PhD Candidate, Department of Economics

Contact Information

Department of Economics
Northwestern University
2211 Campus Drive
Evanston, IL 60208

Phone: 872-330-5890
Email: matteo.ruzzante@u.northwestern.edu
Personal Website: www.matteo-ruzzante.com


Education

Ph.D., Economics, Northwestern University, 2026 (expected)
MA, Economics, Northwestern University, 2021
MSc, Economics, Nova School of Business and Economics, Lisbon, 2017
BSc, Economics and Management, University of Padua, 2015

Primary Fields of Specialization

Development Economics, Innovation, Economic History

Secondary Fields of Specialization

Industrial Organization, Public Economics

Curriculum Vitae

Download Vita (PDF)

Job Market Paper

“Price Regulation and the Adoption–Innovation Trade-off”
(with Felipe Berrutti)
Download Job Market Paper (PDF)
Regulating the price of existing technologies can spur their adoption yet deter subsequent innovation. In India, price controls on genetically engineered (GE) cotton seeds induced this trade-off. Leveraging the policy’s differential timing across states, we show that mandated price reductions accelerated adoption of GE seeds by farmers. Although seed supply kept pace, innovation subsequently stalled: fewer new varieties were introduced. Using newly assembled data from experimental field trials across India, we show that agronomic yields of new varieties fell in price-controlled states. To quantify the welfare implications of price and yield effects, we develop and estimate a structural model of demand and supply for seeds with endogenous product attributes. While the policy raised farmers’ surplus, especially among the poor, ignoring innovation responses in equilibrium vastly overstates their welfare gains. We use the estimated model to assess alternative policies that better balance adoption and innovation incentives. For a given public budget, incentives for seed developers tied to the productivity of new varieties achieve the highest welfare for farmers.

Other Research Papers

“The Origins of the Nitrogen Revolution”
(with Christopher Sims)
Download paper (PDF)
Many technologies raise productivity in locations constrained by their natural endowments yet diminish specialization across space. We show that the first commercial nitrogen fertilizers in history were one such “converging” technology. Leveraging natural variation in soil nitrogen deficiency and the sudden introduction of Peruvian guano and nitrates to 19th-century England, we provide two main empirical findings. First, locations specialized on the basis of their natural endowments before the introduction of fertilizer: nitrogen-deficient places devoted less land to nitrogen-intensive crops. Second, combining newly-digitized data and a difference-in-differences design, we show that these nitrogen-deficient places substantially reallocated toward nitrogen-intensive crops after fertilizer was introduced, indicating convergence across space. To quantify the welfare impact of this “converging” technology, we embed fertilizer into a quantitative spatial model of the English agricultural sector with realistic geography. The welfare gains from fertilizer were equivalent to two decades of annual productivity growth in agriculture. However, convergence implies a reduction in the gains from trade, which offsets up to 10% of these welfare gains under plausible trade cost regimes.

“Reshaping Agricultural Subsidies”
(with Paul Christian, Steven Glover, Florence Kondylis, John Loeser, and Astrid Zwager)
[Draft coming soon]
We study the optimal shape of agricultural input subsidies. We cross-randomize subsidy rates for small and for large input quantities in Mozambique. Increased subsidy rates for small quantities increase payouts to poorer farmers, but divert farmers from large quantities. Increased subsidy rates for large quantities increase production 36% by increasing input use among more marginally productive farmers. Subsidies overcome both informational and financial constraints. We derive and estimate sufficient statistics to quantify how planner preferences over productivity, transfers, and equity shape optimal subsidies. Under plausible preferences, the most uniform subsidy rate is optimal.

Work in Progress

“Local Manufacturing of Productive Inputs and Technology Adoption: Evidence from Nigeria”
(with Ricardo Guzman)

“Maximum Wages and Organizational Performance: Evidence from the Liberian Public Sector”
(with Erika Deserranno, Vincent Pons, and Daniel Rogger)

“Through the Mill: Tax Compliance and Political Backlash in Post-Unitary Italy”
(with Caterina Alfonzo)

Publications

“Brigandage and the Political Legacy of Monarchical Legitimacy in Southern Italy” (2025),
with Cristoforo Pizzimenti,
Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 235, 107000.

