The market of infidelity: The Effect of Party Switching on Lawmaking Productivity. Evidence from Italy

doi:10.21203/rs.3.rs-4973017/v1

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The market of infidelity: The Effect of Party Switching on Lawmaking Productivity. Evidence from Italy

https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-4973017/v1

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This paper explores the phenomenon of party switching in the Italian parliament, wherein elected politicians frequently shift allegiance from one party to another, often at the expense of voter representation. Analyzing data on parliamentarians spanning 2008 to 2013 and utilizing an instrumental variable approach, the study reaffirms existing literature highlighting the influence of historical institutions on cultural beliefs and norms. These enduring legacies, passed down across generations, significantly impact the establishment, framework, and operation of current institutions. The manuscript specifically reveals that politicians elected in regions historically linked to enduring feudal values from pre-unitary kingdoms are more prone to defection and changing political affiliations. This tendency to switch parties reflects specific social norms and institutional influences deeply rooted in established clientelist practices. Ultimately, the evidence presented underscores how parliamentarians' defection diminishes legislative productivity, substituting particular interests for the nation's welfare. In summary, these findings demonstrate the persistent impact of informal cultural values originating from centuries-old institutions, shaping incentives and behaviors in contemporary politics despite the absence of formal institutional changes.

JEL Codes: D72; K16

Parliamentary turncoat

party switching

lawmaking productivity

path dependence

Italians have historically faced stereotypes of laziness and susceptibility to serfdom (Rota, 2012). This stereotype remains prominent in the behavior of Italian politicians, who provide numerous examples of ineptitude. It is not uncommon for members of parliament (MP) to engage in activities like watching movies, sleeping, or reading newspapers during debates. Public discussions often devolve into chaotic scenes, with MPs frequently shouting at one another or booing opposing interventions (Romanini, 2017).

One of the most significant indicators of parliamentary inadequacy and citizens’ mistrust (Golden, 2003) is often found in party switching, which is referred, in Italy, as "cambio di casacca" (literarily “switching jerseys”, i.e., parliamentary turncoat). This phenomenon has ancient origins (Valbruzzi, 2015), from the early days of Italian unification, when infidelity and apostasies were often seen as merits for climbing the political ladder (Crispi, 1890). This destructive phenomenon, creating fragile alliances and temporary governments (Graziano, 2010), has always been considered problematic.

Indeed, despite the constitutional freedom to switch parties, this phenomenon of continuous political turnabouts (Tardi, 2007) has always been considered a wound to elector-elected accountability (Pasquino, 2020) and a blatant violation of the mandate given by voters to their elected representatives, representing a clear manifestation of the principal-agent problem (Ström, 2000). Parliamentary turncoat is a consequence and a condition of the persistence of oligarchies that share power by aligning themselves with the current authority (Bortolotti, 2014).

This manuscript follows the literature that suggests that Italy carries a rich historical legacy, marked by variations in cultural characteristics and civic norms (Putnam et al., 1993), which continue to influence contemporary disparities in civic engagement and social interactions (d'Adda & de Blasio, 2017). Revisiting the historical studies that have addressed the subject, this paper aims, on one hand, to demonstrate that the Italian solid tradition of parliamentary turncoat (Bull, 2021) is not a random occurrence but rather the result of a cultural and centuries-long sedimentation of political patronage and vertical affiliation.

On the other hand, using data from the XVI legislature of the Lower Chamber of the Parliament (2008–2013), and drawing on the lawmaking productivity indicator gently provided by the Openpolis Foundation (Openpolis), an open-data association dedicated to monitoring political phenomena, we show that party switching significantly affects the productivity of a parliamentarian in terms of legislative output. This result corroborates existing literature that highlights discernible systematic disparities in the quality of representatives (Caselli & Morelli, 2004) and the effective representation of citizens (Rosset & Stecker, 2019).

Given the endogenous nature of coalition formation (Vasin & Stepanov, 2008) and the dynamic nature of party affiliation (Gerber & Jackson, 1993), our manuscript employs a two-stage least squares (2SLS) estimation method. In the first stage of the estimations, we instrument party switching with three instrumental variables (IVs) designed to elucidate the phenomenon of parliamentary turncoat. After obtaining the predicted values from this first-stage regression for party switching, we proceed to estimate the coefficients in the primary regression, allowing us to gauge the effect of parliamentary turncoat on lawmaking productivity.

The first IV is a binary variable, taking a value of one if the parliamentarian was elected in the territories once constituting the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. The rational for this IV is that the region was characterized by "uncontrolled and uncontrollable corporate structures of the ancien régime, in which real power came to be exercised by private patronage and clientism" (Cook & Frendo, 1996). Our second IV is the share of votes in favor of the monarchy in the post-World War II institutional referendum between the Republic and the Monarchy. The referendum sought to restore the historical aristocratic privileges of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and its patronage system (Ridolfi, 2020). The IV has already been used in the literature as a measure of social capital (Crescenzi et al., 2015; De Blasio & Nuzzo, 2010, 2003; Guiso et al., 2004) and cheating behavior (Paccagnella & Sestito, 2014). Finally, illustrating that significant disparities in social and civic capital can be enduring (Bracco et al., 2015), we introduce a third IV that interact average regional convictions (2000–2013) for "concussione," a form of corruption where public officials or civil servants misuse their positions for personal gain, with our IVs.

The first stage of the 2SLS results show that the instrumental variables are robust and exhibit a strong and positive correlation with the endogenous variables in the model. At the same time, the second stage of the 2SLS regressions reveals that parliamentary turncoat exerts a negative and statistically significant impact on the legislative productivity index. In sum, our findings indicate that MPs who switch party affiliations are less productive in terms of lawmaking – at least according to the indicator provided by Openpolis – showing hindrances to the legislative purpose of MPs.

As an additional observation, it's noteworthy that our data suggests that women and younger deputies are less inclined to betray the mandates of their constituents and that more educated and experienced MPs tend to be more productive in the legislative process, countering populist arguments against political professionalism.

The structure of this article is as follows: after briefly introducing the relevant literature in the next section, the third section elaborates on the research question and the empirical ways in which we intend to address it. Section 4 sets out the empirical findings, which are discussed in Section 5. Conclusions are set out in Section 6.

Lawmaking is the core business of MPs (Gava et al., 2021). Indeed, MPs are the primary driving force behind the initiation, oversight, and finalization of legislation (Blondel, 1970). The process of lawmaking is intricate and multifaceted (McCubbins & Rodriguez, 2011), involving complex problem-solving (Adler & Wilkerson, 2012) and being subject to institutional tensions and constraints (Baumgartner et al., 2014). The production of laws in parliamentary settings hinges on factors such as the specific context, the level of detail sought (Parisi & Fon, 2009), religious or moral underpinnings (Peach, 2002), and the presence of what are often referred to as "fundamental" or "driving" laws (Casas et al., 2019).

