing economic structure. Thus, estimating one causal average effect would not be sufficient. Instead, we plan a two-step estimation procedure. In the first step, we will develop a classification system of German investments using cluster techniques. In the second step, we will conduct cluster-specific causal analyses on the basis of synthetic control groups.

Mr Lorenzo Rossi (p), Dr Marco Di Catald

Do Green Funds lower Climate Discontent and support Environmental Voting? Environmental concerns have become central to contemporary political debate as the urgency of addressing climate change intensifies. Meeting international climate targets requires rapid and far-reaching reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, entailing substantial economic and social adjustments. These measures impose immediate and unevenly distributed costs, including higher living expenses, lifestyle changes, and structural transformations in carbon-intensive regions, while their benefits largely accrue in the long term. As a result, ambitious climate policies risk triggering political backlash among voters who bear these short-term burdens. This project examines whether compensating citizens for the costs associated with climate action through European financial support can enhance public support and make the green transition politically sustainable.