[Abstract] [Link] [Ungated PDF] [Replication package]
Political legitimacy plays a pivotal role in securing the effectiveness and longevity of a governing system, yet it can be eroded by the way rulers handle popular uprisings. This paper studies whether a historical shock in the legitimacy of monarchic rule can have long-term, intergenerational consequences on political attitudes. The unification of Italy ignited a violent reaction against the new ruler in its southern provinces known as the “Great Brigandage”. We use fixed effects regressions with a wide set of controls and an instrumental variable approach based on military suitability of the terrain in order to show that, ceteris paribus, municipalities exposed to brigandage in the 1861-1870 period had lower turnout in the 1946 Institutional Referendum and were significantly less likely to vote for the survival of the monarchy. Heterogeneity analysis leveraging a spatial discontinuity in martial law suggests that anti-monarchic sentiment likely stemmed from the collective memory of brigandage repression. We interpret our findings as evidence that latent preferences toward political systems are endogenously shaped by historical events and can be brought to the surface by changes in the institutional environment.

“Teacher-Led Innovations to Improve Education Outcomes: Experimental Evidence from Brazil” (2024),
with Caio Piza, Astrid Zwager, Rafael Dantas, and André Loureiro,
Journal of Public Economics, 234, 105123.

[Abstract] [Link] [Ungated PDF] [Replication package]
We provide experimental evidence from an education program in Brazil that empowers public school teachers, through a combination of technical assistance and earmarked funding, to design and introduce locally adapted pedagogical innovations. While the study encompasses grades 5, 6, and 10, we find consistent and pronounced impacts on learning and school progression in 6th grade, a critical transition year from primary to lower-secondary education. Positive effects are concentrated in schools where teachers are most affected and where the rate of in-school project implementation was highest. We argue that program components are likely complementary and that education projects designed to tackle multiple constraints simultaneously can improve service delivery and child outcomes.

“Do Private Consultants Promote Savings and Investments in Rural Mozambique?” (2022),
with Paul Christian, Steven Glover, Florence Kondylis, Valerie Mueller, and Astrid Zwager,
Agricultural Economics, 53(1), 22-36.

[Abstract] [Link] [Ungated PDF] [Replication package]
Advice from management professionals can help small‐ and medium‐sized firms reach complex financial goals in low‐ and middle‐income countries. We apply lessons learned in the firm literature to determine the degree in which farmer associations face constraints to management and planning capacity that can be alleviated by the provision of advice from external consultants. In particular, we conducted a randomized control trial in 42 water user associations (WUAs) in Mozambique to examine whether more intensive attention from financial consultants through repeated follow‐up visits prompts households to save and invest in agricultural equipment. All WUAs received a financial literacy training and were eligible to receive a matching grant. Twenty‐one WUAs were randomized into the treatment group that additionally were visited by private consultants quarterly, who tailored their advice to meet individuals’ own savings and investment objectives. We find the follow‐up visits increase ‘hidden savings’ in the form of new capital investments on farmers’ own account. Thus, the visits may have changed savings’ habits by leading farmers to invest in technologies that were not directly subsidized. Our ability to detect an additional effect on the type of investments farmers targeted through the matching grant and, hence, the savings for the respective investments is limited given the power of our study design. Although the proportion of households saving increased, the intervention was likely less cost‐effective than other modalities aimed to enhance the proclivity to save.

 

Teaching

Northwestern University:
  • Economic Development in Africa, Prof. Christopher Udry | Winter 2024
  • Economics of State and Local Governments, Prof. Silvia Vannutelli | Fall 2023

Download Teaching Evaluations (PDF)

Nova School of Business and Economics, Lisbon:
  • Intermediate Macroeconomics, Profs. Cátia Batista, Pedro Brinca, and João Duarte | Spring 2017, Fall 2017
  • Development Economics, Prof. Pedro Vicente | Fall 2016

References

Prof. Christopher Udry (Committee Co-Chair)   ✉︎
Prof. Joel Mokyr (Committee Co-Chair)   ✉︎
Prof. Jacopo Ponticelli   ✉︎
Prof. Gastón Illanes   ✉︎
Prof. Benjamin F. Jones   ✉︎