In this sense, the primary duty of MPs revolves around facilitating and deliberating the passage of bills (Duncan & Gillon, 2015). This level of parliamentary effort is known to depend on various individual attributes of MPs, including their experience (Braendle & Stutzer, 2013), seniority (Akirav, 2016), age (Navarro et al., 2012), gender (Gavoille & Verschelde, 2017; Volden et al., 2013), education level and type (Besley et al., 2011; Rocca et al., 2008), occupation (Gavoille, 2018), multiple office-holding (Van de Voorde, 2020), and moonlighting (Geys & Mause, 2013). Their connections and rootedness to the local community (Marangoni & Tronconi, 2011) and participation in co-sponsorship (Sciarini et al., 2021) also play a role in shaping their legislative contributions.

Moreover, the composition of the parliamentary legislative agenda is influenced by factors like MPs' political inclinations (Brenton & Pickering, 2022), party cohesion (Chiou & Rothenberg, 2006), conservative tendencies (Russel et al., 2020), Euro-scepticism (Closa & Maatsch, 2014), electoral competition (Frank & Stadelmann, 2021; Skazlic, 2021; Rasmussen, 2018; De Paola & Scoppa, 2011). Socio-economic backgrounds (Hayo & Neumeier, 2014), political loyalty (Galasso & Nannicini, 2011), as well as the size and salary levels of parliamentary bodies (Kotakorpi & Poutvaara, 2011), also contribute to shaping the legislative agenda.

On a more general level, the fluidity and fidelity of MPs to political parties relies on their responsiveness, representativeness, integrity, and transparency (Fink-Hafner & Krašovec, 2013). This is particularly true for Italy, where fluid majorities in parliament are susceptible to external influences and technocratic pressures (Marangoni & Verzichelli, 2015). The institutional context is important for parliamentary perspectives (Braendle, 2016), given the strong correlation between national economic performance and political competition (Padovano & Ricciuti, 2009).

From an economic perspective, the time devoted to public office in legislative production has been found to be dependent with opportunities in private sector activities (Gagliarducci et al., 2010), individual re-election prospects (Rogers, 2002), capacities for rent extraction (Quaresima & Fiorillo, 2020), and geographical origin of the MP (Russo, 2011). The same considerations can be extended to the opportunity cost inherent politicians willingness to align with the political vest in which they were elected, in consideration of the fact that MPs balance costs and benefits (Heller & Mershon, 2008), re-election and policy gains (Mershon & Shvetsova, 2011) inherent remaining or betraying their party. Changing party challenges the electoral pact and embodies a representation issue (Desposato, 2006).

In the Italian context, parliamentary turncoat has been a recurrent and extremely harmful (Curreri, 2004) feature of the Italian political landscape since unification (Brancati et al., 2022). The literature suggests that this phenomenon is heavily influenced by various factors, including geographical considerations (Weingast et al., 1981), the characteristics of MPs, and the organizational structure of political parties (Kato, 1998). It is also linked to aspects like legislative ambition (Heller & Mershon, 2005), internal party cohesion (Ceron & Volpi, 2021), policy preferences (Reed & Scheiner, 2003), and the pursuit of external benefits (Arnold et al., 2014).

From a general point of view, party switching is influenced by exogenous shocks (Daniele et al., 2020), formal rules (Mershon & Shvetsova, 2008), and, within the specific context of Italian politics, by traditional and customary traits (Valbruzzi, 2014). Italian cultural values are known to be passed down largely unchanged from generation to generation (Guiso et al., 2006), with deep historical roots (Tabellini, 2008).

The peculiarity of parliamentary turncoat in the Italian context is that it has been a constant companion throughout the entire history of Italy. At its birth commentators and journalists already complained about southern elites practicing personalism, clientelism, familism, and localism in an effort to accommodate diverse interests (Musella, 2003). Party switching has been seen as a variant of the patronage system, similar to the spoils system observed under the rule of the Stuarts or the Hanoverians (Piattoni et al., 2003). It. Its major consequences have been a low level of Italian MPs’ productivity and enduring clientelist relationships (Graziano, op. cit).

As a side note, while there are minimum age – all MPs sitting in the House (“Camera dei Deputati”) need to be at least 25 years old to be elected – and citizenship requirements – foreigners cannot be elected as parliamentarians or regional councilors – for legislative positions, there are no prerequisites concerning education or training for becoming lawmakers. Few studies have delved into the qualitative advantages and drawbacks of lawmakers' age (Fengler, 1980), gender (Thomsen & Sanders, 2020), and educational backgrounds (Carnes & Lupu, 2016) in shaping legislation. Hence, given that these characteristics may knowledge, skills, and attitudes relevant to political responsibilities (Erickson & Josefsson, 2019) we investigate whether, ceteris paribus, they are likely to surpass factors such as social status (Campbell, 2013) and cultural capital (Bourdieu, 2007) in political engagement.

This study examines whether MPs switching political affiliation, migrating from their elected party to another (Donovan & Newell, 2008), exhibit different levels of lawmaking productivity compared to their more loyal counterparts. To empirically investigate this hypothesis, the study employs a cross-sectional dataset comprising 630 observations, corresponding to the total number of deputies in the Italian lower chamber of Parliament, known as the Chamber of Deputies, during the XVI legislature, which spanned from April 29, 2008, to March 14, 2013.

In the context of this analysis, "parliamentary turncoat" refers to the situation where a MP was initially affiliated with a specific political party at the time of their election but subsequently changed their party affiliation during the course of the legislature. The Chamber of Deputies officially records this phenomenon, often referred to as "party switching" (Dassonneville et al., 2015), "party hopping" (Fraenkel, 2012), or "crossing the aisle" (Yoshinaka, 2016) in the literature, and makes this information available on their official website.

It's important to note that parliamentary turncoat should not be confused – in the context of our analysis – with the historical concept of “trasformismo”, which was the shift in parliamentary support, as seen in the transition of deputies from the Historical Right to the Left government led by Agostino Depretis following the first expanded suffrage elections in 1882 (Cammarano, 2009). Instead, it is used here to describe the modern and commonly used sense of a change in parliamentary group by an individual deputy (Verzichelli, 2000).

The focus is exclusively on the House of Representatives, as the Senate had a distinct regulatory framework regarding parliamentary groups and voting during that period. The XVI legislature presents a distinctive case, characterized by the stability of parliamentary composition (Orsina, 2014) until the subsequent elections in 2013, when the Five Star Movement emerged on the political stage, marking the end of a two-decade era of political bipolarism (Segatti & Capuzzi, 2016). This stability persisted despite the widely publicized sexual scandal involving the Prime Minister (Palmer, 2011, and Praino & Stockemer, 2022) and his subsequent resignation.

