I am an Economist working as a Senior Researcher at ETH Zurich. I conduct empirical research in public economics and political economy, using traditional applied microeconomics methods and machine learning techniques. My research focuses on corruption, political selection, media, direct democracy, and fiscal policy, both in developed and developing countries. Additionally, I am deeply interested in the implications of artificial intelligence for policy-making and democracy. (Here my CV)

What’s new?

• 15th Transatlantic Workshop on the Economics of Crime (TWEC) at ETH Zurich, Oct 4th-5th 2024 (FINAL PROGRAM, CALL)
• 3rd AI+Economics Workshop in Zurich, Dec 6th-7th 2024 (FINAL PROGRAM, CALL)
• I received project funding from the SNSF to work on “Predictive Algorithms for Public Policy and Economic Research” !

Current Working Papers

• “Media Slant is Contagious”, with P. Widmer and E. Ash, Revise & Resubmit at The Economic Journal
• “War Violence Exposure and Tax Compliance”, with T. Giommoni
• “The Partisan Divergence in U.S. Local Policy, 1972-2017”, with E. Ash
• “Unexpected Fiscal Policies”, with P. Bello and C. Marconi
• “Media Bias and Climate Change Skepticism”, with E. Ash, A. Boltachka and M. Pinna
• “The Unintended Consequences of Pandemic Lockdowns: Evidence on Domestic Violence in Italy”, with A. Bochenkova, P. Buonanno and C. Deiana
• “One Person, One Vote: The Effect of Direct Elections on Political Discourse”, with A. Amati and E. Ash

Peer-reviewed Publications

1. E. Ash, S. Galletta, M. Pinna and C. Warshaw, “From Viewers to Voters: Tracing Fox News’ Impact on American Democracy”, (accepted) Journal of Public Economics
2. E. Ash, S. Galletta and T. Giommoni, “A Machine Learning Approach to Analyze and Support Anti-Corruption Policy”, (accepted) American Economic Journal: Economic Policy
3. A. Bochenkova, P. Buonanno and S. Galletta, “Fighting Violence Against Women: The Role of Female Political Representation”, (2023)  Journal of Development Economics  
4. E. Ash and S. Galletta, “How Cable News Reshaped Local Government”, (2023) American Economic Journal: Applied Economics
5. P. Buonanno, S. Galletta and M. Puca “The Role of Civic Capital on Vaccination”, (2023) Health Economics
6. E. Ash, S. Galletta, D. Hangartner, Y. Margalit, and M. Pinna, “The Effect of Fox News on Health Behavior During Covid-19”, (2023) Political Analysis
7. S. Galletta and T. Giommoni, “The Effect of the 1918 Influenza Pandemic on Income Inequality: Evidence from Italy”, (2022) Review of Economics and Statistics
8. E. Ash, D. Chen and S. Galletta,, “Measuring Judicial Sentiment: Methods and Application to U.S. Circuit Courts”, (2022) Economica
9. S. Galletta, “Form of Government and Voters’ Preferences for Public Spending”,  (2021) Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization
10. G. Daniele, S. Galletta and B. Geys, “Abandon Ship? Party Brands and Politicians’ Responses to a Political Scandal” (2020) Journal of Public Economics
11. S. Galletta, “Direct Democracy, Partial Decentralization and Voter Information: Evidence from Swiss Municipalities”, (2020) International Tax and Public Finance 
12. P. Buonanno, S. Galletta and M. Puca “Estimating the Severity of COVID-19: Evidence From the Italian Epicenter” (2020)  PLOS One
13. F. Cavalcanti, G. Daniele and S. Galletta, “Popularity shocks and political selection”, (2018) Journal of Public Economics
14. S. Galletta, “Law enforcement, municipal budgets and spill-over effects: Evidence from a quasi-experiment in Italy”, (2017) Journal of Urban Economics,
15. S. Galletta and A. Redonda, “Corporate Flat Tax Reforms and Businesses’ Investment Decisions: Evidence from Switzerland”, (2017) International Tax and Public Finance 
16. S. Galletta, “On the determinants of happiness: a Classification And Regression Tree (CART) approach”, (2016)  Applied Economics Letters
17. S. Galletta and M. Jametti, “How to Tame Two Leviathans? Revisiting the effect of direct democracy on local public expenditure in a federation”, (2015) European Journal of Political Economy
18. S. Galletta, M. Jametti, and A. Redonda, “Highway to Economic growth? Competition in public works tenders in the Democratic Republic of Congo”, (2015),  South African Journal of Economics

Working in Progress

• “Taxing Cross-border Commuters” with E. Di Carlo and E. Rubolino
• “BallotBot: Can Chatbots Strengthen Direct Democracy?” with E. Ash and G. Opocher

Workshops: 

2nd AI+Economics Workshop in Zurich, Sept 29th-30th 2023 (FINAL PROGRAM, CALL)
1st AI+Economics Workshop in Zurich, Oct 14th-15th 2022 (FINAL PROGRAM, CALL)