To access comprehensive information on MPs, the institutional website of the Chamber of Deputies provides a registry encompassing details such as age, gender, educational qualifications, electoral district, and specific parliamentary roles, including positions within the Presidency and government sub-secretariat, the number of parliamentary mandates held, and any prior senatorial positions. Data regarding MPs' attendance at voting sessions and their final productivity index are publicly available through the Openpolis website.

Openpolis is an independent data journalism association, committed to promoting transparency and open government. It diligently collects data on all electronic votes, allowing for the derivation of attendance and absence rates, which, in turn, provide insights into the productivity of parliamentarians. Importantly, this productivity index – which is publicly available, at the moment, only for the XVI legislature – focuses on the various stages of the legislative process, with each step assigned a score (refer to Fig. 1 for details).

OpenPolis constructs a productivity index by amalgamating values assigned to each parliamentarian at the conclusion of the legislative term. The Foundation's recorded range of scores during the XVI legislature spans from a minimum of 1.20 to an impressive high of 1248.30, indicating the considerable variability in legislative performance. This index encompasses several parameters contributing to an overall score at the legislature's end, including:

the legislative process, consisting of the various steps from the presentation of the bill to its approval;
the support and endorsement of fellow parliamentarians for a given bill;
active participation in legislative sessions within the House.

Notably, the most significant factor influencing the index is legislative drafting, reflecting the substantial emphasis on this aspect. Simultaneously, garnering consensus from peers and mere participation in floor voting sessions make minor contributions, incrementing the lawmaking index by a few tenths of a point (see Fig. 1). The index's design is aimed at "rewarding the pursuit of results and political merit while discouraging the mere production of paperwork that might clutter offices" (OpenPolis, 2013).

As an illustrative example, consider an MP supporting the government who introduces a draft law, backed by five signatures from MPs of an opposing party. This effort yields a score of 1.28 (0.08 for the presentation and 1.20 points for the endorsements). If the bill is subjected to discussion within Parliament, the index receives a boost of 5 points (comprising + 1 point for committee discussion and + 4 points for the discussion in the General Assembly). Ultimately, if the law garners approval from either one branch of the Parliament (+ 20 points) or secures passage through both the House and Senate (+ 40 points), with bipartisan support (+ 10 points), the MP's final score stands at around 78 total points. It's worth noting that the productivity index nearly doubles for MPs from the opposition (see Fig. 1).

One Member of Parliament had all the indicators related to productivity and presence empty, as they held the office of President of the Chamber. Consequently, this particular MP was excluded from the analysis. The resulting dataset, therefore, comprises 629 observations.

The model parameters used to test the impact of parliamentary turncoat on lawmaking productivity are as follows:

$$\:\text{ln}\left(prod\right)=\:{\beta\:}_{1}traitor+\:{\beta\:}_{2}X+\:\epsilon\:$$

The following annotation scheme is applied. The dependent variable, denoted as ln(prod), represents the productivity index provided by Openpolis, which is transformed using the natural logarithm to estimate a semi-elasticity of parliamentary productivity. The primary independent variable is a binary variable called "traitor," which takes on a value of 1 if MPs changed their political party during their term of office. In the opposite scenario, this variable is assigned a value of zero.

The empirical strategy also includes a vector X of control variables, encompassing the MP's gender, age at the time of the election, and level of education. Two dummy variables are incorporated to control whether the Member of Parliament is affiliated with the center-right or center-left coalition, taking a value of 1 in the relevant case and 0 otherwise. Additionally, there is a set of dummy variables that receive a value of 1 if the MP holds a secretarial role within the House or an undersecretary (“sottosegretario”) role in the government. The model introduces another dummy variable to consider MPs who have served at least one previous term of office and have been in more than four legislatures, serving as a proxy for "career MPs." If the MP does not possess any of these characteristics, all dummy variables are set to zero.

The standard unobserved random term is represented by ε, while standard errors are in the regressions are clustered at the id level. Descriptive statistics of the variables included in the dataset are provided in Table 1.

Table 1
Variable	Obs.	Mean	Std. Dev.	Min	Max	Freq.
Productivity index	629	212.52	167.85	1.20	1248.30	n.a.
Attendance rate	629	77.484	20.859	.37	99.88	n.a.
Monarchy votes Referendum ’46 (IV)	617	47.44	16.80	15.00	76.50	n.a.
Concussione (IV)	629	147.80	89.85	0.00	294.00	n.a.
Kingdom of two Sicilies (IV)	629	.302	.459	0	1	190
Transformist (MP switching party)	629	.190	.393	0	1	120
MP is female	629	.197	.398	0	1	124
MP’s age < 35 years old (y.o)	629	.0556	.229	0	1	35
35 > MP’s Age < 45	629	.251	.434	0	1	158
45 > MP’s Age < 55	629	.443	.497	0	1	279
55 > MP’s Age < 65 y.o.	629	.271	.445	0	1	171
MP’s Age > 65 y.o.	629	.0842	.277	0	1	53
Grade 12 schooling level	629	.0222	.147	0	1	14
University degree	629	.650	.477	0	1	409
Doctorate (Ph.D.)	629	.0254	.157	0	1	16
Center-right affiliation	629	.542	.498	0	1	341
Center-left affiliation	629	.387	.487	0	1	244
MP > 4 mandates	629	.0238	.152	0	1	15
1 ≥ MP mandates ≤ 4	629	.314	.464	0	1	198
Undersecretary in government	629	.0445	.206	0	1	28
Secretarial role to the President	629	.0190	.136	0	1	12
Note: The table provides descriptive statistics for a dataset consisting of a total sample of 629 parliamentarians, based on information from the OpenPolis Foundation and the Chamber of Deputies, between 2008–2013.

Finally, the empirical strategy includes a necessary assessment of the accuracy of the estimates (Koenker & Hallock, 2001). In order to reduce the influence of outliers on the explanatory variable (Neykov et al., 2012) we remove a critical mass of outliers – between 2.5% and 15%, as suggested by Koenker & Bassett (1978) – from the dataset, excluding minimum and maximum values of lawmaking productivity.

A simple OLS regression between transformistic tendencies and lawmaking productivity suggests no correlation between MPs' political switching and their legislative activity (Table 2).

Table 2:

	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)	(6)	(7)
VARIABLES	Lawmaking	Lawmaking	Lawmaking	Lawmaking	Lawmaking	Lawmaking	Lawmaking

Party switch	-0.0286	-0.0969	-0.0854	-0.0583	-0.0886	-0.0401	-0.0572
	(0.0776)	(0.0727)	(0.0697)	(0.0664)	(0.0614)	(0.0596)	(0.0554)
MP is female	0.232***	0.175***	0.147**	0.123**	0.141***	0.133**	0.126**
	(0.0637)	(0.0593)	(0.0570)	(0.0539)	(0.0522)	(0.0514)	(0.0493)
MP’s age < 35 years old	0.131	0.130	0.111	0.155	0.176	0.126	0.0661
	(0.123)	(0.134)	(0.131)	(0.125)	(0.122)	(0.119)	(0.114)
35 > MP’s Age < 45	0.0745	0.154	0.168*	0.183**	0.182**	0.130	0.0983
	(0.0941)	(0.0962)	(0.0940)	(0.0887)	(0.0856)	(0.0814)	(0.0775)
45 > MP’s Age < 55	0.0677	0.0745	0.0492	0.0869	0.123	0.0871	0.0565
	(0.0872)	(0.0919)	(0.0897)	(0.0835)	(0.0794)	(0.0762)	(0.0727)
55 > MP’s Age < 65	-0.0295	-0.0310	-0.0162	0.0302	0.0632	0.0550	0.0209
	(0.0889)	(0.0944)	(0.0935)	(0.0863)	(0.0822)	(0.0800)	(0.0753)
MP’s age > 65 years old	-0.0859	-0.0393	-0.0843	-0.0634	-0.0482	-0.0983	-0.143
	(0.142)	(0.124)	(0.121)	(0.116)	(0.112)	(0.108)	(0.0965)
Grade 12	-0.0794	-0.320	-0.234	0.00121	0.0936	0.0774	0.0790
	(0.294)	(0.232)	(0.226)	(0.178)	(0.156)	(0.160)	(0.159)
University degree	0.130*	0.100*	0.0754	0.0793	0.0652	0.0779	0.0518
	(0.0686)	(0.0578)	(0.0539)	(0.0523)	(0.0482)	(0.0475)	(0.0461)
Doctorate (Ph.D.)	0.258*	0.195	0.182	0.0203	0.0219	0.0375	0.0295
	(0.139)	(0.143)	(0.144)	(0.0902)	(0.0886)	(0.0887)	(0.0853)
Center-right affiliation	0.0230	0.0111	0.0718	-0.00267	-0.0387	-0.0752	-0.0595
	(0.126)	(0.123)	(0.120)	(0.105)	(0.0989)	(0.0936)	(0.0849)
Center-left affiliation	0.120	0.169	0.198	0.110	0.0659	0.0106	0.0188
	(0.132)	(0.125)	(0.123)	(0.106)	(0.101)	(0.0947)	(0.0858)
MP > 4 mandates	0.705***	0.353*	0.252	0.127	0.122	0.0873	0.0166
	(0.148)	(0.182)	(0.164)	(0.140)	(0.137)	(0.135)	(0.121)
1 ≥ MP mandates ≤ 4	0.229***	0.0896	0.0852	0.0403	0.0250	0.00623	-0.0176
	(0.0706)	(0.0613)	(0.0595)	(0.0576)	(0.0549)	(0.0540)	(0.0525)
Gov. undersecretary	0.179	-0.191**	-0.206**	-0.187**	-0.174**	-0.191**	-0.129
	(0.109)	(0.0904)	(0.0899)	(0.0879)	(0.0882)	(0.0863)	(0.0798)
Presidential secretary	-0.0423	-0.110	-0.118	-0.115	-0.116	-0.130	-0.108
	(0.127)	(0.126)	(0.122)	(0.126)	(0.127)	(0.128)	(0.126)
Alpha trim level	None	2.5%	5%	7.5%	10%	12.5%	15%
Observations	629	612	599	584	569	557	536
Adjusted R-squared	0.116	0.051	0.046	0.029	0.038	0.028	0.030
Centered R-squared	0.140	0.0759	0.0719	0.0559	0.0650	0.0562	0.0586

Clustered standard errors - at MP level - in parentheses

*** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1

Note: The table presents the empirical coefficients of the OLS regressions conducted between party hopping (in Italian context described as “parliamentary turncoat”) and parliamentarian productivity (OpenPolis lawmaking index), along with a number of variables included in a control vector. The analysis is based on a sample of 629 MPs from the XVI legislature (2008-2013) of the Italian Chamber of Deputies.

However, it is known that attitudes toward party hopping can differ significantly, depending on a set of institutional background conditions (Kreuzer & Pettai, 2009) that make this variable highly endogenous (Ferland & Dassonneville, 2021).

From an historical point of view, historiographers have concentrated significant attention to trace the root of this behavior in the Italian unification as the end of intertwined political, personal, family, factional, territorial, and social divisions between the center-north and center-south, where pluralism was not tolerated (Fruci, 2019).

One of the most remarkable aspects following unification was the fluid political positions (Rogari, 1998) of MPs hailing from the former Kingdom of the Two Sicilies (KTS). Several studies have concluded that such fluidity was a result of an "ideology based on small and big private interests," with parliamentary turncoat being the typical strategy of the rearmost bourgeois class to gain power (Carocci, 1995). The primary reason behind this fluidity was the absence of a consolidated active bourgeoisie, replaced by a persistent feudal nobility that readily adapted to secure its hegemonic position during the transition from the Bourbons to the Savoy (Lupo, 2011).

Therefore, in the pre-unitary Bourbon south, weak bourgeois classes played a marginal role and lacked political representation (Felice, 2019). The monarchy's inability to modernize the state, coupled with its closed and aloof nature, further compounded the situation (Caglioti, 2002). Hence, it's not surprising that historians highlight a tendency for parliamentary turncoat, which was "pathological in the North and the Center but physiological in the South," where "political strife concealed limited and undisputed personal interests" (Carocci, 1956), and the prevalent "distorted political mentality" revolved around "wheeling and dealing" (Colapietra, 1956).

Parliamentary turncoat faced greater resistance in the North due to the presence of a more cohesive and homogeneous middle class (Fontana, 1984). In contrast, the South viewed unification as an unwelcome intrusion from the North (Benigno, 2019), leading to the establishment of a dominant local clientelism system to bypass central authority and the rule of law (Petraccone, 1994). This resulted in a stark divide between the North and South, particularly evident in the realm of politics (De Francesco, 2020).

Contemporary accounts of the time indicated that the KTS was marked by exclusive privileges in public positions (Rocco, 1837) and a constant fear of "shameless betrayal" by authorities (De' Sivo, 1868). Eventually, a tendency for parliamentary turncoat prevailed because the Kingdom was plagued by traitors and corrupt officials who were both corrupted and corrupting (Bruno Guerri, 2020).

In this context, top-down patronage structures and clashes between closed client networks (Blando, 2019) may still have lingering effects today, as self-reinforcing feedback loops and long-term processes follow the principles of increasing returns (Pierson, 2000). It has already been demonstrated, indeed, that past arrangements constrain present economic opportunities (Libecap, 2011) through behavioral spillovers (Bednar & Page, 2018).

To test this hypothesis, we employ a two-stage least squares (2SLS) estimating method, instrumenting politicians' parliamentary turncoat with a binary variable that takes a value of 1 if the MP was elected in an electoral mandate that overlaps with the KTS' territories (see Figure 2) before the unification of Italy in 1860, and 0 otherwise.

If there is a form of path dependency in these territories that shapes current civic cultures (Sabetti, 1996), we should observe a positive and statistically significant relationship between our instrumental variable and parliamentary turncoat. Simultaneously, if OLS results are influenced by endogeneity, we should obtain different results in the second stage of the regressions. Considering that parliamentary turncoat has widely been regarded as a despicable betrayal (Galli della Loggia, 2016), our expectation is that defecting MPs are less likely to introduce new bills, garner support from their peers, and witness a positive final vote regarding their legislative inputs.

A reduced form of the empirical evidence of the first and second stage of the 2SLS regressions is reported in Table 3. In contrast, extended results are reported and commented on in the Appendix (Tables 5-6).

Table 3:

1^st stage
	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)	(6)	(7)
VARIABLES	Party switch	Party switch	Party switch	Party switch	Party switch	Party switch	Party switch
Kingdom of two Sicilies	0.128***	0.135***	0.143***	0.141***	0.149***	0.147***	0.160***
	(0.0360)	(0.0365)	(0.0370)	(0.0375)	(0.0376)	(0.0377)	(0.0377)
Cragg-Donald Wald first stage F statistic	14.34	15.29	16.97	16.06	18.05	17.52	21.21
Controls	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Observations	629	612	599	584	569	557	536
Adjusted R-squared	0.065	0.067	0.070	0.068	0.073	0.070	0.085
Centered R-squared	0.0888	0.0910	0.0950	0.0938	0.0990	0.0969	0.112
Observations	629	612	599	584	569	557	536

2^nd stage
	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)	(6)	(7)
VARIABLES	Lawmaking	Lawmaking	Lawmaking	Lawmaking	Lawmaking	Lawmaking	Lawmaking
Party switch	-1.381**	-1.269**	-1.113**	-1.108**	-0.928**	-0.981**	-0.773**
	(0.644)	(0.516)	(0.438)	(0.435)	(0.376)	(0.389)	(0.317)

Observations	629	612	599	584	569	557	536
Adjusted R-squared	-0.364	-0.436	-0.393	-0.497	-0.336	-0.465	-0.282
Centered R-squared	-0.329	-0.399	-0.355	-0.456	-0.298	-0.423	-0.244
First satge Cragg-Donald Wald F statistics	14.34	15.29	16.97	16.06	18.05	17.52	21.21
Alpha trim level	None	2.5%	5%	7.5%	10%	12.5%	15%

Clustered standard errors - at MP level - in parentheses

*** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1

Note: The table presents the empirical coefficients of the 2SLS regressions conducted between party hopping (in Italian context described as “parliamentary turncoat”), which is instrumented with a dummy variable that equals one if the parliamentarian was elected in the territories of the former Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, and parliamentarian productivity (OpenPolis lawmaking index). The analysis also includes a number of control variables in a vector. The sample consists of 629 MPs from the XVI legislature (2008-2013) of the Italian Chamber of Deputies.

Before discussing the evidence reported in Table 3, we need to assess whether the instrumental variable (IV) is valid and sufficiently robust. A typical rule of thumb for validity is represented by a first-stage F-statistic exceeding 10 (Staiger & Stock, 1997). Stock & Yogo (2005) critical values for first-stage F-statistics are set at a 1% threshold and a 15% maximum IV size, with the lower threshold of 8.96 for both chi-squared and F-statistic. Importantly, all first-stage F-statistics in our analysis exceed both of these thresholds. Furthermore, the Cragg-Donald Wald F-statistics, a key measure of instrument strength (Sanderson & Windmeijer, 2016), exhibits a maximum IV size increase to 10% once the dataset is trimmed, surpassing the 5% alpha-trimmed level threshold (in which case, the Stock-Yogo weak ID test critical value is set at 16.38).

In light of these results, the robustness of our instrumental variable (IV) is implied. These collective findings provide strong evidence supporting the robustness and reliability of our instrumental variable, reinforcing its suitability for the two-stage least squares (2SLS) estimation method employed in our analysis.

In the first stage, the coefficient for the instrumental variable consistently appears positive and statistically significant across all columns, indicating that MPs elected in territories pertaining to the former Kingdom of the Two Sicilies (KTS) is linked to a higher likelihood of engaging in party switching. The estimates reveal that MPs elected in the KTS territories exhibit a greater propensity to switch parliamentary groups and cross the floor. Specifically, on average, the probability of a parliamentarian elected in the KTS territories switching parties is 14 percentage points higher compared to their colleagues from other electoral districts.

In the second stage of the analysis, the coefficients for party switching are consistently negative and statistically significant, signifying that parliamentarians who participate in parliamentary turncoat tend to exhibit lower parliamentary productivity, as measured by the OpenPolis lawmaking index.

The statistical significance of the coefficients of interest remains robust to various model specifications (refer to Tables 7-8 in the Appendix) and when limiting the data to the borders of the KTS territories (refer to Table 9 in the Appendix).

Overall, the results point to a negative correlation between party switching and parliamentary productivity. Parliamentarians elected in the KTS territories are more likely to change political affiliation during their term, and this behavior is associated with reduced legislative productivity. While the negative impact of party switching on productivity holds across different model specifications, there may be slight variations in the magnitude of the effect. These results can be elucidated from a historical standpoint. To begin with, the KTS territories were characterized by weak institutions (Brosio, 2018) and a "vertical patron-client relations of dependence" on the feudal monarchy (Putnam, 1993).

The persistence of specific clientelistic cultural values in these regions is a result of their historically ingrained hierarchical structure, in which individuals – and not the authority – typically oversee other morally unscrupulous officials (Banfield, 1958). In these areas, it is unusual to witness penalized politicians pursuing vested interests (Alesina & Giuliano, 2015).

The reasons for this – only apparently – surprising result can be found in the literature suggesting familism and clientelism in political participation in these areas (Foschi & Lauriola, 2016). There is extensive evidence that KTS developed a distinct and localized cultural response, a factor that is known to influence shifts in political power (Acemoglu & Robinson, 2021). Nevertheless, given the overlap of the former KTS territories with economically disadvantaged regions (Graziani, 1978), it could be argued that socioeconomic factors, beyond clientelistic networks, might impact the results.

Therefore, to address such concerns, we use an alternative instrument, namely, the results of the Italian 1946 Institutional Referendum (IR), which was conducted to determine whether Italy would adopt a Republican or Monarchic form after World War II. The referendum results is a robust measure of social capital (Crescenzi et al., 2013) representing long-term institutional characteristics of the past (Uleri, 2012). Historians suggest that the monarchic votes in the 1946 referendum were rooted in a "purely clientelistic" political tradition (Fonzo, 2019), symptomatic of the division between the Center-North, aligned with republican and secular traditions of the "Risorgimento" (Aimo, 2021), and the Center-South, which aimed to continue with the former KTS (Mastropaolo, 2016). In this sense, the votes for the monarchy at the referendum were a signal to continue previous institutional and cultural distinctions, characterized by aristocratic privileges, extractive rents, and political clientelism (Di Martino et al., 2020).

For a visual representation of the geographical distribution of monarchy preferences in the 1946 IR, please refer to Figure 3, which is based on the data available from the historical archive of the Ministry of the Interior ("Archivio Storico delle Elezioni").

The image illustrates the distribution of monarchy votes in the 1946 IR, revealing a distinct division between the North and South of the peninsula (Corbetta & Piretti, 2009). Instead of the previous instrumental variable, which denoted the simple overlap between electoral districts and the former territories of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies (KTS), we now employ the rate of monarchic votes in the IR as a proxy for the inclination to perpetuate the clientelistic tendencies that prevailed in the KTS, as suggested in the literature mentioned above. This modification yields the primary empirical findings outlined below (refer to Table 4 for detailed estimates). The comprehensive set of estimations can be found in the Appendix (refer to Tables 11-14).

Table 4:

1^st stage
	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)	(6)	(7)
VARIABLES	Party switch	Party switch	Party switch	Party switch	Party switch	Party switch	Party switch
Monarchy votes IR 1946	0.00362***	0.00350***	0.00356***	0.00339***	0.00320***	0.00320***	0.00318***
	(0.000955)	(0.000946)	(0.000942)	(0.000952)	(0.000937)	(0.000938)	(0.000933)
Cragg-Donald Wald first stage F statistic	14.34	15.29	16.97	16.06	18.05	17.52	21.21
Controls	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Observations	629	612	599	584	569	557	536
Adjusted R-squared	0.065	0.067	0.070	0.068	0.073	0.070	0.085
Centered R-squared	0.0888	0.0910	0.0950	0.0938	0.0990	0.0969	0.112

2^nd stage
	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)	(6)	(7)
VARIABLES	Lawmaking	Lawmaking	Lawmaking	Lawmaking	Lawmaking	Lawmaking	Lawmaking
Party switch	-1.816**	-1.857***	-1.788***	-1.675***	-1.350***	-1.487***	-1.109**
	(0.764)	(0.657)	(0.652)	(0.596)	(0.478)	(0.529)	(0.438)

Observations	629	612	599	584	569	557	536
Adjusted R-squared	-0.664	-1.363	-1.335	-1.266	-0.903	-1.287	-0.769
Centered R-squared	-0.621	-1.298	-1.270	-1.202	-0.847	-1.217	-0.713
First stage Cragg-Donald Wald F statistics	11.58	12.49	12.11	12.78	13.96	12.82	13.28
Alpha trim level	None	2.5%	5%	7.5%	10%	12.5%	15%

Clustered standard errors - at MP level - in parentheses

*** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1

Note: The table reports the reduced form of the empirical coefficients for the first and second stages of the 2SLS regressions between party hopping (referred to as "parliamentary turncoat" in the Italian context) – instrumented with the proportion of votes for the monarchy in the 1946 institutional referendum – and parliamentary productivity (measured using the OpenPolis lawmaking index) – along with a number of controls included in a vector – based on data from 629 MPs in the XVI legislature (2008-2013) of the Italian Chamber of Deputies.

Table 4 presents a summarized view of the outcomes from both the first and second stages of our instrumental variable analysis, investigating the association between parliamentary turncoat and MPs’ productivity. The instrumental variable used in this analysis is the proportion of votes in favor of the monarchy in the 1946 IR. Across all seven columns, the instrumental variable – the share of monarchy votes in the IR – is consistently statistically significant. The F-statistics exhibit robust distribution, surpassing the 1% threshold and 15% maximal instrumental variable size, with p-values consistently below 0.01. The coefficients related to this instrumental variable are uniformly positive, signifying that a one-unit alteration in the share of preferences favoring the monarchy leads to an average 0.3 percentage point change in the likelihood of party switching.

Thus, in all model specifications, the empirical coefficients affirm a positive correlation between an increased proportion of pro-monarchy votes and the propensity for MPs to engage in parliamentary turncoat. The rationale for this initial-stage correlation can be traced back to the political subcultures of the former Kingdom of the Two Sicilies (KTS). The Kingdom's legacy gave rise to "dignitary networks capable of transcending the most profound political divisions in national history" (Adorno, 2020). The referendum itself stemmed from a longstanding ideological, social, and material schism between the North and South, wherein a deep-seated connection between the monarchy and a lengthy tradition of clientelistic rules persisted (Aterrano, 2020).

The referendum results were the signal of a localized hierarchical structure reminiscent of a feudal system with concentrated power, steeped in social practices that evolved over centuries (Morese, 2020a) that made the South, according to some historians, inherently "monarchic by instinct" (Cristina, 2020). This set of cultural and political values unmistakably favored the monarchy as the preferred institutional form for postwar Italy (Schininà, 2020). The prevalence of monarchic tendencies stemmed from the historical links with the Bourbon monarchy and the enduring system of clientelistic powers held by dignitaries, willing to adopt the most convenient approach to rebuild the KTS based on ambitions, personal interests, opportunism, and contingencies (Morese, 2020b). Therefore, it should come as no surprise that an increase in pro-monarchy votes in the 1946 referendum correlates with transformistic tendencies among MPs.

Eventually, the votes in favor of the monarchy in the 1946 Institutional Referendum aimed to reinstate the ancient aristocratic privileges of the KTS and its clientelistic system, regardless of the reigning House (Ridolfi, op. cit.). It is unsurprising that historians characterize this all-out push for monarchy as "new institutional transformism" (Gheda, 2020). The empirical evidence aligns with the literature on the distinctive Italian cultural values that underlie institutional change and the rules of the political game (Persson & Tabellini, 2021). The results reinforce the notion that culture evolves gradually (Gorodnichenko & Roland, 2021) and in the long term (Besley, 2020).

In the second stage, where we assess the impact of party switching on parliamentary productivity (lawmaking), all coefficients related to party switching are, again, negative. These coefficients hold statistical significance, implying that party switchers tend to exert a detrimental influence on parliamentary productivity. This indicates that the transformation of the party-switching dummy variable from 0 to 1 results in a change in the lawmaking productivity index, ranging between 110% and 185%, contingent on the specific level of dataset outlier trimming à la Koenker & Bassett (1978). Ultimately, these results confirms that institutional structures mold the organizational framework of politics (Besley & Persson, 2019).

Up to this point, our analysis has primarily focused on historical factors such as the boundaries of the KTS and preferences in the 1946 IR as potential indicators of the legacy of clientelism in specific regions. However, there might be a reasonable concern that these historical factors alone might not be sufficient to fully explain current political behaviors, given the considerable passage of time. To gain deeper insights into this issue and determine whether the influence of clientelism persists in these regions, we enhance our instrumental strategy by introducing an interactive term: the mean number of convictions for the crime of "concussione" in each electoral district during the years 2000-2013.

"Concussione" is an Italian legal term that roughly equates to embezzlement (Giommoni, 2021), referring to a form of extortion in which a civil servant blackmails someone else to obtain advantages in exchange for favors (Ferrari, 2003). Public corruption, including extortion, embezzlement, and misappropriation, has been widely acknowledged as a common occurrence (Bobbio, 1980) in a country where these practices have informally institutionalized over time, severely undermining the democratic stability of the system (Sberna & Vannucci, 2013). Concussione has become a symbol of politicians exceeding their political roles (Lorch, 1994) and serves as a sign of a pervasive landscape of political illegality involving all political groups (Vannucci, 2021).

There is literature suggesting that personal relationships between voters and politicians, which can deteriorate into clientelism (Asquer, 2015), have historically been more prominent in Southern Italy (Asquer et al., 2020). We aim to investigate whether this alleged legacy of clientelism, influencing party switching, is robust to ongoing dynamics of corruption and exploitation of public office for private interests.

To do so, we interact our previous instrumental variables with a more recent and concurrent measure of political corruption. This additional robustness check is intended to assess whether clientelistic trends, registered in the same time frame, substantially alter the statistical significance or the direction of our results.

Eventually, we still observe a significant relationship between historical clientelism and contemporary party switching (see a reduced form of the results in Table 5 and Table 6, and the complete results in the Appendix, Table 17 and Table 18).

Table 5:

1^st stage
	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)	(6)	(7)
VARIABLES	Party switch	Party switch	Party switch	Party switch	Party switch	Party switch	Party switch
Interaction Concussione & Kingdom Two Sicilies	0.0535***	0.0582***	0.0589***	0.0604***	0.0646***	0.0620***	0.0610***
	(0.0149)	(0.0154)	(0.0153)	(0.0155)	(0.0156)	(0.0158)	(0.0160)
Cragg-Donald Wald first stage F statistic	15.47	17.25	17.70	18.21	20.70	15.47	17.25
Controls	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Observations	617	583	577	569	544	523	502
Adjusted R-squared	0.067	0.070	0.073	0.072	0.077	0.072	0.080
Centered R-squared	0.0910	0.0956	0.0986	0.0983	0.104	0.101	0.109

2^nd stage
	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)	(6)	(7)
VARIABLES	Lawmaking	Lawmaking	Lawmaking	Lawmaking	Lawmaking	Lawmaking	Lawmaking
Party switch	-1.372**	-1.192***	-1.070***	-1.070***	-0.871***	-0.815**	-0.527*
	(0.626)	(0.440)	(0.411)	(0.396)	(0.337)	(0.341)	(0.303)

Observations	617	583	577	569	544	617	583
Adjusted R-squared	-0.351	-0.518	-0.434	-0.480	-0.344	-0.351	-0.518
Centered R-squared	-0.316	-0.476	-0.394	-0.439	-0.305	-0.316	-0.476
First stage Cragg-Donald Wald F statistics	15.47	17.25	17.70	18.21	20.70	15.47	17.25
Alpha trim level	None	2.5%	5%	7.5%	10%	12.5%	15%

Clustered standard errors - at MP level - in parentheses

*** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1

Note: The table reports the reduced form of the empirical coefficients for the first and second stages of the 2SLS regressions between party hopping (referred to as "parliamentary turncoat" in the Italian context) – instrumented with the interaction between the mean of concussione convictions (between 2000-2013) and a dummy equal to one if the parliamentarian was elected in the territories of the former Kingdom of the Two Sicilies – and parliamentary productivity (measured using the OpenPolis lawmaking index) – along with a number of controls included in a vector – based on data from 629 MPs in the XVI legislature (2008-2013) of the Italian Chamber of Deputies.

Table 5 provides a detailed presentation of the results from the initial and subsequent stages of the 2SLS regressions that use the interaction between "concussione" convictions and a dummy variable that equals one if the parliamentarian was elected in the territories of the former KTS.

In the first stage, across all seven columns, the interaction variable involving "concussione" convictions and the KTS is consistently statistically significant, with positive coefficients. These results indicate a positive connection between historical and concurrent clientelism and party switching. The first stage F statistics is again higher that the Stock-Yogo weak IV critical values for a 15% maximal IV size, across all specifications.

In the second stage, which investigates the impact on parliamentary productivity, the coefficients for party switching are uniformly negative and statistically significant. These findings confirm that party switchers tend to be less productive in the legislative process. The magnitudes of these coefficients vary depending on different alpha-trimmed levels, emphasizing, nonetheless, the negative impact party switchers have on parliamentary productivity.

Table 6:

1^st stage
	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)	(6)	(7)
VARIABLES	Party switch	Party switch	Party switch	Party switch	Party switch	Party switch	Party switch
Interaction Concussione & Monarchy votes IR 1946	0.000970***	0.000988***	0.000976***	0.00100***	0.00103***	0.000951***	0.000927***
	(0.000264)	(0.000271)	(0.000271)	(0.000275)	(0.000279)	(0.000284)	(0.000286)
Cragg-Donald Wald first stage F statistic	14.60	15.08	14.65	15.18	16.52	14.28	14.06
Controls	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Observations	617	583	577	569	544	523	502
Adjusted R-squared	0.065	0.065	0.067	0.066	0.067	0.061	0.069
Centered R-squared	0.0892	0.0908	0.0926	0.0921	0.0946	0.0899	0.0983

2^nd stage
	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)	(6)	(7)
VARIABLES	Lawmaking	Lawmaking	Lawmaking	Lawmaking	Lawmaking	Lawmaking	Lawmaking
Party switch	-1.781***	-1.615***	-1.596***	-1.448***	-1.157***	-1.305***	-0.889**
	(0.680)	(0.553)	(0.556)	(0.507)	(0.410)	(0.469)	(0.389)

Observations	617	583	577	569	544	523	502
Adjusted R-squared	-0.636	-1.011	-1.047	-0.928	-0.647	-0.986	-0.485
Centered R-squared	-0.594	-0.956	-0.990	-0.874	-0.599	-0.925	-0.438
First stage Cragg-Donald Wald F statistics	14.60	15.08	14.65	15.18	16.52	14.28	14.06
Alpha trim level	None	2.5%	5%	7.5%	10%	12.5%	15%

Clustered standard errors - at MP level - in parentheses

*** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1

Note: The table reports the reduced form of the empirical coefficients for the first and second stages of the 2SLS regressions between party hopping (referred to as "parliamentary turncoat" in the Italian context) – instrumented with the interaction between the mean of concussione convictions (between 2000-2013) and the proportion of votes for the monarchy in the 1946 institutional referendum – and parliamentary productivity (measured using the OpenPolis lawmaking index) – along with a number of controls included in a vector – based on data from 629 MPs in the XVI legislature (2008-2013) of the Italian Chamber of Deputies.

Table 6 reinforces the conclusions drawn from Table 5. The first stage coefficients illustrate a positive relationship between the interaction of historical clientelism, represented by monarchy votes in the 1946 referendum, and current clientelistic trends, related to concussion. Once again, the coefficients are statistically significant across all seven columns, underscoring the positive relationship between forms of historical and recent clientelism and party switching. The interaction variable again exhibits robustness, as confirmed by the first stage F-statistic.

In the second stage, where we examine the impact on parliamentary productivity, the coefficients for parliamentary turncoat are again negative and statistically significant. The results reaffirm the notion that parliamentary turncoat has an adverse effect on lawmaking productivity. The results are consistent even if we combine other forms of immoralities related to corrusptive crimes (see Table 19-20, in the Appendix).

To summarize, regardless of the specific empirical specifications used, all empirical findings consistently underscore a significant and negative impact of parliamentary turncoat on the productivity of lawmakers. From an economic perspective, party-switching within the legislature can be considered a rational and strategic behavior (Snagovsky & Kerby, 2018), enabling individuals to secure greater personal benefits or attain positions of higher prestige. Legally, parliamentary turncoat is well within the bounds of the constitution.

Nevertheless, this freedom negatively affects the primary role of MPs to foster the legislative power and represent their electorate mandate within a specific and designed coalition. Therefore, the problem is not only that MPs have no qualm in switching from the right to the left without hesitation, and vice versa (Montanelli, 2006), but deviates from MPs’ primary societal obligation (Siddali, 2015) and core responsibility (Reid, 1980) of representing the legislative power. The erosion of representatives has contributed to the diminishing the image of the parliamentary institution (Morelli, 2018), undermining the expected programmatic coherence for constituents (Massari, 2009) and proving detrimental to the legislative function that citizens anticipate their representatives should fulfill as parliamentarians (Pansardi, 2015).

While parliamentary turncoat may be viewed as a response to evolving aspects of civil society (Principato, 2012) and may contribute to changes in parliamentary composition aligned with constituents' preferences, it is crucial to recognize that MPs should not be obligated to heed all constituents' demands (Pacini et al., 2021). Instead, the legislative power is expected to function as a tool for government oversight and direction (Franchino, 2006), serving to constrain executive contingent rule-making (Rose-Ackerman et al., 2018).

From a policy perspective, the constitutional legality of parliamentary mobility – originally set right after the fascist discipline of economic and political elites (Stah & Popp-Madsen, 2022) – has faced widespread criticism (Pinelli, 2022, 2018; Sulpizi, 2022; Belletti, 2020; Mannino, 2002). Recently, the parliament has taken initial measures, implemented only in the Senate, to minimize parliamentary turncoats (Pinto, 2023).

Parliamentary productivity has been a relatively neglected topic in economic literature, leaving the motivations that influence MPs' levels of engagement in legislative activities ambiguous. Consequently, empirical investigations in this domain have remained notably incomplete. The primary objective of this study was to examine the impact of parliamentary turncoat on the overall productivity of lawmakers.

Parliamentary turncoat represents the long-standing phenomenon in Italy where MPs change their political affiliation by departing from their initially elected party and migrating to another political faction. Drawing on historical insights, our research revealed that the clientelistic systems and privileges associated with the former Italian feudal kingdom have played a significant role in shaping cultural values over the centuries, which in turn influence the behavior of MPs today. These historical attitudes have given rise to a distinct inclination towards particularism in managing political relationships.

The evidence presented in this paper underscores that the values ingrained in the vertical structures developed over centuries continue to exert a substantial influence on contemporary society. Notably, parliamentarians elected in the regions that overlap with clientelism, monarchic patronage, and corruption exhibit a heightened propensity for party switching compared to their counterparts from other areas.

Finally, the paper shows that MPs switching parties in the legislature are less productive in terms of lawmaking. MPs who switch parties may be more focused on short-term political gains or re-election rather than long-term policy goals. This can result in a lack of commitment to the legislative process and a tendency to prioritize populism over effective lawmaking. This can lead to a lack of independent decision-making and a focus on party interests over the public good.

It's worth noting that one of the primary limitations of our analysis is that it primarily focused on the impact of defection on lawmaking during a single legislative session (XVI) due to the public availability of data on legislative productivity. The outcomes affirm that party switching, intertwined with clientelism and patronage politics, remains a significant challenge in Italy (Ginsborg, 2010), with direct and tangible repercussions.

Future research endeavors could consider investigating the effects of the tripartite structure of the Parliament on legislative productivity, with a specific focus on the XVII-XVIII legislature, coinciding with the emergence of the “catch-all populist party” (Benasaglio Berlucchi, 2021) Five Star Movement. Additionally, extending the analysis to the other branch of the Parliament, characterized by different regulations on defection and election rules centered on regional peculiarities, would provide valuable insights into this complex phenomenon.

Author Contribution

U.N. wrote the manuscript text, preparing and analyzing the data.

Acknowledgement

I wish to thank the participants of the Annual conferences of the French and the German Association of Law and Economics for their valuable comments and suggestions. I also wish to thank Alain Marciano for his valuable suggestions and encouragement, as well as Fabio Padovano for its criticism, which greatly added to the final version of this paper. I would like to thank the OpenPolis Foundation for its assistance in providing data and granting the use of the figures inserted in the paper.

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No competing interests reported.

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The market of infidelity: The Effect of Party Switching on Lawmaking Productivity. Evidence from Italy

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1. Introduction

2. Literature review

3. Methodology

4. Empirical strategy

5. Conclusions

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Acknowledgement

References

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